Art events in Dumfries and Galloway

Callisti is pleased to have teamed up with Weesleekit to design and build the new Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival website to be ready for the 2010 calendar of events.

The Arts Festival has been running annually in the region for 30 years and is established in the last week in May. Theatre, comedy, classical and folk music, children's events and film are all part of the events running throughout the region at this time.

The site is still in development so more news will follow...

Trailer Hire in Scotland

One of the SEO challenges we face is focussing a website by domain name to the subject area it contains. The interesting case of Clydeside Rentals is that the company rent both trailers and tractor units for commercial hire, as well as holiday home rentals both in Scotland and Florida.

The domain would support both to some extent but it means the website will be fish and fowl. I would normally recommend that each theme is developed as a distinct web entity as it makes more sense to structure information this way - it's rumoured that categorical distinctions are relevant to large search engine indexing.

European elections

Who you vote for is a matter for your own conscience. That said, I've been doing some work on the Mike Russell MSP website, based on a nice Atahualpa theme. The theme administration is a class above so well worth checking out...

One feature of the site is RSS feeds for Mike's voting history and his Parliamentary Questions which took a bit of fiddling to create successfully using a combination of feed43.com, publicwhip.org.uk, theyworkforyou.com and some feed-building tips.

It's reassuring to know that the information on our elected representatives is there but you have to go data mining for the more juicy stuff.

Tip for the day: always remember to sort out your application pools in IIS before tearing your hair out with URL rewriting on a Windows server.

Late crop summer potatoes

JBA Seed Potato customers should now have received the first potato newsletter with information on ensuring a healthy crop over the summer.

There are also autumn and winter harvest potatoes which can be planted in July in time for Christmas.

The newsletter is a simple interface in the management section of the website which draws from subscribers to the newsletter (who also received discount voucher to buy potatoes) and has a simple unsubscribe feature to ensure that those who prefer not to receive such things can opt out.

There were over a thousand recipients to the first e-mailshot which shows just how far the website has come since the ecommerce site launched.

They call it projection

You know when you do or say things in a roundabout way to distance yourself from them but the same message, at least once removed, comes across? Projection.

That aside, Callisti is currently working on a lovely design and build for a projector lamp supplier who needed to sweep out the dead wood and breathe new life into the competitive world of replacement bulbs.

The user interface is being tested and is behaving across the browsers, and the website should be able to handle a variety of product feeds from suppliers to stay agile in a changing market.

Oh and if you ever hear someone say "future proof" with any seriousness when trying to sell a technology-based idea, ignore everything they say from that point on...

National Vegetable Society

April 28 issue of the Garden News features a preview by Medwyn Williams of the National Vegetable Society's Championships which will be part of the Dundee Flower Show.

Jamieson Brothers of Annan (JBA), and in particular, Iain Barbour, have been resurrecting vintage exhibition potato varieties, such as Armour and Sherine, and are also sponsoring the event in 2010.

Good news for Callisti as Iain's potato website continues to expand and JBA are able to keep updating new and existing content for the very season sensitive market.