Get your story straight

Work has started on The Dead Tree Press initiative to encourage a more balanced reporting of the events and goings-on in Dumfries and Galloway and beyond.

Writers are invited to submit content and articles, cartoons, illustrations, etc., that have a bearing on local, regional and national issues from a local perspective.

The web presence is still in it's formative stage and is open to flexible development to suit the needs of the readership and contributors alike.

Comments welcome!

Wedding balloons

The "wedding industry" has a diverse marketplace given the sophistication and customisation desired by modern lovers who want a perfect day that's just right for them.

Dumfries and Galloway is home to the famous UK wedding capital, Gretna Green - internationally renowned throughout history for being perched on the Scotland-England border. Callisti is now hosting the Balloons for All website which outlines the range of decorative services available to dress any wedding venue and we aim to help the website improve in the coming year.

Learning disabilities consultancy

As part of the foray into using Wordpress as CMS we are now setting up basic hosting services with the latest version of Wordpress installed so that clients can start from scratch and add all their own content, images and wordpress themes.

We also set up the .htaccess so that permalinks work from the off and encourage an xml sitemap generator to help with basic SEO.

The latest of these is BeaconLearningDisabilitiesConsultancy, a lengthy URL but descriptive all the same. This is currently being edited and transformed by the client.

Fence Post

Callisti is now set up to host Allan Smith Fencing, a regional service in Dumfries and Galloway for fencing work and poles, crash barriers and sleepers.

The website may be getting a spring clean with partnership providers Communications Technology Limited.

Out of the blue and into the black

Work is now starting on the Thornhill Blues website for the Dumfries and Galloway blues festival to be held in 2011. The organisation are bringing well-known blues bands to Thornhill over the holiday weekend in spring so fans that follow the blue trail will have a new date in their calendar.

The organisation is keen to promote its presence on facebook and myspace.

2010 Arts Festival in Dumfries and Galloway

Events for the 2010 arts festival held around Dumfries and Galloway at the end of May are now being listed on the new website.

Callisti teamed up with Weesleekit to develop the new site in time for the festival brochure release and other strategic marketing for the events. There will be a few further developments to the site when more content is provided for us to work with so we can keep improving every year.

This website was built using a very customised Wordpress install as the basis for the CMS. Playing with Custom Fields is fun.

Italian Deli

Just back from a training session with the Ivanos Italian team in Dumfries. Lovely training environment with plenty of home-made cappuccino going around!

The new refurbished premises will be opening in February 2010 and will have a subway-style lunchtime deli option in addition to the evening menu and Ivano's specials. Yum yum.