My latest go-live is The Ambler (www.theambler.co.uk) - the local community newspaper for Amble, Warkworth and the surrounding area.

The newspaper is delivered in its traditional paper format to local houses and also via postal subscription to other areas and is run by the Amble Development Trust, to promote Amble businesses, tourism and arts, as well as give a voice to the local community and children.

The old site was run in house by the editor using Dreamweaver, but was only updated as often as The Ambler itself was. The requirement was to have a more modern looking site, with the ability for The Ambler staff to add news as and when it was breaking. This would give the site more 'stickability' - a reason for visitors to come back to the site often. Hopefully the site will serve more as an up-to-date local news service then simply a web version of the print publication.

I choose to use Wordpress for the site as it seemed an ideal fit - the engine is based around creating posts/articles. I modified the core build to provide the client with the required 'Newspaper' format, as well as adding custom plugins to provide the services they needed. Additionally I helped to train the staff on using Wordpress and its operations.

The site was launched on Friday and immediately the editor published a scoop about one of the major news stories of the day, ahead of more illustrious bodies such as The Journal and The Gazette.

Due to some insights from recent SEO report, I've split my blog and my website.

So (ahem) in the Rusky voice of Alexander:

If you are looking for freelance website development, please visit www.colinharris.net

or

for blog wit and wisdom, visit www.vauxhall-senator.com

Sexy 301 redirects are in place from one to the other - "Simples". I didn't go through any of this to give you cheap car insurance, although value-for-money web development is another thing...

For those of you lucky enough to get a copy of The Ambler - Amble's local newspaper, it contains the first edition of "Colin's Column", my contribution to the world of technology and the Internet.

For those who don't, I'll try and scan something in later.

Link: http://www.justinirwin.com/audio/

Just for once, I'm quite happy to have been caught in The Wrong Bed.

Yes that's right!  This week, I'm featured doing a review for The Wrong Bed - Dart's finest radio/podcast show.  The Wrong Bed is hosted by Justin Irwin and his friend Tricky D.  Justin is a bit of a cult hero in darting circles, after writing a book called Murder on the Dartboard detailing his failed attempt to become a professional darts player.  Paul, if you are reading, can I have my copy back please?

You can listen to the podcast via http://www.justinirwin.com/audio/ or you people with iTunes can apparently do something fancy to listen to it too.  I'm on at 25:00 minutes into the show.  I'm really honoured they have chosen me - I never stop rattling on about darts and now you too can hear my ramblings on such a prestigious show.

I'm available for media appearances, supermarket openings and bar mitzvahs.  And yes, I have the perfect face for radio.

I'm now on my summer leave and will not be available until Wednesday, 18th August. Anything fun or interesting please email to web@colinharris.net (work) or colin@vauxhall-senator.com (personal) and I'll reply when I can.

Currently I am working on the following projects

• Online Darts website (my dream project - although I can't go into more details at present, it's something very clever & different)
• Ongoing maintenance on an API-driven Travel Agent website
• Final work on some handy wizards for a solicitor
• Multi-Currency system for an online video hosting provider (a la YouTube) to take subscription-based payments.
• Wordpress newspaper-style website
• Re-design of a Estate Agents website and SEO work on a different Estate Agency
• Online PDF generation for a mobile phone company to automate customer letters

Always room for anyone with clever or interesting ideas for a website though - please get in touch if you have a project in mind.