We go Live!

This has been a long time coming! In the early days of 2020, when the COVID0-19 virus was just introducing itself to all of us, we could see that we were going to have to bite the bullet and get a more serious online presence than just a couple of social media pages. However, time was not with us and as the first lockdown hit us in February, we moved quickly to get an online store established for Fruits of Strathmore. We'd also been "online" with the B&B since we have decided to launch on Booking.com, Airbnb and on Home Away, which became Stayz, which became Expedia.

We made the decision to build our own site. This was both to provide us with more business flexibility, but also as a skills development exercise. Now that we are retired, portable skills are of great importance to us as it is far too easy to slip into a rut st this stage of your life. Apart from that, while technical in nature, web design/progamming is a very satisfying skill in that it results in expression that is uniquely yours (good or bad!) and it can be used valuably in a volunteer organisation, particularly in a rural area, in which we have invested.

The tool selection for us was also easy. We had made the decision many, many moons ago to go with the Mac platform end to end and we were not interested in a web-based development tool, given the appalling network reliability that is the NBN and Telstra today in regional Australia (certainly in this part of South Gippsland). We chose to go with a small UK based form called RealMac Software and their Rapidweaver tool. The tool itself plus a framework called Stacks is more of a platform for the assembly of code segments (also called called stacks but made by a very competent and helpful developer community). This also left us free to choose our hosting provider which was A2 Hosting, using their server farm in Singapore. We have not regretted either decision; the support from the Rapidwever community has been fantastic and A2 provides us with 24/7 support and advice.

So here we are. We are not professional web developers, but if we can assist you in your thought process to realise your web presence as a small business or sole trader, get in touch and we will happily share more of our experiences in this interesting journey.

We hope to be able to post here on the various trials and tribulations of running the farm, making jams and chutneys and the wonderful experiences of meeting all sorts of people though our B&B. Domestic travel is very much on the agenda for most Australians in this current COVID climate, but we very much look forward to being able to welcome back our international guests too.