New Ordering Pages at ummera.com

After weeks of burning midnight oil, diving into code books, and Master Classes in the challenges of php files, our new ordering pages are now live at www.ummera.com.

Modifications and improvements will continue over the coming weeks (and no doubt years!), but the base is there. The big change for us, and our customers, is that no longer is the price given for the product the final price. We have succumbed to the norm of having an ex smokehouse price and only at the check out will you get the shipping cost. This now means that an order can be made up of a mix of any of our products; the system calculates the total shipping weight and then gives the shipping cost. This, to me, is very clever, but I presume that it is far from new!

The other thing new about it is that customers will need to register, and guests are also requested to register. This way they can get get maximum benefit and so can we.

Any feedback is most welcome, both good (of course) and bad (most important).

Speciality & Fine Food Fair, Olympia London.

Weblogs tend to be tales of the past, however not here. This is the future……!

My earlier post ended in Bristol, but not for me; the Bristol show starts on Saturday and I will have to catch the train to London at lunchtime to set up our stand at The Speciality & Fine Food Fair in London. Then three days of talking and smiling, then home on Tuesday night.

If you have read this and are at Olympia, there will be a special draw for a side of smoked salmon for anyone who visits our Stand 545 and can say the word UMMERA backwards without prompting! Start practising!

Bristol Organic Food Festival

An early start on Friday morning as Ralph and I head off to catch the ferry at Rosslare en-route to Bristol and the Harbourside area. We plan to do a short tasting at Chandos Deli’s shop in Clifton before setting up our stall in the Lloyds Amphitheatre area.

If, by remote chance, anyone is reading this in the Avon area, come and see us at the festival. I gather that there is an entrance fee this year, but hopefully that won’t deter those who are interested in seeing a fantastic range of organic fare. For details go to http://www.organicfoodfairs.co.uk/

Bandon Farmers Market – a future!

It looks as though the market will continue through the winter. There is hope that the market area will be covered with a large awning/canopy to make it so much more agreeable both to shoppers and stallholders!

The quality and variety of produce available at the market is attracting great comment, and with the prospect of it being every week when the canopy is up, will mean that there will be no excuses for not turning up!

So great news, and many thanks to those who have driven it thus far!

Bandon Farmers Market

A reminder that the fortnightly Bandon Market is on this Saturday, August 26th, from 10.00am to 2.00pm.
Looking forward to seeing you there – perhaps!

A West Cork Garden Party

Sunday August 6th, Lisselan Gardens, Clonakilty. Shelter in any ……….
And it was raining!

A new beginning?

Best intentions of maintaining a fairly regular web log (and I still have a dislike of the word blog!) have slipped since the middle of June. Slipped not because of nothing to say, but because of changes in our hosting provider and our internet access.

Ummera was off the air for nearly 10 days as we swapped host providers; the blackout was unfortunate, but did give me the opportunity of discovering gmail, with which I was, and still am, pretty impressed with. The reasons for changing hosts was one of cost primarily, but there were e-commerce reasons as well. Our old site’s ordering pages were designed with asp/dot net and it was quite beyond me to make any changes myself; I thought that there must be an easiersystem. And I hope there is, because I am now trying to make sense of php – and that with great difficulty over very simple parsing errors!

The other big event is that we now have broadband here at Inchybridge. May 27th 2004 was the first e-mail I sent out to the community here in Timoleague to try and get broadband. Last Saturday rapidbroadband.ie connected us on a wireless link – and it is fantastic! Here is picture of the mast above the smokehouse which myself and Andrzey erected; not very tall but it picks up the signal from above Kilavarrig and deflects it down to the lower Argideen valley. Now both Barryroe Creamery, Inchybridge Branch and  Tim Severin can access it!