Category: Website News
Pennine Way gallery added
28th July 2007 Despite the fact that I haven't done all the photo processing yet, I have created a Pennine Way section to my photo gallery as promised. Photo selection was a little tricky because of the nature of the countryside frequented by the Way: not only is featureless moorland a navigational challenge but it is also a photographic one. The lack of any focal point makes for dull photos, so effort is required. Still, I hope that you enjoy the photos. This gallery is a work in progress, very much like the completion of the long-distance trail itself.
New scanner, new photos
9th July 2007 I don't normally mention computer technology on this blog, but I encountered some trouble with my scanner while trying to add new photos to the online photo gallery. As someone who continues to use film in these digital times, a scanner remains a very useful asset. I also have a digital camera, which is how most of the photos you'll find accompanying the trip reports on this blog have been captured, so I am keeping a foot in both camps.
With the inclement weather being visited upon us recently, my mind turned to some photo uploading, and I was staring with a few from trips to Wales. It was then that my usually reliable four-year-old Canon CanoScan 5000F played up. When I turned it on, the output returned was solid black. Re-running the thing a few times by hitting the preview button in Scangear saw the black turn to red and eventually the image came through but with a strong red or magenta cast that never quite went away. I fired off a query to Canon, but only got the usual stuff about drivers and cable connections. From that, I foresaw a few weeks of tick-tacking and was unconvinced that the conclusion was worth awaiting.
So, I picked up an Epson Perfection 4490 Photo from Dabs.com and gave it a workout with some photos from a trip to the Brecon Beacons last November. The setting up was the usual shuffle, but the software installation took an age to complete. It all works well, better than the Canon ever did, and that was a big improvement on the UMAX Astra 1220U that preceded it. A quick spot of image processing, which I always do to clean things up, was all that was required to get more than acceptable results. I was scanning prints, but negative/slide scanning is another option that I have yet to explore. Having an on/off button on the side of the scanner is a nice touch that I haven't seen before, and may even prolong the life of the machine and save a spot of energy to boot.
Twelve months a blogging
1st May 2007 It's been a year since I first stepped out into the blogosphere, and a lot of water has gone under the proverbial bridge since then. At the start, I used Blogware enough to appreciate both its abilities and its limitations. The main one was not having the option to customise it so that it looked like a part of my website rather than being a mere add-on. That it was a service from my hosting provider could have been part of the straitjacketing; it would have worked better in a standalone capacity.
To get the level of customisation that I needed, I downloaded WordPress and began to host the blog from my own webspace after a spot of fiddling, migration of pre-existing posts and adding a MySQL database to my hosting account. The result was that I now had a blog that at least looked as if it was part of the same website as the other sections, such as the photo gallery.
The content of the blog has evolved too, though the backbone is essence the same: descriptions of any walks, public transport commentary, consideration of new walking ideas, musings on outdoor gear, photo gallery updates and thoughts of hill walking books and magazines.
However, my walking now has evolved from where it was this time last year. Then, it was a case of picking a part of Britain where the weather is due to be clement and heading off there. That approach does lend itself to a variety of content, but without having somewhere new to explore, motivation can run flat.
That said, 2006 proved itself to be the year of going to places new; my boots trod Pembrokeshire, Northumberland and Southern Scotland, to name a few. In contrast, 2007 appears to be dominated by a single large objective: continuing north along the Pennine Way, perhaps its northern terminus Kirk Yetholm. Who knows where it all could go next.
Gallery Updated with Photos of Southern Scotland
9th March 2007 Last year's visits to Southern Scotland, Scottish Borders as well as Dumfries and Galloway, have yielded photos to my online photo gallery. As a result, what was formerly the Scottish Borders gallery has become the Southern Uplands one following a considerable overhaul. Please drop by to take a look.
Pembrokeshire photos added
12th December 2006 It may have been six months since I spent some time there, but a selection of the photos that I made while out walking in Pembrokeshire have finally made it onto the web. There is now a new album to go with the trip report that was shared on here already. It was a glorious weekend visit so I hope the photos reflect the majesty of what I managed to sample while down there.
