52 Projects Wk 21 – Lots of things t0 start a new blog!

This weekend has been, what turned out to be, an overwhelming project.  It wasn’t intended to be my 52 Projects, but it has taken me SOOOOOOOOOOOO long to do, that it has definitely become a project.  There hasn’t been time to do anything else I became so caught up with starting this new blog and getting it ready to publish.

Where do I begin…?

The link I guess! 

Bushwalking Adventures.  http://bushwalkingadventures.blogspot.com

As many of you know, for the many years I have been doing blogging, it has always been my little thing to do without anyone from my real life reading my blogs. (except D and now Queen Naturo)  My journals I guess.  And you don’t show your journals to everyone!

This new blog is not!  It is my first “show to my family and friends” blog.  Therefore, it is under a different profile, with no connection at all to this blog or my conception blog.  Oh my Goodness, what a scary project that is!

It started simply enough, create the blog, design it, write a post.

Then came this list of time consuming, fascinating and learning curves tasks.

• - Map My Hike – I found this site.  A way of mapping the actual route I took on each walk.  I was SOOO excited.  But it turned into one disaster after another.  This didn’t work, that didn’t.  I thought – Google Maps!  I will try it that way.  It was easier to track the path, but it just didn’t have the features I wanted.  Back to Map My Hike.  It was easier.  It seemed they had fixed some things in the beta version.  But still I couldn’t get the image on my blog.
  
  With some brainstorming, D finally came up with the solution.  Map the trail on Map My Hike.  Copy the screen.  Paste it into Photoshop (which I had to install and which will be yet another project learning how to use it!).  Crop the page to just have the map, save as a jpeg and wallahh!  A long way around things but it worked.  Map My Hike will eventually provide the html code to embed the map- coming soon it says.  So until such time, this will be the method.
  
  
  
• - Picasa Web Albums – I had too many photos to include in the posts, so it was time to begin properly using picasa web albums and upload each of my walks on to the site.  I wanted to be able to put a slideshow at the bottom of each post, where you can see the rest of the photos if you want to.  Not to difficult, just took some time.
  
  I have thought of other photo uploading sites – photobucket, flickr etc.  But I went with Picasa because I have their photo software and it is all just a little bit easier!
  
  
  
• - Post layout – I kept rearranging the layout.  Finally happy with it.
• - Other pages – a links page, a page listing previous walks.
• - Links on each post to a downloadable map of the trails for each area.
• - A share your blog widget at the bottom – it was meant to be share your post, but it seems blogger doesn’t have a widget or code for that yet.  However, I did discover the link at the top about sharing, so as long as it is open to just that post, not the blog as a whole, I can share each post myself.  I will keep working on this one.

 

So there you have it.  A major work in progress!  Not the project I was planning, but one I am really excited about.  Check it out if you like.  Become a follower if you like!