Map of our whole route up to Istanbul

2011-09-30T03:27:00.000-07:00

Map of our whole route

2011-05-29T15:40:00.000-07:00

A map of the whole of the first leg of our journey

2011-05-29T15:06:00.000-07:00

View Larger Map

Mongolia Landscape Gallery

2008-09-15T00:36:00.000-07:00

Hong Kong Gallery

2008-09-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

2008-06-06T22:48:00.000-07:00

Adding stuff to a BLOGGER blog:

Most things involve copying a bit of code from a website and pasting it into a new post in blogger:

1. Video:

Upload your video to any of:

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/
Google Video: http://video.google.com/
Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com

You have to find the part of the page where it gives you the code that you can EMBED in blogger. Just copy and paste it into a new blogger post.

YouTube:

The numbers highlighted are the size of the movie, I change it to 610x500 by altering the two pairs of numbers. In Google video there is only one number.

Vimeo:

All the code is automatically generated if you click on the embed link on any video. You can style the video and change it’s size. Try and keep the ratio of the sides constant for the best embedded video.

Vimeo also allows you to put albums of videos in a kind of video playing browser. People don’t need to leave the page to see a whole range of videos.

2. Pictures:

You have to put your photos online:

flickr: http://www.flickr.com

To embed a slideshow of a set on flickr you need to find the number that corresponds to a set and then copy that into the following:

<iframe align=center src=http://www.flickr.com/slideShow/index.gne?set_id=SET NUMBER HERE frameBorder=0 width=500 scrolling=no height=500></iframe>

Extra: width can either be 100% (it fits the width of the column) or a number of pixels – “600”. The height also needs a number but NOT a % as the blog doesn’t have a maximum height for a post.

The best size is probably 600x600 depending on the width of the column – mess around

To add a link to the full screen slideshow – use the same set number here:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/simontaylor/sets/PUT SET NUMBER HERE/show/">Full Screen Slideshow Here</a>

You can also embed a slideshow using the labels using this:

<iframe src="http://www.flickr.com/slideShow/index.gne?user_id=41948864@N00&tags=TAG HERE" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="500" scrolling="no" width="500"></iframe>

picasaweb: http://picasaweb.google.com/home

Picasaweb is integrated in picasa and you can upload directly from picasa to a web album with a few choices of embeddable players

Once you are signed in with your google account it’s easy to embed slideshows from picasa, just copy the code, paste it in and you’re done.

bubbleshare: http://www.bubbleshare.com

Bubbleshare has the best embed code – some great flash slideshows that cross the screen nicely and you can add a commentary if you want. Just register and upload. Easy to use.

photoshop express: http://www.photoshop.com/express/index.html

This is another option – allowing you to embed stylish black and grey galleries of any photos you upload to the 2GB of free storage.

pictobrowser: http://pictobrowser.com/

It works well with flickr and allows you to create a nice flash photo gallery. It has no storage it just uses flickr.

3. Slideshows:

There are a few places that allow you to put slideshows online. Zoho and Google Docs are the most feature rich but the others work well.

slideburner: http://www.slideburner.com/

Upload your slideshows and copy the embed code and paste it in to your blog post

slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net

scribd: http://www.scribd.com/

Google Docs: http://docs.google.com

Zoho: http://www.zoho.com/

All of the above struggle to deal with all the settings of a powerpoint presentation, although some of them allow you to download the file and use it as originally planned.

4. Documents including most Office formats:

scribd: http://www.scribd.com/

It’s so easy to upload any documents and then embed the code for the document on your blog. People can even download the original in different formats and it’s ALL FREE and scribd's iPaper is slick.

Google Docs: http://docs.google.com

Zoho: http://www.zoho.com/

5. Files to download

box.net: http://www.box.net

This offers a fantastic service that’s really slick and feels almost instantaneous.

You upload files that you just want to be able to access online, to box.net and they are then available for you to share via box.net with anyone you want, or more importantly for a blog you can put a widget in any post or sidebar.

The Widget displays the contents of an online folder. It can be browsed and also allows you to click and download anything in the box. It can be configured for size.

It’s a really elegant and simple way to allow downloads of useful files.

You could put a whole file system of useful things in your box and then just allow fellow surfers to use them.

I’ve used it to share cycle route guides with anyone else interested.

Have a look: http://hk-to-uk.blogspot.com/2008/05/useful-files.html

6. WebSites

Embed a whole web site on your blog using this code. It can sometimes be quite good if you want to treat your blog as a portal or refer to the site in the text, but you could always just use a link.

Here’s the code:

<iframe src="INSERT FULL ADDRESS HERE" align="middle" frameborder="0" height=650 scrolling="yes" width=100%></iframe>

Remember width can also be a number rather than a %

See here:http://decadencebybike.blogspot.com/2008/05/mongolia-country-information.html

7. Maps

quik maps: http://quikmaps.com

This is really simple and lets you draw routes and lines on maps and then creates code to make a widget. You need an account with http://www.widgetbox.com/ to create the widget code (I think) but once registered it’s as simple as pasting some code in a box on your blog. Once registered with widget box it just helps you make the code for blogger automatically.

google maps: http://maps.google.com/

This offers the simplest system, but it is harder to annotate them than with quikmaps but maybe a little less hassle. The embeddable maps can be made to any size quite easily using the interface. There is also the option to link to a panoramio layer. (a geotagging photo site)

If you live in some parts of the world you can save all the google maps with markers and details and store at My Maps - part of the google maps page.

8. Contact Form

contactify: http://www.contactify.com/

This is a perfect solution and simple to set up. After about a minute of setting up, you just make a link anywhere in your blog to the form that it creates on their servers. Their privacy policies seem good and the site is simple. You can also make a widget to put in the sidebar although you need an account at http://www.widgetbox.com/.

The contactify widget looks like one of the best widgets the site makes.

Information for cycling in Mongolia

2008-05-30T02:29:00.000-07:00