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I've found the globe and have moved on to exploring it properly.
This blog is no longer updated, you can find my new and hopefully better blog at
I installed the latest updates for Wordpress and Coppermine the other day. Unfortunately this time it hasn’t gone all smoothly. It appears my Feedburner feed is now broken and Coppermine isn’t able to access the SQL database anymore so none of the pics I’ve hosted are appearing. I am working on it, hopefully it will be sorted soon.
Oh great, as I type a new error appeared. Fun for me
Update: Feeds seem to be working again, I’ve updated the Feedpress plugin. I’ve disabled the Coppermine plugin for now so the Gallery is gone and the error at the top of the page. That should have things under control for now, let me know if you see anything wrong.
Things I wish I’d Know When I was Younger, is that a typo in the headline? Lifehack gives us a list. What do you think? This is something I’d like to write about sometime and hear what others think. Hopefully those links work for you, although I can read this one in Google Reader I can’t currently access the Lifehack site.
Facebook has really taken off, given it’s unique platform and the benefits over other social networking sites like MySpace it’s not really a surprise nor is it that it is quickly becoming a favorite of travelers. Almost everyone wants to keep in touch with the people they meet while traveling and while there are a number of travel specific social networking sites Facebook has a lot to offer.
Although many have complained about it, it is the applications you can add to your Facebook profile that make it so fun and useful beyond just adding your friends.
Facebook is yet another designed to connect friends although unlike the MySpace popularity contest Facebook prefers that you actually know your friends. When you add a friend it will ask you how you know the person, are they related, a schoolmate, co worker, teammate, partner? Or for travelers, did you travel together and if so where to?
And like the others you enter the standard stuff to be shown in your profile like, age, relationship status, religion, favorites, etc.
The Applications browser says there are 61 travel related applications, how many are good is another story.
The most used application is the obligatory map of countries visited imaginatively called “Where I’ve Been“. But it’s not just where you’ve been but also your home country and where you want to go.There are heaps of other apps that do exactly the same thing but this one is the best and the most used and it’s always more fun to use apps that your friends also use.
You can also do pretty much the same thing with a Cities I’ve Visited map of which there are also a number available.
Trips is the next most useful, it allows you to enter your itinerary for an upcoming, a trip you are on or even past trips. You can add any friends who might me going with you and it creates a map of your route in Google Maps for you. While your gone or when you get back you can also upload photos to your trip data.
For up and coming travelers there are countdown tools to tell you exactly how many seconds are left until you embark on your big adventure. With a bit of imagination I’m sure there are many others apps that could be used for travel purposes too.
And for wannabes or veterans alike there is one of my personal favorites, The Traveler IQ Challenge, how well do you really know the world and how do you compare to your fellow friends, travelers and Facebook members?
One things is for sure Facebook definitely has the goods for travelers whether it be for personal use, friends or keeping worried parents in the know.
It got me thinking about a super blog with the best bits from all these type of blogs. I know many of these blogs tell you to target a niche but I think this could work, why? The reason I’m subscribed to these is because they interest me and because most of them have been recommended by authors of the other blogs. The reality is a lot of like minded people read these blogs and wherever I go in this small selection someone is talking about one of the others. Is there a niche for people who read from these niches? I think from what I’m seeing there definitely is.
So what do you think.
Would you read something like that?
Do you think I should do it here or build a new blog?
Tripbase is a cool little web application that matches destinations to how much you want to experience certain things like, nightlife, nature and food. Maybe not comprehensive but it is still in alpha, something to play with for a bit of fun and maybe even for finding some inspiration.
Rick Steves Interview with Rolf Potts was featured on their respective sites a few weeks ago now and it is definitely worth listening to. It’s always good to put a voice to a name/face.
The word on Earth Bound is spreading and we have the main site up now, there is also a forum where you can talk with us and MySpace and Facebook groups to join to help you keep up to date with what is happening. We will be launching a comp soon for bands to have their music featured on the show so if you know any up and comers or have friend in a band point them in our direction.
I finally went into the bank and checked my loan account balance and I had about $780 left to pay off, I’ve since payed some more and today is payday so the usual amount will go in today, after that next payday will mark the end of my car loan. I’m excite, instead of watching my car loan go down I can start watching my Travel Savings go up.
I’m keeping myself quite busy at the moment with learning how to Wordpress theme from scratch and I’ve taken on making our Earth Bound blog theme look like our main page and that is going fairly well so far. Hopefully not to far away I can start releasing some new themes of my own. I’m also working on two possible new blogs and slightly changing the direction here a little, more expanding than changing really. Maybe doesn’t sound like much but it really is taking up a bit of my time, but unlike work at the moment it is actually fun.
Who would have thunk it? On Friday I read this post by Nina on justwandering and after the initial trepidation I felt I sent off an email to Eric (the boss) introducing myself. Having watched some of the latest Big Brother in Australia I was feeling like the only personalities shown on TV were apparently loud people with big personalities, watching though I decided that there is nothing appealing about watching a bunch of big personalities, generally they seem to cancel each other out and end up all appearing to be pretty boring. BB might actually be interesting if only they put in more than one type of person. I thought not being your typical personality you see on TV I suited that bill but I’m not really one for BB.
So knowing that if I was simply honest about what I am like I felt that I would come across as a unique person, something different for once. As it turns out I am and GRTV was looking for someone like that. It looks like the team will be a good mix of different personalities and backgrounds.
It was only a couple of months ago that Dave asked Would You Accept A Sponsored Trip Around The World even then I said yes, the proposed situation wasn’t very appealing but I think the situation I’ve found myself in now is by far better and worth any downsides, and really how many people get the chance to do something like this? This trip will still be what I make it.
So the website is www.globeroamertv.com, check it out and let me know what you think, spread the word if you like the idea and if you think you might have what it takes apply for one of the remaining positions. I think this is going to be fantastic, hopefully life changing as much of a cliche as that is.
I’ve just stumbled across a new documentary movie called A Map For Saturday, produced by Brook Silva-Braga it is described as “an intimate window onto the world of long-term, solo travel”. A quick search brought up their website where I watched this trailer.
Before I knew it I had ordered the DVD, just this morning I had grabbed The Long Way Round out of my TV cabinet and was planning to watch it to inspire me some more, well A Map For Saturday beat me to it. I felt completely excited and inspired again just from watching that trailer (not that I was that low on inspiration anyway), imagine what the DVD will do. So hopefully we will soon see a review of it here from me and I think I have found the prize for when I launch the 10 Kilos of Cash competition.
The short intros to the travelers in the trailer gave a very genuine impression and they described why they were doing this with many of the same reason I would use, it seems to have every romantic idea I have in my head just in the trailer. I can’t wait.
There are a few Traveler type quizes out there that I’ve recently discovered I hadn’t really thought to look for them before but they are at least a little fun, so here are a few and what type of traveler they think I am.
The questions are actually different (but similar) in each one and the Concierge and Tickle offer a bit more in their results by including travel ideas to suit your ”personality”. So if your really, really, really bored there you go.
1. The Real World. I want to know the real world, how people live in other countries, what their world view is like, their history, how much of the world is occupied by humans and how much or little damage have we done. Of course we can read about all these things but I don’t think you can really comprehend the figures until you see for yourself.
2. Exploring & Experiences. For the experience of exploring. Who cares if the mountain you just climbed isn’t the worlds highest or that the ancient temple you are walking through at sunrise is about to be stampeded by package tourists, if it’s new to me then that is all that matters, most of the world might have already been explored but to almost everyone in it, it is completely foreign so with the knowledge of other explorers we can explore for ourselves.
“While my being in a place at a particular time may not be recognised and recorded by all, such visits do go down in one version of history. They become part of my own personal history. Though these records may never be written they will be with me always and turned to time and time again.”
3. To live. Somehow working, picking up a mortgage and having 2.3 kids doesn’t seem like living to me, that’s not to say that having kids, having a home or working are bad, just that for me right now it’s not what I want from life. I like the idea of a nice house overlooking a river with a mountain backdrop but hiking to a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas is lets face it, a lot more memorable and romantic way of spending my time.
“We do these things not to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping us”
4. Enlightenment. I think if you travel with an open mind and learn from what you see, hear, do, etc it will lead to a better understanding of yourself, others and the world we live in and with a better understanding of those things you can find how you should best fit in and find happiness.
5. Necessity. I have to, if I didn’t travel I think my brain would implode from lack of stimulation, I need that something more that travel gives us. I’m sure I could find other things to look forward in life but there aren’t too many more things with as much substance as travel. It seems instinctive that I should travel if I couldn’t I would be like a lion who can’t hunt.
So there we have it,  I’m looking forward to seeing more from the community and some new people and unique reasons, hopefully my own fit that bill. I can’t think of anyone to tag at the moment so any who reads this consider yourself tagged and expect bad meme karma if you don’t comply.
My laptop has been away for repair since Thursday last week and becuase of the easter break I’ve only just got it back today. I haven’t completely dropped the ball though in that time I did make a few improvements before, during and after the dead laptop and here is proof, I still have a lot more to do though but a lot of what I have done has given me a better idea of what I should do next.
Completed improvments
Added ip2flag plugin so we can see where commenters are from.
Added similar posts plugin, 3 similar posts now get links at the bottom of each post, this needs some tweaking but will get better with time also.
Signed up for quantcast stats.
Redirected feeds to feedburner, moved comments feed to footer.
Added new quotes to random quotes.
Installed Google Sitemap Plugin.
Header image now rotates every 1/2 hour, need to add more.
Signed up for CrazyEgg which helps optimise ad placement and other cool stuff.
Unlocked the blogroll and added my favourite blogs to it, check em out, they’re worth it.
Signed up for Sitescore 2 to find areas for improvement.
Updated Gallery with South East Cape Photos, Take a look.
To Do
Add a most popular posts list if I can find a freeware and easy way to do so.
Tripbase