Primo Travel Slideshow: Hot Off the Press

Project Platypus has once again pointed out a primo site to browse in a post called The Dales Way, tagged "listening, photography, [and] travel" (March 8, 2008). This time it's a slideshow from the Guardian's (a U.K. newspaper's) travel gallery called The Dales Way footpath (© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008).

The images in Kevin Rushby's presentation are beautiful, the countryside idyllic, the soundtrack superb, and the commentary fairly easy to understand for someone who isn't British (<grin>!). About the only drawback in the entire show, and not a serious flaw at that, is that it uses captions only on the last slide to point out where you can get more information about the footpath (The Dales Way Association) and accommodations along the way (updated March 2, 2008).

If you want to read all about Rushby's walking holiday, you can. It's in the Guardian's travel section on Yorkshire (N. England): Walking on eggshells (March 8, 2008).

To get an idea of the general location, zoom in on this map. Then maybe Pukman will drop by and give us a homegrown perspective on that part of the country.

[189 words]

Blogged with Flock

Another Setting to Try: Float Alignment

Though the explanation Blogger offers (below) borders on highly technical HTML formatting, the "enable float alignment" setting is easy to try by selecting "Yes."

Enable float alignment [Yes/No toggle, + Save Settings]

Allows image and text alignment options using the "div[-ision]" tag. (Choose "No" if you are having post layout problems.)

(Blogger Dashboard: Settings: Formatting)

When you review your blog, after refreshing or reloading the page, look for obvious layout problems in various posts (misaligned graphics, photos, or text). If see any problems that weren't there before, just toggle the float alignment setting back to "No," and save it like that.

[102 words]

Free Online Typing Course

Though I'm not sure how good this online typing course is, it should be worth a try! "Try it without registering" or "register for free to start the full course now" (Free Online Typing Course, 2008.02.27).

[36 words]

Blogged with Flock

Library Thing Widget

This quick post announces the addition of a LibraryThing widget to the sidebar. The widget feeds on recent additions to my LibraryThing catalog (above), a long-awaited follow-on to the very first post on this blog last year (An Extensive Reading (ER) Project, March 1, 2007). This post is also the second half-century post (150 of 150, today) on the Writing Studio Blog.

[63 words]

Inspiration to Write: 100 Words a Day

Did you ever wonder what college teachers do during spring recess?

Well, although you shouldn't take me as representative of teachers probably numbering in the hundreds of thousands if not millions, world wide, I have been busy. At the moment, the end of a Weblogging for Educators workshop in which I have been participating is approaching.

I'm taking time out from that to share a few words of inspiration I found on a blog called Reflections on a Ridiculous Word that workshop organizers had pointed out to participants. What the workshop organizers pointed out was a quick post by a writer and photographer who goes by the flickr handle, "yule" (Photos from sidetracked).

The title of the post was "About 100 Words," and the photo of the yurt in the header of the blog was almost breathtaking for the way it captured plays of light and space in the desert. I'd reproduce the photo here, but I'm afraid that it is like the other professional photos that I've just browsed in yule's portfolio (sidetracked, collections, Artistic). That is, copyright ( © ), all rights reserved.

The quotation featured in that post was from another location, "one of the first social tasking websites":

The idea is simple:
Write 100 words a day....

(About 100 Words, ¶ 7).

Although I didn't join that site, all in all, this webquest to round out a long day has been plenty of inspiration to write over 250 more words than I had already today.

[251 words]