Transfer to WordPress

  A seamless transfer?  I hope so. I used to write and individually format each blog and add it the the pages, and produce a separate XML formatted RSS feed.  It was hard work but it allowed the pages to be formatted as part of my website. I’ve been looking for a way to streamline the process for some time.  I experimented with Blogger but I had too many problems with the new version.  Other blogging software was fine for stand alone blogs but was too difficult to publish as part of my own website. Now I think I have the solution.  A combination of three tools. The core of the system is WordPress which set up the database for the blogs in PHP etc.  This also allowed the formating of the pages to match my own website and directly produced the RSS feed. Then I used FeedBurner to publish the RSS feed which allows me to collect anonymous statistical information about visitors. Finally I use the new Beta of Windows Live Writer to write the feeds.  I can use WordPress for simple posts but it has a habit of tidying up the coding on the complicated posts so it looks wrong.  Windows Live allows the posting of more complex formatting as long as I use the HTML options.  But, and there has to be a but, it only recognises American spellings for the spellcheck. I’ve converted the blog to the new system and you should now find you can leave com ments.  Go on, give it a try and leave me a com ment or two. Please send me an email if there are any other problems with formatting or anything else. Otherwise, let me wish you all a Happy Christmas.

Posted on Sunday, December 24, 2006 at 16:36
Comments (3) Category(s): News

Another Busy Day

It’s been a busy few days, dispatching orders promptly to meet the latest posting date for Christmas, today, so no time for photos today. We have the luxury of two mentions today.  I woke up this morning to find we had been blogged on Andrew Denny’s Granny Buttons blog late last night.  Then I bought a copy of Waterways World and found we had a brief mention with their article on the Cotswold Canals.

Posted on Tuesday, December 19, 2006 at 11:07
Comments (0) Category(s): Granny Buttons , News

Santa at Saul

The weather forecast for today was good - at least as good as can be expected for December - so it was off to Saul Junction. I’d heard that Santa might be visiting Saul Junction and I wanted to see if I could capture him on film for next year’s update to the Cotswold Canals DVD. As soon as I arrived I was spotted by David Pagett from the Cotswold Canals Trust who kindly introduce me to all the volunteers working so hard at the Heritage Centre. Many of them had already seen the DVD and they were all very complimentary.  Thank you everyone. David was such a good salesman that I had to keep my guard up or he would have sold me one! Perseverance, the CCT trip boat, had been decorated with Christmas decorations and Santa had borrowed the boat for his grotto. He had just popped out when I took this photo but he was making regular trips along the the canal in Perseverance, accompanied by children of all ages.  

Posted on Saturday, December 9, 2006 at 22:18
Comments (0) Category(s): Cotswold Canals

Off Centre

Friday was our first chance to visit the boat since work had started again on the build. The boat was temporarily inside which made it rather dark for photographing, although rather warmer for working on the boat. The television aerial is in place, kept on the centre line to maximise the space available for fitting solar panels when they come down in price. As the price of diesel is just about to double when red diesel is no longer available they may be fitted sooner then we were planning. Unfortunately the pump out point was not fitted on the centre line of the roof and I need to take the measurements for the solar panels on the next visit to see if we can work around this if if we need to get pump out point repositioned. The inside is lined out and most of the partitions in place so photographing is very difficult. A lot of the wiring and plumbing is in place with wiring poking out of the spaces for the sockets.  This wiring will be in the electrical cupboard just inside the stern where the inverters etc. will be positioned.

Posted on Friday, December 8, 2006 at 16:25
Comments (0) Category(s): Build our Boat