News

Not much new this month as I've been off on my hols. I have beefed up the JigZone Jigsaws page and introduced some more puzzles. Look for the JigZone Button button across the site. (Suspended in 2017 due to security certificate problems)

Google have finally produced high resolution aerial imagery for the whole of England so I have been generally updating my Google Earth pushpins which now include sample photos from each of the locations.

New so far this month is a page on the wonderful Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway and some photos of Hythe and Dungeness. There are also a few new photos of Forde Abbey.

The area north-east of Madron in Cornwall now has its own menu and there are brief details of all the antiquities in this area.

I've been working away behind the scenes to make it easier for me to offer some new wallpapers and it's finally gone live. Might even get up around to updating them from time to time.

In the mean time I've just posted some photos from this year's Wimborne Folk Festival and there is a new gallery for Exeter with some shot of the Quays, and a page on Seaton and the Seaton Tramway.

I just hope the weather cheers up soon, then I can get out and take some more photos.

There has been a huge Google Earth/Maps aerial photography update this month covering most of England so I have been spending ages updating all my location information and making the aerial imagery available though the location pop-up. Just click on the relevant location map and then on the "Satellite" button.

Cornwall, Sussex, Shropshire and Northumbria are now fully covered. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of Dorset and the New Forest.

I have also updated my Google Earth pushpins to reflect the new imagery.

This month I've made a start on an Inverness-shire Gazetteer section and have written a articles on:

• the Island of Eigg in Inverness-shire
• Seaton and Colyton in Devon (including the splendid Seaton Tramway) and
• the Nine Stones west of Dorchester in Dorset.

As there have been recent reports of trojans and other nasties being sent as attachments to fake e-card notifications, I have re-written parts of my Electronic Greetings Card system to allow you to generate your own personalised email notifications.

Just got back from a short break in Amsterdam including a visit to the excellent Zaanse Schans collection of historical buildings.

All the Wicklow stuff is now live. There are pages on:

• Powerscourt House and it's magnificent waterfall,
• The Sally Gap,
• Dunganstown Castle,
• Glendalough,
• Blessington Lakes,
• Wicklow Head and
• The Black Castle

together with a Gazetteer section covering a number of other places.

Not much so far this month as I have had to catch up on a huge backlog of paperwork. However I did find time for a day out to Netley in Hampshire to look at the Abbey and the Royal Victoria Country Park.

The Wicklow stuff is coming along and should be ready to go live soon.

Wow! What a record breaking month January was: 8,264 unique visitors and over 852,600 hits beating the previous record of 6,203 visitors by a substantial margin. Anyone would think that people were planning their holidays. Hope you all enjoyed your visits to this site anyway.

The only things new so far this month, are articles on Glenfinnan and Fort William in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and some details on a classic Hadrian's Wall walk.

Happy New Year everyone. I've finally finished scanning the Kerry and Cork negatives and there are now articles on:

• Blarney and Ballycarbery castles,
• Cahergal and Leacanabuaile Forts
• The Skelligs,
• St Finan's Bay,
• the Gap of Dunloe and the Killarney Lakes,
• Muckross House and Traditional Farms.

• Bray Head,
• the Grotto at Gortgower Slate Cavern and
• Knightstown.

Together with an introduction and gazetteer page for Kerry, and a number of small galleries.

Apologies to anyone who tried to download my MS Autoroute Pushpins recently. They got broken as a result of the code changes needed to implement two different Ordnance Survey grid systems, and I did not notice for a while.

The same goes for the OSGB Converter. This is now an OSGB/OSI Converter.

Time to warm up the scanner again for Wicklow and Dublin me thinks.

New this month are short articles on:

• Männlichen and the Schynige Platte in Switzerland,
• Ullswater, Coniston, Hartsop and Windermere in the Lake District,
• Caernarfon and Llyn Gwynant in Gwenedd, North Wales, and
• Fort Nelson in Hampshire.

I've been playing around with Google Maps and have amended the Location pop-up so that, where there is suitable imagery, you can now switch to an arial/satellite view. I've also put in a Google Earth push-pin link.

A couple of new galleries this month. Firstly some new shots of the Kingston Lacy Enchanted Garden. I lugged the tripod around this time, so I was able to be a bit more ambitious. And secondly some shots of the New Forest taken just as the mist was lifting.

This is the first outing for my new resizeable pop-ups which will eventually be implemented across most of the site. When I first started to develop the site, broadband was only just becoming available and 17" screens were a bit of a luxury. I therefore picked on a relatively small sized image (450px maximum) for my pop-ups and slide shows.

Now, looking at the current stats, over 70% of my visitors are on broadband and over 80% are using a screen resolution of 1024x768 or above, so it's time to rethink that decision. On the pop-up screen you can now choose one of three resolutions: Small is for dial-up users and those with small screens, Medium is optimised for 1024x768, and Large is for anything bigger.

I have also had to introduce a visual recognition field on the comments pages, as spam is starting to appear here. Apologies for the inconvenience.

If that wasn't enough I'm also trying to finish off the Switzerland pages, and now have articles on:

• Lake Brienz
• Lauterbrunnen
• Grindelwald and
• Grosse Scheidegg.

together with a brief article on Lynmouth in Devon, for some reason.

New this month are articles on

• Kleine Scheidegg
• The Jungfraujoch - Top of Europe
• Mürren
• Wengen and
• The Schynige Platte Bhan

in the Bernese Oberland, Switzerland, together with a short article on Luzern. More to come.

I've also been getting my head round Firefox's live bookmark facility, and now have a set of dynamic bookmarks pointing to the new content on the site. (Note: These do not yet work in Internet Explorer 7)