The Purple Penguin

As you can see I’m trying out different wordpress skins. So far this is the second one i have tried, the first ran in to the google in line maps problem.

This one so far has not had that problem is call “Remember” version 1.11 by Becca Wei

Apart from having fish on it on penguins i quite like it ( plus the fact that i don,t have to mess with the css), if i,m feeling board i may try to fix the first one. Or ever try to replace the fish with penguins.

Final many thanks to Gruff been the official first commenter, only beaten one day by some spam 🙂 witch the automatic zapper court and dealt with.

I know there trying to change the OED Mcjob Title See the Beeb, but are they now trying to claim working there is a calling. 🙂

Well, I’ve registered for the Hydro Women’s Challenge again. For some reason. Not sure why after last time but it’s done and I’m running for ActionAid again. Hoping to get a bit more money in a bit less time, though to that I ought to get training!

You can sponsor me here! You can donate from where ever and if you are a UK taxpayer you can also tick the box for gift aid which also helps. Obviously having worked for AA for over three years I support the work they are doing and hope to raise quite a bit more this year.

Right, the trip was in May 2007 (for those of you who have stumbled on this) and I’m now finally getting around to posting our top tips!

New Yorkers are friendly: Almost too friendly! We were almost afraid to open our map, not in fear of a mugger thinking we were tourists and thus easy pickings, but because if we got the map out we’d have someone come up to help out. Which was nice most of the time, but there were a few times we were just picking a route, seeing what we might want to see. And the helpful people would insist on telling us what to see and where to go. But other than that, don’t ever be afraid to ask someone, especially when coming up out of the subway. Even native New Yorkers aren’t always sure which direction to go when they get out of the subway! You may want to consider having a small compass on you. As the roads run n/s and e/w and are helpfully numbered it’s very easy to find your way around; however, just coming out of the subway it wasn’t always easy to know what direction we were facing.

Travel: Unlike most of the rest of the US you don’t need a car in NY. In fact, a car would be a handicap. We landed in Newark and took the train to Red Bank, NJ and after the wedding took the same train back directly into Penn Station, NY. Just note that there were two Penn Stations, one in NJ and other in Manhattan! The transport system is quite good.

Subway: Can be quite frustrating. There are very few maps in the stations, many stations don’t have a map at all. Many maps do not show which stops are express as opposed to local, the express trains are definitely express and don’t stop everywhere. The signs are not always easy to see or clear. It can be awkward to see where a train is going and they don’t really run east/west. And getting tickets – that’s a rant in itself. Please note that you really should have enough cash to get your tickets – the machine did not accept our debit cards and to use it as a credit card we needed to provide the zip code for the billing address. Well, we in the UK don’t have a zip code and it won’t accept an equivalent. The manned booths will only take cash and are very unhelpful (the most unhelpful New Yorkers we dealt with!)

Having said all that, once you work the system out it’s very handy. We got 7-day unlimited metro cards, which was good. You can also get limited travel cards and just top them up as needed, but I’d say go with the 7-day card if you’ll be there nearly that long. They also work on the buses and the only new ticket we had to buy was to get to JFK airport. If you aren’t going to be there that long or aren’t going to be riding the subway much the limited travel cards are good and, I believe, up to four people can travel on the same card. Each journey is $2, anywhere you go (other than the airports) and with the limited travel Metro card I believe you get a free journey or two for a certain amount. Not sure of the cost of the buses. As we had the 7-day cards I’m not sure how transfers work. Probably another reason for getting a 7-day card!

Walking: New York is an easy city to walk in. Central Park is lovely, the roads are easy to navigate, and it’s safe. Just keep your eyes open and act as you would in your hometown, take usual precautions with valuables. I even gawked a bit and we were fine. The big tourist areas are probably the safest but we never felt unsafe, even in residential areas or Central Park. A compass may come in handy just to get bearings now and again. And take comfortable shoes.

City Pass: Comes recommended, and check out the site as you can get them for several cities, including some in Canada. Though some places in NY were confusing about how to use it. The ticket would say one thing but the museum would say something different. So we just went with it. Even if you don’t visit all the attractions or an attraction is closed (Intrepid) you get good value. Remember that all the museums in NY charge for admittance (see museums later). For the cost you get entrance for several places – we got Empire State Building, Intrepid (which was closed), American Museum of Natural History (frogs!), Guggenheim, MoMA, Circle Line sightseeing cruise. It now has the Met and not Intrepid and is about $10 more than we paid but still well worth it if you want to see all these or even most of these. I can recommend MoMA and Guggenheim (just to see the building it’s worth it!)

Museums: All charge entrance fees. There are ‘pay what you can’ evenings at least one night a week, check each museum for when these are on, but be prepared for them to be crowded at these times. NY claims to have more museums than any other city in the world and this may be true. There are a lot (Joe grumbled the whole time) and there are some very good ones. I only saw about a quarter of the ones I wanted to see! Time Out usually has information on what is showing, the costs and when ‘pay what you can’ is on.

Broadway: We went to see Wicked. I booked tickets on-line way in advance of the trip. Just like the West End, Broadway tickets are expensive (about the same cost once the exchange rate is taken into account). There are suppose to be cheaper alternatives, but if there is a particular show you want to see and you’re only going to be there for a limited time, I’d recommend booking in advance. If you don’t care what you see, just want a Broadway show, then from what I saw there are cheaper alternatives. Unfortunately we didn’t do any of these so I’m not sure what information to give! But I would recommend seeing a show. Of course.

Getting to the airport: Air Train to JFK or Newark. We didn’t fly into or out of LaGuardia but from the website it is on the subway or bus routes. The JFK airtrain is free around the airport and to and from the car rental areas, but costs once you are outside this loop; Newark airtrain only goes around the terminals and to the train station. Coming into Newark we got the airtrain to the train station. Newark airtrain comes into the Newark Airport train station and from there you can get a train into NY or other areas of NJ. From Jamaica in NY you can get the airtrain to JFK airport. It was an easy journey from Manhattan – we went to Penn Station, NY, got the E train to Sutphin Blvd-Archer Ave stop, and then got the airtrain from there. There are two different E trains going to different destinations so do check the side of the train to make sure it’s going to Sutphin Blvd – Archer Ave! It is helpfully announced when you are at the airtrain stop (if you can understand the announcements on the subway. Having said that, the airtrain announcement was the clearest I’d heard the entire time I was there!)

Can’t think of anything else and this is long enough as is!

One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret
Never to be told.

That is an a nursery rhyme I learnt as a kid about Magpies. How ever this morning, after a cries of sweeeetie, I don’t know what a dead half eaten one brings. That what we found in the garden this morning. (K: not in the garden, that would have been, well, still icky but this one was right outside the back door! A head and a bunch of feathers! At least the rest of it was behind the bits of wood that Homebase calls a shed. More on that later probably.) Just a bunch of feathers  and some wing was all that was visible at first, but peering behind the bits of shed (the shed is a whole another story which Kathleen may or may not post), was the rest. Which has now been laid to rest in the bin.

Witch in work terms means, preparing for the big mud, other wise known as the Glastonbury festival. This means design a network for a green field site, literally 🙂 Green-field Festival SiteMost of the year the place has cows on it. This will be are biggest and most ambisuse implementation yet, a wireless network linking back stage at the pyramid, the Greenpeace field and possibly access in cafe Tango.

We have just got a site lay out and have basic planing on access points and coverage, this year they say most of the site will be covered any way, well we’ll wight and see. Hot on our success at FOSDEM this year we “quietly confident” says Olly. So weather and power permitting, and no big solar arrays in the way like last time 🙂 we should have it covered.

I believe i have gotten this to work now 🙂

Steps

1) Download the Inline Google Maps WordPress plug-in form

Avi Alkalay.

2) Follow his instructions

Upload the plug-in to your site.

Turn the plug-in on.

Configure the plug-in, you will find it under the option tab, google inline maps.

3) Apply for your Google Maps API.

When applying for your Google Maps API, it seams to be best to use your the root URL.

As when they say pacific directory. It also seams to include that directory and those below it. This confused me for a wile, as to what was exactly meant on the Google web page instructions.

4) Final I had to edit the css style sheet.

We use the WordPress Default 1.6 by Michael Heilemann

This cause the maps to appear as gray blocks.

This also  still happens if you use IE7 to view the map.

To fix the IE7 error see

http://blogan.net/blog/2007/05/29/google-maps-plugin-works-for-k2-theme/

you have wrap your code with div tags so <div> at the start and </div> at the end.

So reading this site

http://code.google.com/p/kaytwo/issues/detail?id=179&can=2&q=

I made a change to the stylesheet as suggested.

To do this log-in as admin user, goto the Presentations tab then select theme Editor, then on the right hand side click Stylesheet. Scroll Down the Code till you find /*Begin Images*/

I do not know any thing about css, (so this may have broken some thing but so far it looks ok) because of that I only commented out the line (this way it is easy to add back in if any thing goes wrong :)), and add my new line in.

By surrounding the max-width: 100%; with /* (start comment) and */ (end comment) what ever process the style sheet will ignore that line.

The line I add in was

max-width: auto;

Final save this back to your web site by clicking the update file button at the bottom of the screen.

It should then look like this.

/* Begin Images */
p img {
padding: 0;
/* max-width: 100%;*/
max-width: auto;
}

/* Using ‘class=”alignright”‘ on an image will (who would’ve
thought?!) align the image to the right. And using ‘class=”centered’,
will of course center the image. This is much better than using
align=”center”, being much more futureproof (and valid) */

This appears to make the maps work, and has not yet (so far) made any thing not work. I will update this post if i find any thing wrong.

Map test

Campbell Island

So Back at work, and a new slant on this blogging stuff. Now that i,ve got more of this site working some day we may Even get a front door, index page for the more technical of you 🙂 .

So far i have recycle the junk mail, and Even done some electronic recycling but not quite of the weee directive (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive 2002/96/EC and 2003/108/EC) style, just the junk emails :).

If you want to ignore my ravings thoughts and option, use the categories and leave out the “Dyslexic Discourse”.

No lets see what the spell checker does to this, Not bad so far.