The Quiet Picture

Having done quite a lot of ravine exploration this summer and autumn, I can finally present my big ravine project! It is currently accessible from the Messlingen link above right, and then follow the link on the page. Or go from here. The page menu system doesn’t really work in this blog template so I have to use some workarounds, but I have a feeling that I would have to find a completely new design to improve it so a workaround is my best friend…

There’s a new link on the top of the page for Location reports. I will be adding some location tips here, some favourite places I’ve visited that some other photographers may be interested it. I won’t add any detailed tips (such as, “in June, stand at these coordinates at exactly 21:30 and point your wideangle lens to north”) but the information is more generic in nature and I leave the rest to your imagination and curiosity to visit the place and find out for yourself. A place can be great on day and totally uninspiring the next, so sometimes you need to give it a second chance. In fact, many of these places are such that I haven’t explored fully but I know that the killer shot is there, if I just get back there at the right moment!

So far I’ve added four locations:

• Fättjeåfallet and Sångbäckfallet waterfalls
• The Wilderness Road
• Gröntjärn
• Hornslandet

I’m putting Loos on the blog map!

Internetworld har gjort en webbhotelltest, och det visade sig att mitt webbhotell Cliche fick sämsta betyg. Jag har kanske haft tur då för jag har inte upplevt några som helst problem. Hur många år har jag haft minnak.net nu… fyra? Under den tiden har jag behövt kontakta supporten två gånger och fick snabb svar både gånger, först när jag behövde MySQL aktivering får att installera WordPress och sen när jag reggade en ny domän och ville peka om den. Fast ompekningen gick inte som jag ville, men det var mitt fel – det stod ju i klartext hur de kan peka om, och det jag ville göra var bestämt nånting annat. Så nu äger jag en domän som gör ingenting… tror inte jag förnyar den… Hursomhelst alltså, trots dåligt betyg från Internetworld så skulle jag ändå kunna rekommendera cliche.se. Kanske hjälper det att jag jobbar med IT så det här att man inte får något hjälp med att installera WordPress osv gör mig inget, och kontrollpanel har jag faktiskt inte saknat heller – jag tänkte inte ens på saken tills jag läste om det i testet. Uptime tycker jag får godkänt också.

Jaja, kanhända att har jag alldeles för låga krav då.

OBS! Jag har ingen annan knytning till cliche.se än att vara kund… tyckte bara att det var lite småroligt att se hur cliche misslyckades med nästan vartenda delmoment i testen. Your mileage may vary!

P.S. Titta jag lyckades med att skriva (nästan) hela inlägget på svenska, borde kanske prova på finska också nån gång får att se hur det känns!

I have installed a plugin to fight spam comments. I’ve been happy with Akismet, but it’s a tool for filtering spam after a comment is posted – reCAPTCHA is pro-active and prevents spam. It’s a standard word recognition thing that the spambots can’t figure out, but it does more than that – have a look on the reCAPTCHA website.

Some people have asked me why I write my blog in English. The short answer is that it’s just simply the easiest for me. The long answer will put you to sleep so I will spare you.

But this language thing, just because I write in English doesn’t mean that all the comments have to be in English as well. Finnish and Swedish are just fine, I’ll even manage Danish if I have to… so to this end, I’ve changed the “No comments” text to “Comments welcome in English / pÃ¥ svenska / suomeksi”.

Does that convey the idea or is there a better way to express it? Maybe put it in the sidebar or something? I didn’t do it now because it sounded like desperate fishing for comments…

Or maybe it’s not a language thing at all. I read a lot of blogs but there’s only one where I comment regularly, so I shouldn’t be complaining if the people who read my blog (all four of them) don’t want to comment here, LOL!

On a general note, I wish more people would write blogs. I’m useless at keeping touch by phone and mail, but my RSS reader keeps me up-to-date!

The Quiet Picture blog has now been moved from Blogger to my site minnak.net (which is what you are currently reading). I have to tried to make sure that everything is working, but if you find any bugs, please let me know!

One thing I know is a bit strange is the layout in some of the old posts. This new blog layout is wider than the old design, so some of the formatting has been lost. But the content is the same of course, and I even managed to transfer all the comments to this new site – all except one, and finding that one missing comment is like looking for the proverbial needle so I left it!

Found out today that the graphics are not entirely shown right in Internet Explorer. Argh! I’ve got two words for you: USE FIREFOX!My coding skills just about ended after I had swapped the graphics files and changed colours. As for making the blog show up right in every browser… USE FIREFOX!

Alright now that I’ve changed almost everything again, I’m still not sure if I like it or not. The green/white post area is in line with minnak.net and the black is the least obtrusive background. The question is, are the posts too hard to read now? Do the pictures work on green?The alternative is to swap everything – green background, black post area and sidebars with white text. Please don’t say you’d prefer that… I would have to re-create all the rounded corners, LOL!

As you can see, I have changed the blog design – the colours, anyway. I’ve been customising the template for ages and it’s still a disaster, gonna have to have a break and re-think my strategy… but I have an idea, all I need is to change everything. Almost.