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By Adam, May 3, 2009 4:15 pm

I wish I’d known how much better WordPress is than Google Blogger before spending all that effort on the latter. Some quick highlights:

• A real programming language (PHP) rather than some lame imitation which doesn’t even have proper flow control structures. Of course this also means it’s very easy to set cookies, use CGI parameters etc.
• More more out-of-the-box flexibility and functionality on the backend
• Unbelievably easy to set up on my own webserver
• Over 4000 plugins! including ones for SyntaxHighlighter and Google Analytics
• Countless themes, many of which support fluid width content columns.

So I’m totally sold; now I just have to make different RSS feeds available for my different audiences (none of which exist yet…)

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By Adam, May 3, 2009 3:22 pm

Just in case it’s useful to anyone, here’s how I publish my cycling routes in my blog. I record the routes on my great G1 Google phone which runs Android, using the great MyTracks application from Android Market. Once the route is recorded and I get back home, I do the following:

1. In MyTracks, copy the track to SD card as a KML file
2. Plug the phone in via USB and mount the SD card’s filesystem
3. Copy the KML file from the kml directory to a local directory.
4. Open the KML file in an editor, search for 7f0000ff (light orange) and change it to ffcc66cc (purple) or something more visible
5. Ensure the track name is correct
6. Go to http://maps.google.co.uk/ (ensuring I’m signed into my google account)
7. Click “My Maps”
8. Click “Create new map”
9. Click “Import” and upload the KML file
10. Edit the route if necessary and save changes.
11. Sometimes it’s necessary to click on another route and back to this new one, in order to make the “View in Google Earth” link appear.
12. Copy the URL of the “View in Google Earth” KML link and paste it into the Google Maps *search* bar (yes that’s right, *not* your browser address bar)
13. Click “Link” near the top right
14. Share the link with friends and/or paste the embeddable HTML into a new blog post.

The copy of the “View in Google Earth” KML link back into the search bar in step 12 is necessary to stop Google Maps from splitting the route up into multiple pages, which would only show shorter segments (“lines”) of the overall route at one time.

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By Adam, May 3, 2009 3:07 pm

Amazing what a difference a week makes (or was it just the Snickers bars?) – I felt so much stronger than last time.
It was a beautiful ride – sunny and very scenic route (thanks MWS):

View 2009/05/02 120km with Tritons in a larger map

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By Adam, April 25, 2009 3:50 pm

Another great ride this morning – the weather just about held and we even got some sun. I was quite pleased that I felt noticeably stronger than the monster 140km last week and managed to stay with the guys except for the end of the two brutal hills. Man, Cedric is fast.

View Tritons 112km in a larger map

That’s about 350km I’ve covered over the last 3 Saturdays, hope I can keep it up…

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By Adam, April 25, 2009 2:09 pm

After some hardcore training, am looking forward to watching the marathon tomorrow from the sidelines… not quite from the comfort of a sofa though as I’ll be playing with my band along the route just after the 14 mile marker (which is also a bit after mile 21). Good luck to all my friends doing it!