We thought a travel blog would encourage us to keep a record of our adventure. If it is anything like keeping a diary, I’m in trouble. Setting it all up, which is still ongoing, has been heaps of fun with all due credit to;

• WordPress – My first test blog took about a minute to setup with this impressive free app (after about 2 hours getting MySQL and PHP to play nicely with IIS). Plugins, themes, posting via email and iPhone app… the list goes on forever. It’s just awesome (like a hot-dog).
• MySQL and PHP– First time I’ve used them but once I overcame the initial fear of being far, far away from MicroSoftLand they have impressed.
• Geo Mashup– The most incredible WordPress location plugin around. Lots of fun to figure out but works out of the box. Seems to be giving some trouble with Internet Explorer. Most other browsers seem fine.
• NextGEN Gallery – The most popular gallery plugin for WordPress. Haven’t played with it yet but it looks great.
• Plainscape – A clean and tidy WordPress theme that gave me a good place to start.
• Google Latitude – simple location updates form my phone or any browser. Set to ‘city’ level, thereby foiling those pesky stalkers.
• Google Maps API – requried with Geo Mashup. What can I say…. Google is King !
• PixoPoint Menu for snazzy css dropdown menus
• Lightbox 2 to spice up the gallery
• Crystal Tech Web Hosting – When it comes to hosting, you get what you pay for (surprisingly this applies to tech support too).
• My Amazing-V. For not laughing too much when I spent 3 hours adding a shadow to the ‘tick’ geo marker for the planning section !

Without these our adventure would have been recorded with a boring series of CC’d emails or a Twitter/FaceBook feed.

Thank you – you know who you are.. I would assume.

Some odd notes about the blog

• Oldest post is at the bottom of the page. Doh.
• Pictures get bigger when you click on them. No kidding.
• I’ll try to update the “Last know location” widget as often as possible.
• Anyone is welcome to comment… but I’ll have to approve your first comment, so we need that email address.
• Pins on the map show the location of posts on the current page. Clicking a pin will pop-up the post it is related to.

It’s all a WORK IN PROGRESS