A labour of love...

When I first started my blog on Blogger over 8 years ago, I was unhappy with the way they handled comments.  So being a high tech wizard at the time, I integrated a 3rd party's comments system onto my blog.  Since then, my wonderful friends and family have left over 1500 comments on the blog and they are a much beloved part of it; as important to me as my memories and photos.

Imagine my absolute horror and dismay then, when I discovered that the company who ran the comments system were no longer supporting it and were not providing a way for me to transfer the comments into any other system.  All those cherished comments sitting on a legacy system that was going to die.

Then, being the low tech wizard I am these days with no ability to program, I had a moment of inspiration:  copy and paste!!!

So I have basically spent the whole day, over 12 hours, copying the comments from my old system and pasting them into the new system.

It's been a labour of love because it's been a wonderful opportunity and excuse to go back and read all the old comments from family and friends.

So thank you to you all for leaving comments on G-Trove since I started blogging.  You've inspired me to keep it going through the years and now it has a life of it's own - an electronic scrap book brimming with memories for my old age.

I'd like to especially thank Mum, Jo, Russell, Robyn, Kerry, Carleen, Ingrid, Eva, Nicola and Ana.  You've been particularly prolific commenters and I really appreciate it...

Photographing Sydney

I've been on a bit of a photographic mission of late to photograph Sydney and her surrounding areas.  I've created an index of Sydney places I've photographed since coming to Australia to help me keep track.

It might also be of use to anyone visiting Sydney to see all the beautiful places on offer.

Student Site

I've recently created a blogging site for my students.  The aim of the site is to help the class get to know each other (and me) better and to provide some fun writing practice.  I'm very chuffed with the site and it's been very well received by both the students themselves and the school.

You'll notice I have been a bit lazy when it comes to the design of the site.  It looks exactly like this one!  Sometime, I'll give it a spiffy new look.

You can see the student site here.

Dedicated photography site

I am very proud to announce that G-Trove (this blog) now has a sister. She is over at g-trovephotos.com . I have been taking photos now for over 4 years and my portfolio is growing. The new site provides a nice interactive way to view some of my better photos. I am hoping to get some photographic commissions for paid and charity work as time goes on and the site should help. Its been a lot of work but I think you'll agree its been worth it. Thanks to Charles for finding the template. Check it out and let me know what you think!

My favourite post

I am fast coming up to my 1250 th post on G-Trove. That's a lot of posts! I was wondering what my favourite post is - but didn't have to think long. It's undoubtedly the post about our trip to Galapagos. In celebration of this fact, I used some of my newfound Adobe Lightroom skills (what great software!) and tweeked my Galapagos photos (improved exposure, sharpening, contrast etc.) and upped their size. It was great to revisit my memories of this amazing place.

If I was hardpressed to name my second favourite post, it would be Uyuni Salt Pans. I would love to go back there one day.

Happy 5th birthday to G-Trove!

Would you believe it! Its exactly 5 years since our first blog post on G-Trove. 1050 posts later and we are still going strong. Our blog has brought us much fun over the years and I know the family has greatly enjoyed it too. It's also awoken my passion for photography. It's a wonderful treasure trove of memories for us to cherish in future years. So please join us in wishing G-Trove a happy 5th birthday...

Peer pressure made me join...

...and I must say it's pretty cool

Facebook Me!

Happy 2nd birthday, blog!

It is exactly two years since our first post.

Blogging is now firmly entrenched in our lives as a habit and a source of fun. It has provided great benefits:

• A fantastic way to keep our family in South Africa and Canada up to date with what we are up to
• Great way to keep in contact with friends too. One does not need to repeat the same old stuff in every email - but focus on more personal stuff
• An incentive to take lots of photos. Photography has since become a big passion and I have taken literally thousand of photos.
• A fantastic scrap book to look back on later in life
• Often an incentive to get up and "do something" (especially when we were working and we realised from our blog we had done nothing exciting in weeks).

So, don´t worry family, we will keep up the blogging!
If anyone wants to start up there own blog, its extremely easy !

Happy 1st Birthday, Blog!!

Well, we've been officially blogging now for a year. When I put up the first experimental blog on May 14 2004, we never guessed it would become such a fun part of our lives. We enjoy going back and seeing what we were up to in months gone by - and it will become more fun as time goes on and memories fade: like a great big digital scrap book except it doesn't get fish moths or take up cupboard space. I know the family has enjoyed it too - it's a wondeful way of keeping in contact. I've also enjoyed having a reason to take and post photos - it's been a fun new creative outlet. We're looking forward to our second year of blogging.

Random memories now added to this site

I've recently migrated my photos to a new online album that offers all kinds of wonderful functionality. It called flickr. If we ever travel, it will allow us to blog our photos from any internet caffee. If I had a mobile phone that took photos, I could even post them to this site directly from the road. An added touch is the ability to post a strip of random photos from the album (see the right hand menu). Cool. I've said it before but I'll say it again. I love technology.

My favourite software just got better!!

Picasa is a free photo organising package that is powered by Google. They've just brought out a new upgrade that catapaults the functionality into a new league - especially when it comes to correcting and improving photos. It also allows you to do automatic "collages" and all kinds of other special effects at the touch of a button. The collage above literally took 10 seconds to create. I can't recommend Picasa more. Download it free from here.

Happy Anniversary, dear Blog!

It's 6 months now that we started this blog. It has been lots of fun. In fact, this site is fast becoming our digital scrapbook to look back on in years ahead. So, we're going to keep going! After all, Mum wouldn't forgive us if we didn't!!

A blogging landmark: 20 000 words

Wow, this blog has just reached 20 000 words, as indicated by our blog stats. Also 270 links to other sites and an average of 12 posts per week. Haven't we been prolific! It's been just over three months now that we've been blogging and we'll definitely continue. Both a fun way to keep you up to date with what we're up to - and also a nice archive for us later in life. As Ally says, it's like a big digital scrap book but doesn't take so much space.

Design improvements

If you click into other sections of this site, you'll notice it now all looks completely consistent with this page.   I've been learning all about external style sheets which allow you to completely separate design from content.  If I wanted to completely change the design of this site, i could make a couple of tweaks on one page - an it would automatically update the entire site.  Nifty stuff.  The next trick i want to learn is how to set up an online database and some online forms.   Once i've done that, i'm ready to make millions.  Only thing remaining will be to come up with a killer commercial idea.  Mmmmmm.  Any ideas?
 

Welcome to Treasure Trove!

You’ll see this blog is now not just a blog, it’s grown up and become a full site!

When I started blogging two months ago, I wanted to add some stuff to the layout. So I ventured into the program code. And found it wasn’t too hard… Emboldened by my small success, I thought why not build a site. It has after all, been a life goal of mine for a while now. We even had Dreamweaver at work, though I didn’t have a clue how to use it until now.

It’s been a fun project. I am useless at colours & design so I decided to make it look like the blog. A more seamless experience – and saves me the embarrassment of torturing you with clashing colours! If you don't like the colour scheme, you can blame the chaps at Stop Design.

Content is always the hardest part – but I’ve been collecting quotes and one liners for years so thought I’d share those with you. Plus some personal stuff – my personal mission statement, my passions, and some writings. After all, life’s too short not to share yourself with the ones you love and I very much doubt anyone else will be coming here.

So browse around! Start at home for an overview or use the navigation above to get around. Enjoy… I’m hooked so no doubt I’ll be adding things as time goes by…

Mind mapping fun

Wow, this is cool! I've always loved mind mapping. I decided to get with it and find some software that would left me do it on the computer. I found a great program at this site and have been playing with it all afternoon. I did a map to look at my life from all it's angles and am delighted to see i'm getting much more balanced. The software is free for 31 days. Then $60 or something for the liscense. Robyn, you might be interested in this as i know you also love mind mapping. Lots of fun!! And could come in very useful at work too...

Long Jump

Wow, this blogging thing is cool. I've downloaded software to allow me to post photos too. We bought a scanner recently so I've been putting some of my favourite photos into digital format. This one is particularly special to me - the jump that won me the long jump. That's Tony Verboom behind me!! Remember him?...

My first blog post !

Hi there all

Have you heard of blogging? It allows you to post stuff up on the web quickly and effortlessly. I though I would experiment with it to see how it works. Could be a great way of keeping a travel journey when we go exploring. Or even of keeping you up to date on our news and creating an archive at the same time to go back to for fun...

It's been a good week. I watched some more good movies: The Graduate, Run Lola Run, A Streetcar Named Desire. I've now seen over half of the 250 movies of all time as rated at http://www.imdb.com/top_250_films. It's become a fantastic passion - I've just bought a "cinema studies" book from Amazon that first year cinema student have in their curricula. Fast learning what terms like Film Noir mean and so on. Soon I'll be very learned and be able to bore everyone silly on the tiny nuances of the great directors...

Ally and I are also busy collecting all the David Attenborough series in DVD format. We've got all the classics like "The Living Planet", "Life of Birds" and "Life on Earth." About 50 hours worth!! We watch it every Sunday night - becoming a wonderful ritual. M&M, you'll certainly have a lot to watch when you visit us - our DVD collection is growing rampantly, it's amazing how cheap they are becoming here. To buy a DVD costs barely twice what it costs to rent - except you then have it to watch over and over..

Work is going fine - and i've been in the office all week so it's been relatively relaxing. I'll be in the UK again next week. Ally starts working from home one day a week next week so that should be fun. She has to work at a running event down South on Sunday though, so it will be a short weekend for her.

My camera hasn't arrived yet - but I'm excited to try it out. I've found Yahoo provides an online photo album so i'll start uploading photos there for you to see. I think you can upload phots to this blog too - I'll have to experiment!

Anyway, I'm going to log off now and see if I can publish what I have written.

Cheers for now