Demystifying the Dark Arts

Here are the two presentations I gave at the Horizons Unlimited UK meeting this weekend. You can download the files or view them online. Thanks again to everyone who attended the presentations. I hope you found them useful.

Horizons on the Horizon

Just three days to go now until the 10th anniversary Horizons Unlimited event near Ripley in Derbyshire. I’ll be there heading up the volunteer crew in Sam Manicom’s enforced absence (he’s recovering from a kidney transplant), acting as ‘DigiTech’ team leader and presenting ‘Demystifying the Dark Arts of Travel Blogs and Websites’ on Friday and Sunday.

The full presentations will be published on the blog at noon on Sunday 27th, but here’s a quick summary of what they’ll be covering:

Part One (Friday):

• What is a blog?

• Why might a traveller want (or need) one?

• How much does a blog cost to setup?

• What skills are needed to maintain a blog?

• How is a blog created?

• What goes into a good blog?

• How do people discover a blog to read it?

Part Two (Sunday):

• Looking at WordPress.com in more detail:

• Colours and Headers

• Settings and Widgets

• Categories, Links and Pages

• Adding Images and Video to Posts

• Tagging Posts

• Publicising on Twitter and Facebook

• Domain Names (yourname.com)

• Combining WordPress with a full Website

Sam Sandtour is born

Sam Sandtour

Just finished putting together the initial elements of a demonstration blog as part of the preparation for the Horizons Unlimited event later this month.

Called Defying the Dark Rift to Doyle’s Delight, it features a fictional motorcycle traveller called Sam Sandtour and her Inca and Maya-inspired adventures in Central and South America.

The demo will help to illustrate the process of customising a WordPress.com blog, adding new posts and pages, and uploading photos.