mobilene Posted December 9, 2007 Report Share Posted December 9, 2007 I found this blog today -- maybe it's not new to some of you, but it was new to me, and I think it is very well done. http://historichighways.wordpress.com The blog reproduces photographs and paraphernalia (map covers, motel brochures, etc.) from the golden age of the US highway. jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keep the Show on the Road! Posted December 9, 2007 Report Share Posted December 9, 2007 I found this blog today -- maybe it's not new to some of you, but it was new to me, and I think it is very well done. http://historichighways.wordpress.com The blog reproduces photographs and paraphernalia (map covers, motel brochures, etc.) from the golden age of the US highway. jim Jim, I enjoy that kind of material! An attractive Blog. I'll have to contact the owner. We share a common interest. I have lots of that kind of stuff myself, so I admire anyone who takes the time to scan and describe it. Maybe I need a lesson on blogs. I know yours. Where can I get some comparison reviews of different services or software? What are the key issues? I acquire my material piecemeal and it ends up in boxes...post cards, guides, maps, brochures...yada yada. Maybe I should scan and describe items. I do the map site because I want the content, not just the covers available, but covers can be of interest.... I like your layout and this guy's. Is that a function of the blog host or of software...or talent (which I lack). I can do graphics, etc. but I don't want to work in html!!! I'm probably nuts to even think about another "project." Heeeelp! I have at least three maps scanned but not uploaded, at least four unfinished trip reports, and the garage to clean out....not to mention I am trying to organize my collection. Stop me before I start another project.....I don't know how you guys do it...do you ever sleep? How much time beyond the obvious scanning and writing time does a blog take? Would a blog and the historicroadmaps.com site be complementary? Keep the Show on the Road. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Rowland Posted December 10, 2007 Report Share Posted December 10, 2007 Would a blog and the historicroadmaps.com site be complementary? Keep the Show on the Road. A blog is much more like a news feed since you're basically just posting/publishing entries for people to read. You can present random material, and people are entertained by either following your life and adventures or what you have selected to share for the day. I see this much more like a virtual newspaper that you are publishing. On the other hand, something like historicroadmaps.com is not like a newspaper but like a library. People go there to browse and probably to look for something specific. Things are categorized and organized for ease of reference. So I see them as quite complementary. In a way, the blog could be monitored by people wanting to see what new items you are scanning and posting with a cross reference to the material actually stored and organized by state/media type/etc. on historicroadmaps.com. That's my four cents worth. Also, I was wondering what your plans are for historicroadmaps.com. Is that something that we can add scans and maps of our materials to also? Or is it meant to be an archive of only your items? Just wondering because I had a few things to possibly share. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobilene Posted December 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 10, 2007 I started my blog on a lark, and chose WordPress.com because the blog I was reading at the moment the lark hit used it. Fortunately, I really like WordPress.com. All of the blog sites have pre-done layouts for you. You can customize them if you want, by just uploading photos (like the road photo at the top of my blog, an autumn pic I took of Indiana SR 47 just east of Turkey Run State Park) or by doing your own coding in cascading style sheets. The hardest part about blogging is writing and, if I have pics to share, processing the pics. The blog software makes the rest easy enough -- no futzing with HTML at all. When I do a long road trip writeup for my regular Web site, doing the HTML becomes the hardest part -- and I even use a layout template I created! jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keep the Show on the Road! Posted December 10, 2007 Report Share Posted December 10, 2007 Chris, Thanks for the very helpful reply! It is especially useful as I can now see how I might mention in the blog some new item, and then post it in the historicalroadmaps.com library. Nice idea! I don’t want to decline your kind offer of more maps to post, but I am weeks behind on my own right now, and I am the zoomifier and formatting gateway. Let's see what we can do when I catch up. I think we should figure out a way to make it easy for folks to post their maps, post cards, and related road ephemera without a “technician” in the middle, the YouTube of maps. Your offer is evidence. We dialoged months ago about an American Road Resource Library where members could post their goodies to share. Maybe if you and I “approached” Jennifer, Pat and Becky with some concrete and practical suggestions.....they are really very receptive to good new ideas. My short experience with my site tells me that it takes me a lot of work to move from a scanned map to a finished entry on the site, doing it the way I do it. One problem is basic, and that is how do you present a physically large map in an easy to view format? And if the map has some market value, how do you discourage unauthorized copying without ugly across the image watermarks? I went to Zoomify because it is easy to view, but not as easy to copy a whole map. But it takes time to process a set of images and produce thumbnails. Maybe with your expertise we could propose an efficient approach. Keep the Show on the Road! Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennyG Posted December 10, 2007 Report Share Posted December 10, 2007 I found this blog today -- maybe it's not new to some of you, but it was new to me, and I think it is very well done.I stumbled on that sometime back and agree that it's nicely done. I even subscribed to its RSS feed but confess to not visiting it often. I've often said that if I had been aware of blog packages like Wordpress when I started my cybermumbling, I'd never have done it the way I have. Whether or not that's actually true, we'll never know but it does seem that they make updates fairly straight forward and allow folks to concentrate on the message and not the medium. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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