How Many Have a Boat Blog or Website ?

[AnchorageGuy]

Waterwordly, Our blog site can easily be set to only certain people or those with passwords or to anyone.. it is really simple to set up and easy to use. Have a look.

[Jim Thomsen]

I started one when we made the decision to quit working and become full time cruisers, so it began before we owned a boat. I think it's been fun to learn how to make a webiste (my bible: Dreamweaver for Dummies) and it's been fun updating it as we visit new places. And it's a great place to put those favorite pictures that would otherwise just sit in a file on my computer.
Originally it was for our family and friends to try to explain why we were giving up a great job and a home we enjoyed to go sailing when we had no idea what we were doing. But over the past year we have made many "email friends" who found our site, have met some and look forward to meeting more on our travels.
We have also used many other people's sites to learn from their experiences and to read about harbors and passages that we were planning.
Home Page

Jim

[jackiepitts]

Not much to look at yet but things will only get better once we leave (at least the photos should get better)

LIFE ABOARD THE CHROKEVA

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by waterworldly

website that only those you want to have access to, so that you can post for friends and relatives, .

Yes, and its quite easy!

There is a tutorial and a Tool to help:
Comprehensive guide to .htaccess- password protection
Dynamic Drive: .htaccess password generator

Don't be put off by the jargon and new concepts in the tutorial. They really are easy and quite simple. It just gets a bit scary because its geekery at a high level!


There is another easier way of having your website so only your frinds can find it. Thats to not allow Google and the search engines to list it. The its virtually invisible on the internet, but people who have the URL can visit it without logging in.
In the source code of each page put in the head (ie up the top before </head>

<metaname="robots"content="noindex,nofollow" />

So thats 2 levels of security you can decide about: where your friends need a password - which isn't all that convenient as you have to issue the passwords / update them
or
Have the website there but no one except your friends knows its there.

I think, unless you are planning a murder that the second method is totally easy and keeps strangers out.

In our website we will have the most part of it freely accessible, and then one directory called, say, family, which will be noindex, nofollow and that won't have a link from the main pages. The family will have to click on a link in an email website/family/whattobring.html etc



Mark

[seafox]

Great Website Jim,
I just clicked on your link and have spent the last half hour having an enjoyable read.

Originally Posted by Jim Thomsen

I started one when we made the decision to quit working and become full time cruisers, so it began before we owned a boat. I think it's been fun to learn how to make a webiste (my bible: Dreamweaver for Dummies) and it's been fun updating it as we visit new places. And it's a great place to put those favorite pictures that would otherwise just sit in a file on my computer.
Originally it was for our family and friends to try to explain why we were giving up a great job and a home we enjoyed to go sailing when we had no idea what we were doing. But over the past year we have made many "email friends" who found our site, have met some and look forward to meeting more on our travels.
We have also used many other people's sites to learn from their experiences and to read about harbors and passages that we were planning.
Home Page

Jim

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by zephyr4

My thought is that nothing on the web is truly private. Even security provisions can not guarantee privacy.

yes, sorry I didnt read your post before putting mine on below. Yes Zephyr is right, unless you are a bank paying millions for a security website then you can't garantee anything. Even those with a password might copy and paste the whole site somewhere.

Mark

[ssullivan]

I often wonder how you all with blogs are able to find the time to do them? When sailing, I always have a million things to do, from navigating, to doing watches to exploring island to improving the boat.

I find time to babble on this site because it's easy. No photos to resize and run through Photoshop, and no real "image" to convey or long stories to write... just little tidbits and questions.

So how do you find the time? When do you write the blogs and do all the pics?

[pjbsailing]

I started a blog to keep my kids informed about our whereabouts while cruising in Canada. They kept checking on us the first time out, and when we got back we found a cell phone bill for over $400. Read the blog kids! Since then I just maintained it for fun. My relatives find it amusing too. You have to be careful what you write, as everyone can see it, and though no harm is usually intended, some folks don't like to have their pictures/lives published. Best to ask first. Good thread.
Cheers.
PJ
M44 Against the Wind
Latitude43

[lovesail]

Originally Posted by zephyr4

My thought is that nothing on the web is truly private. Even security provisions can not guarantee privacy.

So true. Sadly, one has to take precautions.

Recently a columnist in the UK claimed that the risk of identity theft was exaggerated and put his bank account number in his column to prove it. A thief managed to get £500 out of his account.

In the same week another fraudster managed to take out a loan for £10,000 by using the name of the head of the bank!

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by ssullivan

I often wonder how you all with blogs are able to find the time to do them? I find time to babble on this site because it's easy. No photos to resize and run through Photoshop,

A blog can be that simple:

1) Blogger.com is a free, simple blog site where when you have set up your template you can whack on an article as quick as the post you have just written.

2) Photos. Photoshop takes ages! Its a professional program for people who use it 8 hours per day. Irfanview is a free image program that is so fast your undies will burn! Then its the way you use it: if your camera is set to take, say, 800x400 photos you know after a while you need to reduce each photo by 40% so it will fit on your blog page. So you can do that within seconds.

Then just upload it to Blogger as you write your post.

Posts do not have to be long and written like a London Times Journalist... just a bit of a word splatter and a piccy. People couldn't give a rats botties about your spelling and grammar they just want to ogle your lifestyle and jealously make up stories about you

So have a play with Blogger


Mark

[Topazken]

Ken Hellewell - Solo Circumnavigator, and Author of , Ken's Comprehensive Cruising Guide for the Kingdom of Tonga, Ken's Torres Strait Passage Guide & Ken's Cruising Yacht.

www.kenhellewell.com

[Latitude9.5]

I don't mess with photos at all, i raw upload them and the gallery software resizes them, as far as blog posts you can keep it as frequent or as infrequent as you'd like.... just like making posts here, but the friends and family can keep up on their own time.

[maxingout]

We have had websites up about four years now, and we use Microsoft Front Page. Our main website is MaxingOut.com.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by maxingout

MaxingOut.com.

Maxingout is a great website! The colours are the colours of cruising, the brightness of the front page looks terrific and fun. The menu drawings are wonderful. The video being on the front page up the top is perfect. The photos on the inside pages are big and nicely optimised to be clear and not take up too much (expensive) server space and allow them to load quickly.

All in all if someone is thinking of making a website have a look at it.

[maxingout]

Mark,

Thanks for the kind comments about Maxingout. We have about 550 pages of material up with over 2500 pictures on our web sites. It's a lot of work, but a great deal of fun as well.

I enjoy cruising websites because it gives everyone the opportunity to publish their experiences without needing a book publisher. You also get to use color photos which would be impossible if you were publishing on paper as it would be too expensive. Although you don't make any money, you get to go around the world with your web sites. On average we are getting about sixty countries visiting Maxingout.com each week. Believe it or not, the greatest number of hits comes out of China, and the second largest number of hits comes out of Australia.