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Edition 441: 30th July, 2016 Hi ExplorOz Reader, If you're an ExplorOz Member, then one of the benefits of your subscription is the ability to post your photos, stories and trip logs into the blogs section of the ExplorOz website. There are very few restrictions but there are some tips and recommendations we can give you to ensure your blogs look great and are easily found by other site users so here's 5 blogging tips:
- Create a new blog entry each time you do a blog update - if you are doing a long trip and are writing blogs as you go, then each update from your trip should be posted as a new blog entry. This ensures it appears in the NEW BLOGS list on the Blogs home page, plus it appears on the ExplorOz Home Page in the What's New scrolling features. This ensures people find your blogs as soon as you do the update, but it also keeps your blogs shorter and easier to read and reduces page file size download which helps people who open blog pages using mobile devices over data plans. Please avoid posting too many photos per blog page. I know this is hard - Australia is so beautiful and your pictures are fantastic and must be shared BUT keep it under 30 pictures please!! That's 10 rows of 3 pics per row (the default).
- Put your best picture first - the first pic that appears anywhere in your blog will be the one that is enlarged and shown on the ExplorOz home page in the What's New, and will be the tagged pic in the results list so pick your best one so that it gets attention.
- Write succinct blog titles - each blog you write must have a title and this must be different for each blog, so if you're going to write up a series of blogs for a long trip you might wish to create a theme eg. Cape York 2016 and then for each update, add Part 1, Part 2 etc. Another idea is to use Trip Days (eg. Winter Desert Tour - Days 1-15; Winter Desert Tour - Days 16 - 25, and so on).
- Don't resize your pics - so long as your pics are formatted as jpgs then you can upload them in full size format. The image upload tool will create the required resized thumbnails automatically plus keep the full size for when people click the image.
- Tag your pictures to known Places - be careful to select the correct Place for your photos - these will appear on the tagged Place pages too. If you have a photo of the Birdsville Races, don't tag to Birdsville (as that is the township). Tag to Birdsville Racecourse. Be specific.
TRAVELLERS TALK
See what's been said about the ExplorOz Traveller App:
11 Jun 16 Frank P (NSW) Rating 5/5
This app was released on 10 June 2016. On release, users of some devices, including me on my device, experienced significant stability problems that were not encountered in development. Within 24 hours those issues were fixed and released in V1.7.2 in the early hours of 11 June. Not a bad effort, EO Team!! I have found V1.7.2 to be 100% stable. It does what the designers said it would do and brings together into one package a number of desirable facilities that ExplorOz offers on its website. I am still learning, but already find that it is a great resource that helps me get the best out of all the travellers' facilities that the ExplorOz website offers. If you had difficulties with the release version you would be well advised to update to this version and try it again.
03 Jul 16 Mike & Sally (VIC) Rating 5/5
We were very happy to be able to load the maps using the new app prior to heading off on our trip. We are using an Apple iPhone without a problem. They have been really useful up here in Cape York where Internet connection is intermittent. We have found some great spots to stay using the information. We have yet to add comments on camping spots and caravan parks but will in time.
23 Jul 16 Pete Jackman (SA) Rating 4/5
Initial impressions - great. Seamless recognition on my EO Topo licence. No maps on SD card is an issue but I see you are working on that. Thanks. As I can only hold one 144k map in main memory what would be nice is the ability to store the other two zones on the SD card so I can load them from there as needed. Then I don't need to blow my data alowance (sic) or wait for ages to download over free wifi. Also on the email I received it said: "Please LIKE our official ExplorOz Traveller Facebook Page to get notifications about developments to the app, find out what we're currently working on, and get full details of any new version." As a non social media using luddite it there another way of being notified of updates? Thanks for the great work David and Michelle.
Do you have something to add? If you already own the ExplorOz Traveller App, please rate it and add your comments in the relevant app store.
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