dankarran.com > latest news > March 2005

March 2005 news

Blog is launched posted 30 Mar 2005 by Dan Karran [permalink] On Friday last week I began experimenting with a new part for the site, a blog. Blogs, or web logs, are regularly updated web pages that allow the author to write about topics which are of interest. It is now at a stage where I am happy to launch it and welcome in visitors stopping by to see other parts of my site. In the blog I will be writing about topics such as photography, geographic information, web design and development and any other things which take my fancy along the way. As I write, the latest entry in the blog is about the recent release of Churchill: The Hollywood Years, a movie which I was an extra in back in 2003. The news section of the site will now only be updated with actual news about the site itself whilst anything else will be written about in the blog.

New photos of London posted 25 Mar 2005 by Dan Karran [permalink] Apart from one photo, it's been almost two years since I added any new photos of London to my London photo gallery - there were a few special features created, but that's it. So when I went to Greenwich yesterday with the rest of the students off my MSc course, I thought it was about time to take some new photos for the gallery. I've uploaded seven new photos, including my first ones of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. One of the new photos is a photo of Tower Bridge. This isn't just any photo of Tower Bridge though, it's a bit of a special one. The day that our boat travelled underneath just happened to be the first day in many years that the bridge had stopped working. It had locked in the open position (just slightly - so you can't tell from the photo) and was causing traffic chaos.

Creating your own search system posted 10 Mar 2005 by Dan Karran [permalink] Having spent time the other day working on a new site search for my site I have just uploaded details of how to create your own search system using the Google API and PHP. I hope it is useful for someone else.

Improved searching posted 7 Mar 2005 by Dan Karran [permalink] I have implemented a new, improved search system today, based on the technology Google use to search billions of pages across the internet. Google supply a piece of software to developers that lets them harness the power of their mighty search engine to put to their own uses, and that is exactly what I've done. You can now search the whole site where previously you could only search certain sections. Where a thumbnail preview is available - such as for photos and for websites in my web development portfolio - it will display it for you alongside the results. If you misspell something, the system will suggest an alternative (although only if there is a near enough alternative which Google can find in their dictionary). Please do try it out, it can be very handy if you're looking for something in particular. For example you could find out about my time at Reuters, learn more about the churches I've taken photos of, find out about my nightmare of a Halloween or anything you want.