Archive for the 'site news' Category

Video Trial

Published
by
Modern Hiker
on January 22, 2008
in Web Sites and Apps, hiking and site news
. 7 Comments

I got back in from an excellent stay in Joshua Tree, and will be trying to catch up with some of my write ups for the site over the next few days. I just got slammed at work, so it may be a bit, but I’ve got three varied J-Tree hikes to add to the list, as well as a pre-tree journey to Sunset Peak by Mt. Baldy.

So I’m gonna be busy. Also, I’m still in the process of cleaning out all my equipment.

In the meantime, however, I thought I’d do a little experiment with some video. Now that ReadySetConnect is very kindly hosting the Modern Hiker, I’d like to abandon the Google Video for some higher-resolution QuickTime videos stored locally, instead.

This is NOT a replacement for all of the information and commentary offered in my usual write-ups, but if people dig these and think they add some value, I’ll work to incorporate them more prominently in the future.

Keep in mind, this particular video from Sunset Peak is rough … and there wasn’t a whole lot of finesse put into it, but it’s a start. Let me know what you think / if you’d like to see better ones on hikes in the future. I’ll try to put my camera’s video function to better use.
Continue reading ‘Video Trial’

Enjoy the Weekend

Published
by
Modern Hiker
on January 18, 2008
in site news
. 0 Comments

I’m off to Joshua Tree for a few days, and will return with several new hike write-ups, if all goes well.

Enjoy your long weekend and get outside!

2007 in Numbers

Published
by
Modern Hiker
on December 20, 2007
in hiking, motivations and site news
. 5 Comments

Well, I’m about to fly off to New England for the holidays, which means it’s probably the end of meaningful Southern California hiking for the year.

Although I didn’t get to all of the places I wanted to, I still had some pretty impressive milestones — I went on several long-distance day hikes, qualified for the Sierra Club’s Hundred Peaks Chapter, and had my fair share of backpacking adventures — both ill and well fated.

My mileage for this year was actually a bit lower than last (I’ll blame hot summers, fire closures, and my new discovery of ‘The Beach’ for that one), but I almost doubled my elevation gain numbers for ‘06. Peakbagging will do that, I guess.

Total Mileage: 209 miles.
Total Elevation Gain: 89,090 feet (15.2% average uphill grade)
Total Time Spent Hiking: 3 days, 22 hours, 18 minutes.

The site itself has taken off a bit, too. From a lil’ ol blogspot site to some adventures on my former host to the current, sponsored-hosting, I’ve been lucky to find myself a little web-niche and gain an audience of tech-savvy outdoorsfolk — as well as (hopefully) some Angelenos who are just learning our sprawling megalopolis has some great nature nearby. Traffic has been steadily increasing since I launched last November, and I’m grateful for everyone who reads and explores.

2008, hopefully, will hold more improvements and adventures. I want to get my Map working again, and continue tweaking the site design to make information easier to find and access. I also have a nice chunk of Paid Time Off stored up, and want to hit up those elusive Utah National Parks — as well as bag San Gorgonio, San Bernardino, San Jacinto, and (maybe even) Whitney.

I’ll be doing some sporadic site work from New England — and hopefully going snowshoeing, now that they have seasonal weather again.

So congrats to everyone who laced up a hiking boot this year — let’s get ready to do it again in 2008.

200 in 2007

Published
by
Modern Hiker
on December 2, 2007
in hiking, motivations and site news
. 3 Comments

Just hit my 200th mile for 2007, hiking Iron Mountain in the western San Gabriels. I’ll have a full write-up soon, and it will have the honor of being the first major post to come from my shiny new Mac. We’ll see how it goes…

A Note On Browsers

Published
by
Modern Hiker
on November 28, 2007
in site news
. 0 Comments

I’m aware this site looks all messed up in Internet Explorer (or IE6, at least), and am working on a solution. I should have it fixed by this weekend.

Thankfully, my readers appear to be quite tech-savvy, though. A recent check found 60% of Modern Hiker readers use Firefox as their Internet Weapon of Choice, with another 13% opting for Safari and Opera. Give yourselves a pat on the back for using decent browsers!

Still, I’m going to mess around with code for the remaining MSIE fans. It just may take a little while.

Still Working

Published
by
Modern Hiker
on November 21, 2007
in site news
. 0 Comments

I’m still hard at work on the site design — fighting things like Wordpress plugins and ISP outages. But there has been some progress.

All of the categories are working now, and I’m going to be working on making the site more visually interesting and creating a centralized page for all the hikes I’ve written-up over the past year. Longer term projects include making the page play nice in Internet Explorer (damn that browser!), figuring out why the Google Maps page doesn’t work anymore (or just finding an alternate), and writing up a recent hike of Mount San Antonio.

Also, trying to do all this while my PC’s wireless card craps out every seven minutes.

Please feel free to let me know what you think, and add suggestions. I’m looking forward to getting everything running together so I can get back to writing!

Live Updating

Published
by
Modern Hiker
on November 17, 2007
in site news
. 0 Comments

Hey everybody.

So it looks like everything is back up and running semi-smoothly. Please be patient with the site, as I fool around with some redesigns, streamlining, and other fun kinds of modernization. Feel free to comment here with suggestions and opinions. What do you want to see more prominently? What do or don’t you like about the design? Is it easy enough to find what you’re looking for?

All that sort of stuff.

Also, the Trail Map is broken for the time being. There’s some coding issue with the new WordPress and Cyberhobo’s awesome GeoMashup plugin - and they’re working on them. I’m no code-wizard, so I’m just gonna sit back and fix what I can on my end first.

Also — be sure you’re updating your links from modernhiker.dreamhosters.com to just plain ol’ modernhiker.com. The mirror should work for a little while longer, but I’ll be taking it down soon.

Update, Please

Published
by
Modern Hiker
on November 7, 2007
in site news
. 0 Comments

look up at your address bar. If it says “modernhiker.dreamhosters.com” in there, please update your link or bookmark to simply “modernhiker.com.” I’ll be shutting down the mirror site soon, and I don’t want all your links to break!

Hey, I Won Somethin’

Published
by
Modern Hiker
on November 7, 2007
in site news
. 1 Comment

So even with all this site trouble going on, I was still named one of the Top 100 Health and Wellness Blogs by the Nursing Online Education Database. W00t!

Now, the site says the winners are listed alphabetically in the arbitrarily listed subcategories, but I’m seein’ the number 47 next to “Modern Hiker.” If I had a press secretary, he would spin this as “Modern Hiker is in the Top 50 Health and Wellness sites on the internet!” Or, since there are only ten entries in the “Walking and Hiking” category, perhaps “Modern Hiker is one of the top ten hiking sites on the internet!”

Thanks, Nurses!

One quibble — the show I write for is national, not local. Just sayin. Also, can ya take out the dreamhosters bit?

Still, it’s great company to be in!

Some Site Issues

Published
by
Modern Hiker
on November 5, 2007
in site news
. 1 Comment

So.

You may have noticed this site has been down for the past few days.

If not, you may have noticed a lot of the information on my site — like categories — are gone.

Needless to say, I’m having a few issues with my web host, which thinks my lil’ ol’ site is taking up too much CPU time. I’m going to try to straighten this out over the next few days, but access and content may be spotty.

REALLY not looking forward to re-writing all the categories. Grr.

If you link to this site, and the URL you’re using has something like “modernhiker.dreamhosters.com” in it, please do me a favor and change it to simply “modernhiker.com.” The link should still work fine, and if I should have to move to a new hosting company, you won’t even notice … except that my site will probably be up more often.