Adventures, old and new

Image via Wikipedia

I'm such a geek, and so taken with Apture, that I've just gone back through my (old) September dispatches from London and added all kinds of rich content goodness to them -- links, photos, maps and a video or two. Some of my loyal readers are just as geeky as I am and like this sort of thing, so I encourage you to go back and re-read the posts while clicking on the Apture links for all the extras. If you have questions about any of the places I saw, or want more info about anything, leave me a comment and I'll search out some more content for you.

And now for the new: I've just purchased a ticket to Santa Fe, New Mexico for five days in May for the unbeatable price of $196 round trip (airfare Hartford/Albuquerque; the shuttle up to Santa Fe will be another $25). Now, I'm doing online research on cheap places to stay, reading reviews and watching some clunky homemade videos of various B&B offerings. It's been ten or twelve years since my one and only previous trip to Santa Fe, and that was for a conference so I really didn't have an opportunity to explore much back then. This visit may have a daytrip up to Taos and will definitely involve lots of photo-taking. More info to follow as I make a spreadsheet of the things I want to do and see. Meanwhile, winter drags on like an indeterminant sentence. It's good to have something to look forward to -- especially something involving sunshine and warm weather.

I'm Captured by Apture

I know I say this whenever I find some new gadget or gizmo, but this one really is the best thing for blogs since sliced bread. It's called Apture, and like Zemanta, it helps you to add links to your blog posts. But Apture takes things beyond where Zemanta goes -- with Apture, you can link to media files and point to more than one place with your link. It creates pop-up boxes -- yes, we all hate pop-up boxes, but stay with me here -- that show you a Wikipedia article, map, video, photo, or all of those things for one target.

I'm not very good at explaining this, so you'll have to see it in action. Go to one of my posts below. You'll notice that some of the links have a wee icon (book, camera, movie film, etc.) to the left of the link. Those are Apture links. Mouse over the link, but don't click. A box will open up and you'll see the linked item without ever leaving my blog. In most instances, I've got only one item for each link, but I've added maps and photos to some of them and will add more in due time.

If you like what you see, click on Get Apture at the bottom of one of my boxes. All you have to do is create a free account and follow the steps to put a gadget box on your blog. There's no software to download, so you can use it on any computer once you've made your account. Be sure to watch the tutorial video. You'll be Aptured before you know it.