http://climbers.net/blog/ Climbing photography & Web site design. weekly 3 2008-07-31T16:50+01:00 2008-07-31T16:50+01:00 Copyright (c) 2008 Climbers.net Climbers.net (mailto:webmaster@climbers.net) http://climbers.net/blog/Boycott-the-Beijing-Olympics Nick Smith 2008-07-31T16:50+01:00 I love sports, and I normally enjoy watching the Olympics and supporting the dedication of athletes in the UK and from all over the world. However I've decided to not watch any coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics on TV, in newspapers or websites. I'm doing this for two main reasons - firstly... http://climbers.net/blog/Exhibiting-at-Cliffhanger-12-13th-July-Sheffield Nick Smith 2008-05-29T08:12+01:00 We're very excited to be exhibiting at Cliffhanger this year - an annual festival for outdoor people in Millhouses Park, Sheffield, 12th & 13th July 2008. There will be the British Bouldering Championships, dyno competition, free climbing wall, caving, mountain biking, Orienteering Ultra Sprint,... http://climbers.net/blog/Its-all-gone-dark Nick Smith 2008-05-12T12:42+01:00 The standard Climbers.net website is uses light colours, with plenty of white space. However some people prefer to view photography with black or dark backgrounds, as you can get better visual contrast, so we've added a new option to the site: At the bottom of every page there is the option... http://climbers.net/blog/Gear-Garmin-Forerunner-50 Nick Smith 2008-04-24T17:44+01:00 I've resisted the urge to splash out on a fancy GPS-tracking/heart rate monitor/watch for several years now (most unlike me ;) ) but I've finally given in and bought a Garmin Forerunner 50, with the foot pod & heart rate monitor. I decided against the GPS-enabled versions because they are quite... http://climbers.net/blog/Getting-back-into-running Nick Smith 2008-04-11T10:32+01:00 My running is very much stop/start unfortunately: a couple of months of regular running and then a few months off, either because of injury or a lack of motivation. I had a series of nasty colds in December/January last year and didn't want to risk any aerobic exercise, which then ended up turning... http://climbers.net/blog/New-Rock-climbing-book-for-kids Nick Smith 2008-03-29T14:14+00:00 Rock Climbing (Xtreme Sports) This is a short, colourful book aimed at children that was written by Kate Cooper ("gingerkate" on UKClimbing.com). It's packed full of interesting facts about climbing and includes some great pictures from all over the world, including some good historical shots of... http://climbers.net/blog/New-peak-district-climbing-guidebook Nick Smith 2008-03-27T16:23+00:00 Published this week is the new Vertebrate Outdoor guidebook to the Peak District. This guidebook features over 850 of the Peak District's best routes and boulder problems, concentrating on low-to-mid grades (Mod to HVS, F5 to F6c+). The Peak's best gritstone and limestone crags are covered,... http://climbers.net/blog/PicLens-photographic-slideshows Nick Smith 2008-03-10T19:24+00:00 PicLens is a free browser add-on that allows for amazing full-screen browsing of photo galleries. From their website: "PicLens instantly transforms your browser into a full-screen, 3D experience for viewing images on the web. Photos will come to life via a cinematic presentation that goes well... http://climbers.net/blog/UKClimbing-site-Classifieds Nick Smith 2008-03-07T13:58+00:00 We have made a significant upgrade to the section of the site formerly known as 'Databases'. The Crags section has been moved to now be part of Logbooks (which it already was really) and the listings of shops, walls, clubs, etc. have been moved to the new all-singing and all-dancing Classified... http://climbers.net/blog/New-ROCKFAX-Northern-England Nick Smith 2008-02-29T14:28+00:00 Published this month is the new ROCKFAX guidebook to Northern England - from Yorkshire Grit all the way up to Northumberland. The book is a selected route and crag guide although it still manages to pack over 2350 routes between its covers, spread across 44 crags. The main focus is on routes of all... http://climbers.net/blog/Costa-Blanca-climbing-without-photos Nick Smith 2008-02-14T12:09+00:00 It does seem a bit odd to be adding this to my Photography blog, but I've just got back from an excellent week of rock climbing in the Costa Blanca (Spain) - a week in which I never even took my camera out of the bag! It was just Chris Moor and myself out there, so the opportunities for photos... http://climbers.net/blog/Ice-climbing-in-the-Alps Nick Smith 2008-01-25T12:18+00:00 This was only my second time ice climbing, and I booked onto the Jagged Globe Alpine Ice course, which is a 7 day course based in the Chamonix and Cogne regions of the Alps. My main focus was learning to ice climb, so it was a case of whipping out my new Canon SD870 compact camera for a few quick... http://climbers.net/blog/Camera-gear-Canon-SD870-IS Nick Smith 2008-01-09T13:55+00:00 I've been working my way "up" Canon's digital SLRs in recent years - I started with a 300D, then a 20D, and last year a full-frame 5D. However my latest camera is a tiny compact that only weighs 165g. I'm hoping to use it on multi-pitch rock routes, as well as in the mountains where lugging a... http://climbers.net/blog/UKClimbing-site-using-XHTML-CSS-standards Nick Smith 2007-12-30T16:20+00:00 We've just completed upgrading the UKClimbing.com website to use XHTML/CSS industry standards. Previously the site, which has over 300,000 pages, used a combination of HTML v4 tags, TABLEs layout and some very basic CSS. All web browsers produced in the last 10 years support CSS and it was finally... http://climbers.net/blog/UKClimbing-Premier-Posts-upgrade Nick Smith 2007-12-21T14:14+00:00 We've just launched a major new upgrade to the UKC Premier Posts system, for posting enhanced threads on the popular UKC message forums. Video clips from YouTube The biggest addition to the Premier Posts system is the ability to embed video clips from YouTube in your PP. Posts with video in...