TGOC2020….virtually the first bit

 Virtual TGOC2020 - maybe

Kick-off was from home,taking the train from Manchester Deansgate to, ultimately, Mallaig. 

Impossibly young – too young to enter the Challenge?

Fort Bill to Mallaig, the most beautiful train journey anywhere?

It was my first long backpacking trip and I fell into the trap that all newbies fall into…I carried FAR to much gear – and it was damned heavy. Too heavy.

Day 1 of my Challenge...and the next couple of days: After an uncomfortable night in Sheena's Backpacking Hostel-type place (lots of nocturnal coughing, sniffing, grunting, farting, burping etc), it was time to sign out. 

L > R: Andrew Walker, Alan Hardy, Moi

Met up with Alan Hardy once again, he was carrying an impossibly large rucksack - almost as impossibly large as mine (although his was probably lighter than mine). Andrew went one way, heading for an unplanned helicopter ride, we went another. 

A lovely walk over Mam Barrisdale to camp on the shore of Loch Hourn where I met Sam for the first time. 

Heading East the next morning (East is good) via Kinloch Hourn to eventually camp at Alltbeithe (not THAT Alltbeithe, another one). The weather was closing in - fast - and the ground was distinctly tent-unfriendly. I spotted a tiny elevated flat area, *just* large enough to take the tent. The Saunders Spacepacker was up in double quick time, just as the heavens opened. Dinner was home-dehydrated pasta bolognese followed by rhubarb & custard - wonderful! 

The next day's destination was Tomdoun. Whilst en-route we found a pleasantly sun-shiny lunch stop on Mam na Seilg. I heard distant grunting and cursing, getting closer all the time - Keith Leonard soon introduced himself. Keith continued on his way, also heading to Tomdoun. 

We arrived at the hotel to find him wrapped around a pint. I ordered one - a moment before the bar closed for the afternoon. A very jolly evening followed....little did I realise that I was being drawn into such bad company

Yet another test with OLW

This one should…..

1) Post with text only created in OLW.
2) Publish as normal.
3) Open Blogger, go to ‘Posts’.
4) Select the post just published and select ‘Edit’
5) Add photos where required (a faff)
6) Update.

I can see the photos...but can anyone else?

Another OLW test

It won’t work, I just know it won’t work.
It didn’t.
The idea was that I should create a post in OLW and then copy and paste it into Blogger. It worked for the text but where the photo should be there was just a blank image window.
See, I was right.

Wainwright’s Pennine Journey

Assuming (hoping?) we’re allowed out, and it’s safe to do so, this looks like A Plan for later in the year:
http://www.penninejourney.org.uk/

Whilst I’m on the subject: I loaned my copy of ‘A Pennine Journey’ out to, er, someone a good few years ago….but I can’t remember who. It’s an age thing y’see.
If it was you, could you let me have it back please!
Ta.

And another...

Well, what fun!

The photos in my last post are visible on my computer, but not other computers....well not on Martin's computer anyway.

One thing I noticed: I hadn't made the album I took the photos from available for public viewing - that's now been changed.

This is a photo that I've copied and pasted from Google Photos straight into Blogger:




This photo is posted using the conventional Blogger method:

Blogger, LiveWriter and OpenLiveWriter.

I strongly suspect that work on OpenLiveWriter has stopped. I downloaded the most recent release which has supposedly fixed the problems encountered when trying to post photographs - it doesn't work, not for me anyway. Text only posts work fine, the brick wall appears when photographs are included in a post.  Things are very quiet on the OpenLiveWriter Twitter and Facebook pages, there's very little activity which more or less confirms my suspicions. I'm guessing that a major reason for this is because Google ultimately want to shut down Blogger (because they don't make any money out of it?) and they're making it more difficult to post. The original LiveWriter, a Microsoft product, provided an easy and very effective way of posting to blogs but Google, who control Blogger, appear to have moved the goalposts which effectively stopped full access via LiveWriter. Microsoft have since withdrawn LiveWriter which led to OpenLivewriter which is Open Source - although apparently still under the umbrella of Microsoft. OpenLiveWriter seemed to work for a while, but it wasn't long before it's access to Blogger was also blocked. Searching the web has uncovered a number of instances where it's been claimed that the problem has been sorted - but they're all beyond my limited technical ability. I'm happy to be corrected in my assumptions, but having spent a long time running round in circles I'm going to take some convincing. Anyroadup, here are a few photos from my first TGO Challenge, 2004.

Update:
This was originally posted using Blogger.
I then opened OpenLiveWriter and selected ‘Open Recent Post’ to open this post.
I then changed the font and font size before updating.
This seems to have been successful. So far.

Update 2:
Although the photos are visible on MY computer, others can’t see them….well Martin can’t.
I realised the album I took the photos from was private, I’ve now changed that to public….let’s see.
Update 3:
Maybe not...

Another test

With the latest version of OLW.

The problems I’ve had before are all related to posts that include photographs, text only posts were fine.

The first test, with photographs taken from my computer, failed to post. The error report:

Google.Apis.Requests.RequestError
Insufficient Permission: Request had insufficient authentication scopes. [403]
Errors [
    Message[Insufficient Permission: Request had insufficient authentication scopes.] Location[ - ] Reason[insufficientPermissions] Domain[global]
]

This test post doesn’t have photographs.