Before we get into full trip planning mode for February, I decided to throw together a few minor updates to the site here.

Welcome Page
For first timers to the site, I added a Welcome page that gives a brief overview of the different sections we feature.  There is a link at the top of the sidebar on the main page to make it easy for newcomers to find.  If you’re new to the site, or have only been reading the blog posts, go ahead and check it out.

New Weather Page
I also updated the Weather page this weekend, improving the look of the current conditions section and switching the data feeds from weather.gov to Yahoo! Weather.  The change to use Yahoo! also features 4 new locations on Maui that I wasn’t able to display previously.  I’ve also updated the current weather on the sidebar of the home page as well, to reflect this change.

Photo Tag Match – The Rematch
Earlier in the year, I had a little fun with the Flickr API and created something called the Photo Tag Match.  The concept was to count how many publically available photos on Flickr were tagged with any of the names of one of the Hawaiian islands.  For example, at this moment there are over 400K photos tagged with Maui, and over 3,000 added in the last 7 days.  To my joy, Maui has come out #1, or as we say, “No Ka ‘Oi”.

But, the island of Oahu, which has more residents living there than the other islands combined (source: Wikipedia), would not take to 2nd place rather lightly.  So I created a rematch, this time using geotagging information stored in photos on Flickr.  While there aren’t nearly as many photos on Flickr that are geotagged versus tagged with an island name, Oahu beat out Maui by a ratio of 2:1, with the Big Island matching a strong charge in 3rd place.

Other Geotagging
I thought doing the rematch was an interesting idea, and since I’ve been geotagging my photos for the last two years now, I thought it was worth sharing.  I’ve created some neat things using my GPS travel recorder and my photography, such as the Ka’anapali Beachwalk Photo Tour here.  Also, all the photos from our Road to Hana ’08 Trip have also been geotagged, so you can see a map of exactly where something was taken along that magical journey.  Lastly, our Island Guide map has links to photos taken in a particular location, just by clicking on one of the markers for a location you’d like to see.  Pretty neat.

More to Come
Other than neat new features on the site, I still need to get back to filling out details for other sections that are just dying for my attention.  A quick look at how many “coming soon” messages are listed on our site map (no, don’t click the link), it is a constant reminder that I’m a little behind. And with all the new things we’re going to be planning for our next trip, I need to get those finished before I’m really behind.

So play around with these new updates and let me know what you think.  I’m always looking for feedback and ideas on how make the site more useful and engaging.

Mahalo.
– Kris