Batgung

Back in March, gweipo gave us a good observation:

To be honest i think that your site has become 2 things, one is the present HK with tips for newcomers and oldies on living here, surviving and thriving here.  And then delving into the past.

We've decided to split these '2 things' apart, and give each one its own website. Read more »

If you're already writing in to the site (thank you!) I hope these 'how-to' notes will give you some new ideas of what is possible here.

And if you're currently a reader, but thinking about writing in, I hope you'll see it isn't difficult. Read more »

We've made some changes so that it's easier to give photos a location. That in turn will make it easier to search for photos that you are interested in.

What it is

If you look at a photo (the software we use to run this site calls them 'images'), you'll now see a new section 'Places shown in this photo:'. And, ta-da, it is followed by a list of the places you can see in the photo.

Similarly, if you look at a place, you'll see a new section 'Photos that show this place', which ... well, you know already. Read more »

The next time you add / edit a place or an image, you'll see latitude and longitude fields where you can type in their values directly. This will be most useful for readers like T who are using GPS devices to record their position.

You can still set the location by clicking on the map: the latitude & longitude fields will automatically update to display the correct values for your marker's position. Read more »

25 Sep, 13:57 UPDATE

If you can read this, you're looking at batgung.com running on the new hosting company's servers.

Everything should be back to normal, but please let us know if you find anything broken. We have a 30-day trial with the new company, so if there are any problems (pages displaying much slower than before, pages not displaying, features broken, etc.) let's find them early on. Read more »

Here's how to include a photo in a new place, comment, or forum post.

I'm assuming your photo is hosted on another server, and you know the url of the file, eg

http://byfiles.storage.live.com/y1prhjovjDKlK7f4ROWXz3x-URBoPSLzpGbDli3L8mBQ0ntZ0gePDldxEf_QqyVCOGx  Read more »

Anonymous users (anyone that isn't logged in) will see a change in the way the site behaves. When they visit www.batgung.com or click any of the 'home' links, the page will not update. The easiest way to spot this is that the banner photo doesn't change.

If you want to force the page to update (eg to update the 'What's new' section on the left), just press the F5 key.

Or log in - then the page updates every time you view it.

Why the change? Read more »

If you've already logged in to batgung.com, you're ready to upload photos (the software we use calls them images) from your computer to this site.

Some reminders first: Read more »

Here's a new feature to make it easier to include batgung's photos in your text. Currently you can include photos in new places, forum topics, or comments. Note that you have to be logged in to use this feature.

Here's how it works. You start by creating your text as normal. Here we are writing a new forum topic:

On the bar below the body text I've circled the camera button. Click in the text area to place your cursor where you want to add a photo, then click the camera button.

Last week we introduced the new Places feature. They help you find your way to a place in Hong Kong.

That's great if you know where you want to get to. But what if you've just got a vague idea? eg 'I expect to be working in Central, which serviced apartments are nearby?'. Or "I'm staying in a hotel on Nathan Road, any friendly pubs nearby?". Read more »