Hawaii birding pics

Posted on Nov 22, 2012 in Birding, Fun Stuff | 0 comments

Just got back from Kauai, Hawaii. Not the best place on earth for birds, but I added another 27 species to my life list – and cracked the 400 species bird count for the year! I just put up a gallery of the better shots I took. No real stunners but a couple aren’t too bad.
http://www.benjaminkeen.com/birding/hawaii-2012/

As always, I’ve uploaded the better pictures to Wikimedia Commons and updated the odd wikipedia page as well (e.g. the Kauai Amakihi).

Sadly, that’s the last trip I’ll be taking this year. The year’s highlights were definitely New Zealand and Costa Rica. Should be returning to Costa Rica next spring – pity NZ is so damn far away…!

Enjoy.

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2012 Bird List

Posted on Jul 16, 2012 in Birding, Blog, Other | 0 comments

My goal was to reach 400 bird species sighting this year: as of Nov 15th, mission accomplished! During my travels I took a number of photographs of the birds listed here. Check out: http://www.benjaminkeen.com/birding/

Fiji (12)

Fiji Parrotfinch
Collared Lory
Pacific Reef Heron
White-faced Heron3
Common Myna
Wandering Tattler
Red-vented Bulbul
Vanikoro Flycatcher
Collared Kingfisher
Wattled Honeyeater
Crested Tern
Fiji Woodswallow

New Zealand (61)

Bellbird
Pukeko
Song Thrush
Stitchbird
Tui

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Bird Photography

Posted on Jul 15, 2012 in Birding, Blog, Fun Stuff | 0 comments

The last few years I’ve been getting more and more into bird watching, or “birding” as the more officious insist on calling it. When I was traveling last year, a lot of my time was going to various birding spots in New Zealand, Australia and other countries. I thought it was high time I updated my site to include.

I’ve open-sourced a lot of the images through wikimedia, so if you need any of them – for whatever purpose – let me know and I’ll ensure they have the appropriate “rights” to let you do whatever you want with them. *sigh* what an absurdly legal world we live in.

For the moment, I’ll start with some local wildlife shots I’ve taken, then over time upload some older shots. Enjoy.

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generatedata.com

Posted on Mar 15, 2012 in Fun Stuff, generatedata.com | 1 comment

I will, well and truly, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die (what a weird expression), return to generatedata.com in the coming months. I know I’ve said this half a dozen times, but this time I MEAN IT. Honest.

So, apologies to the people who’ve emailed me – I’ve logged all your bugs & feature suggestions and I’ll bring that site back from the grave. The new beta is freakin’ awesome and I really cannot believe I never got around to releasing it. My bad.

– Ben

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Form Builder module video demo

Posted on Nov 19, 2011 in Form Tools, Fun Stuff | 0 comments

Hi all,

Demo time! Ordinarily I post screenshots of upcoming features and modules for our Form Tools script, but this time we thought I’d utilize some of this crazy “modern video technology” I keep hearing so much about.

Click the image to the right to watch a quick intro and demo to the Form Builder, showing how it can be used to create a simple “Contact Us” form on your site.

It’s a REALLY exciting new module, and the demo only touches on the base functionality. There wasn’t time to cram in all the really cool stuff (multi-page forms, validation, cool field types), so if people want more info, I can always do more videos.

Also, depending on what people think of them, I could start using them more in the documentation to explain and demonstrate the various Form Tools functionality. Personally, I think they’re a pretty great way to explain things – far better than mere screenshots. The one drawback, of course, is that you have to listen to me drone on and on, but hey, there’s always a downside.

View Demo

– Ben

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Louis Andriessen

Posted on Apr 3, 2009 in Blog, Music | 0 comments

One of my favourite modern composers is giving a talk at 2pm today at the Cascade Room on Main St. It looks like a preliminary to a series of concerts held by “Music on Main” in the coming days, to celebrate his work.

Awesomeness.

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