Some of the more technical people may have heard of ubuntu linux. I am very fond of it, and although I now realise there are better linux distributions out there, ubuntu was my first exploration into the world of linux.
I now work very closly with ubuntu server, and you will be very pleased to know that Pembrokeshire Beaches is hosted on an ubuntu server.

Ubuntu server does not attempt to make a user friendly enviroment for less technical users (a feat in itself for linux), unlike the desktop edition, but boots extremly quickly into a command line interface. Now, if I want to install linux on a computer, I install ubuntu server with no server applications installed. This way it is a very basic linux OS allowing me to install just the programmes I want.

Anyway, the whole point of this entry is both because I am bored and I want to display an Ubuntu 8.10 count down on one of my (many) websites. So, here it is…

Everyone is interested in how many visitors a website gets, I myself often spend ages looking at all the different types of graphs and tables that represent the vast (or very little) amount of visitors I get on this website. Each year I get more and more visitors during the summer, with the peak in July. Here are the unique visitors (blue) and returning visitors (orange) for the last few months (as of 22 August - so expect a few more hits in that last month):

July had about 1,853 page loads, wich means each visitor visited, on average,  3 - 4 pages. In most cases some visited more and others only the home page. These set of stats aren’t overly impressive, and I hope to get some more next year. Meanwhile I will be starting to design the new website for 2009 and welcome your suggestions (please comment on this post), I hope to get a lot more beaches and photos in at least. It is usual for me to launch a new, better website every year (and have done so far) and the new Pembokeshire Beaches 2009 will be launched around April next year, perhaps May so I can sort any problems out before all my visitors arrive.

You are welcome to look at my stats anytime, just use this link: http://my.statcounter.com/project/standard/stats.php?project_id=3551119&guest=1 . It is not always wise to tell your visitors how little people are actually going to your website, which is why I never display a counter on any of my websites; there are either too few visitors to put it on or there are enough to make the counter look unprofessional. But I thought it would be nice to let you know the immense popularity of your favorite website, and also to keep the blog (which has virtually no hits) up to date.

The website will still be up, of course, all year, so tell all your friends about it, especially in the run up the the sumer hols next year. I have noticed that some people have been refered to this site from an email account, a good way to tell people as they have a record of the website address.

Hope you had a nice holiday,
James

The battle for a .cym domain to represent wales has recently recieved £20,000 from the Welsh government to help with thier bid for a .cym top-level-domain (like .com, .co.uk, .net, .org etc at the end of website addresses).  The responsible organisation for top level domains, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), says it wants to introduce lots more new lop-level-domains to cope with the expanding internet.

If the .cym domain becomes available, it will be part of an organistation that will only issue it to websites which match its criteria. For example, the dotCYM campaign says the domain is primarily to promote the Welsh language, so only websites that are related to the Welsh language or demonstrate some kind of Welsh culture will be alble to have a .cym domain. This moderation is good as it stops anyone with no relation to Wales buying a .cym domain just so no one else takes it. I am just hoping pembrokeshirebeaches.cym will be accepted - after all is is part of Wales, and is promoting Wales, even though Pemrokeshire is a very English speaking part of Wales. Maybe if the website gets translated into Welsh? Maybe not, I don’t know any Welsh or know anyone who does.

Hwyl,
James

There have been recent sightings of ‘killer jellyfish’ on the beaches of Britain,  apparently of the Portuguese man-of-war jellyfish at Cornwall and Devon.  This was discovered as the Marine Conservation Society found an unusually large breed of jellyfish as it moniters our coasts.  As far as I know, there have been no sigtings of them in Pembrokeshire, so no worry there then.

Dispite the incredibly poor weather, there have been lots of peple swimming in our beaches with no problem, so no need to worry about getting eaten or stung.  You should come over before the holidays end and have a nice few days on the beach, there are plenty of vacent holiday cottages around even if you just want to come up for a day or two.

For a full range of colourful greetings cards and prints by Pembrokeshire artist Claudia Myatt have a look at www.starfishbooks.co.uk.  Images from some cards are featured on the beach pages - Marloes Sands and Red Boat, Solva have been added and there are more to follow…..

I have now fixed the map on the homepage - if you still can’t see it click refresh while on the homepage.

Make sure you know how to stay safe on our beaches - follow the points below:

Tides
It is very easy to get cut off from the tide, you must always check what time high and low water is and make sure you keep an eye on the tide while on the beach, especially if have gone round a headland to a part of the beaches where there is no land access, or if you are exploring caves.  Tide table booklets are available cheaply in bookshops, or you can look up the tides for the next 5 days by going to http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/coast/tides/wales.shtml.  It is also very important to watch out for tidal currents when swimming; if there are lifeguards swim in between the red and yellow flags:
RED AND YELLOW flags are areas safe for swimming, bodyboarding and inflatables.

Tombstoning / jumping
Jumping from a height is strongly not recommended, however there are a few guidelines to follow if you do:

• Check that the depth of water is deep enough to jump into, bearing in mind the tide can go out quickly, you will need about 5m of water if you are jumping from a 10m height.
• Check for hazards like sharp / shallow rocks or groynes under the water.
• Bear in mind the influence to other people - if there are lots of younger, less strong people around do not do it.

Bodyboarding

• Make sure you have a leash and flippers.
• Only board on a lifeguarded beach in between the red and yellow flags, or at least make sure someone else knows you are bodyboarding and stay within their sight.
• If you get into trouble stay calm, stay with your board and wave for help.

Surfing

• Always surf on a lifeguarded beach in between the black and white flags:
  BLACK AND WHITE flags are areas for surfing and kayaking only.
  
• Always wear a leash.
• If you get into trouble stay calm, stay on your board and wave for help.
• Don’t surf in between the red and yellow flags

Inflatables

• Only use inflatables on lifeguarded beaches, between red and yellow flags.
• Never use inflatables when the orange windsock is flying (which means the wind can blow you out to sea):
  ORANGE WINDSOCK indicated offshore winds, inflatables should never be used when this is flying.
  
• Children’s inflatables should be held on a line by an adult.

Swimming
Be careful of rip currents which can wash strong swimmers beyond their depth.  Rip currents cause brown water, foam and debris floating out to sea.

Red flag
You should never enter the water, even in watercraft, if  the red flag is flying. This indicates danger:

A beach safety information booklet containing more information can be obtained free by emailing beachsafety[at]rnli.org.uk or calling 0800 328 0600.  Copies are also available from RNLI lifeboat stations, life guards and tourist information centres. This website (pembrokeshirebeaches.co.uk) tells you which beaches are lifeguarded (or will do as soon as I get round to it).

Thanks to the Western Telegraph for providing some information.

You have probably noticed the map on the homepage is just a white box. This problem is known about and is being dealt with. Meanwhile, you can still search for beaches or use the table underneath the map.

Welcome to this brand new Pembrokeshire Beaches look!  We have recently updated our hosting, and thought it would be nice to update the website with a few new features.  Here are a list of improvements we have made:

Beach search
You can search our database of beaches with our own search engine.  This searches the name, subtitle and content of the review of each beach, so you can easily find your beach.  Finding a beach is not so difficult now with only 19 beaches reviewed, but we aim to add a lot more beaches so the search will soon be very valuable!

Comments
You can now add comments to any beach, with no compulsory registration.  You do not even have to give your email address.  This means users can get an idea of the beach from a variety of experiences.  Please add your own comments - even if it is just to say ‘nice beach!’ We monitor these comments on a daily basis to get rid of spam.  We record the IP address of every comment and will block those who post spam, irrelevant comments or comments promoting another website or business.

Blog
I added this Word Press blog to keep users up-to-date with the latest beach news and website development. Please look back regularly to find news on beaches found in Pembrokeshire’s local newspaper.  You can quickly go to the blog by the address blog.pembrokeshirebeaches.co.uk.

New look
And finally - a new design!  As I had to transfer the website from a simple WYSIWYG website editor to a modern PHP MySQL website editor I thought I might as well ditch that old shabby design and think up of a new classy look.

Please give us feedback about the new website - positive or negative, and make use of the new features to get the new website started.