Well, it's been another year since we didn't win the Artvoice Best of 2005 contest. I hope maybe this year we will have a better chance. I think last year a lot of people voted online and then it seems like those votes went away at some point. Maybe someone else knows more details about how that worked.

Another problem is that a lot of you voted for best blog but we aren't really a blog, we are a blogging/community website, and they do have a best website award so it would be best to vote for that. If you want to vote for someone's individual blog that would seem more appropriate for the best blog contest.

Anyhow, I guess we should try again although the motivation of getting ntoiced so that we can get a new server has been resolved since Artvoice is hosting us as a result of meeting Jamie at the event last year.

The best way is probably to vote by filliing out a ballot in artvoice but you can also click on the image above to vote online

Welcome to Gather - An e:strip file sharing utility to help peeps share files with each other on and off their journals. After uploading a file, you will be given a url that you can use on your journal or to give to another peep so that they can pick up the file.

You can log in with your regular estrip username and password. Other peeps will need to log in with their username and password in order to pick up the files.







I hope you like the cute little graphics. They are minimal and I got the perspective off a bit, but I like the look they ended up with.

I also upgraded the chat. Right now there are no sounds but it should be really fast now.

it will be back soon - the chat that is in the mean time you can chat here

-paul

I just noticed the quick correct button was broken so I fixed it. It is the one that looks like a chidlrens block under above the publish button. It quickly corrects common typos such as "teh", "somethign" etc.

Try typing "teh" in one of you journals and then click it.

I fixed the sound for safari. Thanks to e:jenks for noticing it was broken. Or wait maybe I hate e:jenks for using safari - j/k. No it's good because she catches all the bugs.

If you want sound and don't hear it it is because the new sound engine is piping sounds from javascript to flash player 8. No more stupid messy quicktime plugin that was so buggy and no more long sound load times. It also ended that ridiculous bug that made the window pop forward all the time.

So if you don't have the latest flash player you should upgrade. You should upgrade for secxurity and other bug fixes anyways. they release new players all the time. You can get it here

e:uncutsaniflush I am going to leave you in charge of seeing how this works or doesn't work with linux - is there are flash palyer 8 yet - because my linux desktop is now the server and I can't play with it.

I also updated the quick correct typo catcher - see the jorunal below.

Chat Archives
I have finally dried out the latest 11,700 lines of estrip chat into an achive file. You can find it on the media page with all other chat since 2004 or simply click on the picture below.

That is a lot of lines for only 3 months.



Journal Music
I have also made it so that your journal music can play by default if you uploaded an mp3 into the system using the your journal music control panel. If you want to change it so that the music does not play by default, which I would suggest - then just open up your preferences control panel - the red switch icon in your control panel - and set "Automatically Play Journal Music" to no.



Either way if someone has music loaded into their journal a play button will show up under their user pic. CLicking on it starts the music. If the music is on it turns into a red square. Clicking on the red square stops the music.

If the user has the music on by default the play button will default to a red square.

The journal sound on/sound off toggle now overides all sound on the page. I moved everything to the new system so you can toggle sound on an d off that way. You can also toggler sound off in your preferences control panel.

I should probably write help files about this. If something isn;t working empty your cache before telling me. All sounds now require flash player 8. You can get it here .

Stay tuned, next I am going to work on the editing system and the profiles.

It now works allow syou to pick up dropped off files in IE. I guess there was a bug I hadn;t tested for IE. It also send syou a confirmation email with the pickup information so that you can't lose it.

I switched it so that journal music auto play is off by default. You can easily turn it on in your prefernces if you want. Users can always play and pause the music by using the play button under your userpic,

The site should be faster now. There was a runaway process eating up the server resources.

I fixed it so that there are three sound tracks. What does this mean for you. It means you can listen to usersounds even while the chat and other noises are happening.