As I said yesterday in the chatbox, internet explorer 7 beta is now available
for download. I hate IE just as much as the next guy but at least this veriosn has native support for pngs and tabs!

When installing it checks to see if you have a valid copy of windows. It also requires a restart which I think is so lame but it is fun to get a glimpse of the future of crap technology!

I added some new themesand brought back a bunch of old ones after some retrofitting. Here are 11 themes now minus the amerika style which was just for the party. To switch the theme go to the homepage by clicking on the site banner and then look to the far right of your browser window. The icons are directory on the right side of latest entries list. Here are the newest three.

Klonopin style


Orange style


Tempreal style

So people always ask me, why I don't start having advertisements to support the site. I have about 10,000 reasons but they say a picture says a thousand words. This is an article about a Nagasaki Rembrance Day Vigil in Japan faetured inthe guardian UK . On the page they have a large picture of a woman looking very solomn burning insense for ease the souls of the dead, juxtaposed with an advertisment for gential herpes creme.

Quick correct is one of the best features on the site. You simply click on the little letter block cube in your journal publish box and viola, the words are fixed. Currently it corrects the following words in any entry.

"The", "the", "and", "have", "had", "a lot", "make", "aren't", "believe", "can't", "couldn't", "didn't", "her", "else", "working", "again", "doesn't", "hadn't", "hasn't", "yet", "he'd", "he'll", "here's", "he's", "how's", "has", "the", "there", "i'll", "isn't", "I've", "make", "piece", "peices", "she", "shouldn't", "should've", "that", "than", "don't", "i'm", "browser", "emlwood", "should", "that", "information"

Can anyone think of any commonly mispelled words I should add?

A good chance for you to check out virtual reality as part of Infringement Festival '05. A festival within a festival featuring works of virtual reality fictionand drama; 3D stereo graphics; artificial intelligent characters.

Coit House: 414 Virginia, at Elmwood
Two Shows Nightly at 6:00 & 8:30
Thursday, Aug 4
Friday, Aug 5
Saturday, Aug 6

Suggested Admission $4

(e:paul) made some of the characters and environments for The Trial The Trail

Well (e:Shawnr) wrote a great press release for the site announcing 10k entries. We will be sending it out to the various media sources. You can check it out on the media assets page which I am currently building. Right now it's just the basics. The release is there to.



I am also posting it here for the record.

[c]Elmwood Strip Journal and Lifestyle Network[/c]
Passes 10K Journal Entries in Under Two Years

BUFFALO, NEW YORK – JULY 27, 2005 Local Buffalo community website, Elmwood Srip Journal and Lifestyle Network (aka “ElmwoodStrip.org” or, simply, “(e:strip)”), passed ten thousand journal entries today. With a rapidly growing user base of nearly 200 Buffalonians, ElmwoodStrip.org is set to become as vibrant an online neighborhood as its real world namesake.

ElmwoodStrip.org’s creator, Paul Visco, says he hopes the site will help give voice to the individuals who make the Queen City what it is: “There are plenty of sites out there letting people know and talk about Buffalo’s nightlife or dining, but I really felt like we needed a place where we could be our everyday selves.”

Since the site’s opening in 2003, there have been postings on topics ranging from the local dating scene to racist violence. Other topics such as buying homes in the city, true stories of the NFTA, and the local Buffalo art scene recur often, and users are quick to share advice, views, and, sometimes, emotional personal memories.

“I’m completely amazed by the way the users have taken ownership of the site,” says Visco, who calculates that “ePeeps” have uploaded almost six thousand media files in the past two years. Visco remains a presence on the site and regularly interacts with users, who continue to impress him with their diversity.

“I don’t want people to feel like this is just for the Elmwood Strip neighborhood,” explains Visco, “The point is to allow all Buffalo area residents, past or present, the ability to participate in a tight-knit local community. So much of the Internet is about a global scope—I just wanted to provide a vehicle for people to interact with their neighbors in the same way as they interact with their friends.”

So far the community has responded with glowing appreciation. Donations help Visco maintain the ElmwoodStrip.org server, and users range in age, race, profession and political affiliations enough to keep up a lively exchange. Some of the most alternative of Buffalo lifestyles are represented as well as some of the most traditional, the Lefties debate the Republicans, and, yet, users almost uniformly rally around the site itself. Many users, such as Peter Dunn, who posts under the username MetalPeter, appreciate the freedom to say whatever they like on ElmwoodStrip.org. Peter notes that “the freedom to say and write anything we want” is one thing he would definitely not change about ElmwoodStrip.org.

Walt Turowski, who uses the handle UncutSaniflush online, has recently moved to Buffalo, and writes that ElmwoodStrip.org has been a big help to him and his wife in getting to know the area. Turowski writes, “I think every city needs a site like (e:strip). It is a source of community and information. I think it's great.”

Visco looks forward to serving up journal entry number 100 000, and he plans to keep the site ad-free and user-supported. “This is the thing I can do that I hope will make Buffalo a better place,” he says. “I just want people to have a place that feels comfortable.” Signing up for a journal on ElmwoodStrip.org is free and easy for anyone with a connection to Buffalo.
ABOUT ELMWOOD STRIP JOURNAL AND LIFESTYLE NETWORK:

ElmwoodStrip.org (aka “(e:strip)”) is a free, Buffalo-based online journal and homepage provider focused on creating a virtual commons for Buffalonians: past, present, and from all over Erie County. ElmwoodStrip.org costs nothing to join and provides free community calendar, personal website, personal media sharing, and creative online mingling.

Sorry for the late notice, but for those of you that have never been, the Buffalo Garden Walk is one of Buffalo's premier free events involving over 200 private gardens in the city. Basically, you can walk from garden to garden using the maps that can be found online in PDF format (an unfortunate only choice) at or by going to one of the Garden Walk headquarters located at Richmond/Summer Senior Center at the corner of Richmond and Summer Street; The Coit House at 414 Viriginia Street, or the Buffalo Seminary at Bidwell Park.

Here are some los res captures of the maps to give you an idea where these gardens are located for the full size map in PDF format click here

9 of 10 teens now using the Internet ... Nearly half have cell phones to keep in touch with home and friends. They text message their friends. They think e-mail is something used to talk to "old people."

Welcome to the technology-enhanced world of the typical American teen. A survey released Wednesday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that nearly nine in 10 teens (87 percent) are Internet users. That's 21 million teens ages 12 to 17, up from 73 percent five years ago. By comparison, only about 66 percent of adults use the Internet. A whopping 84 percent of teens reported owning at least one communication device, either a desktop or laptop computer, a cell phone or a personal digital assistant.Quoted from: 9 of 10 teens now using the Internet?u=news

As if the low bandwith mode upgrade wasn't enough I have added two new things.

[size=m]Theme Support[/size]
Theme support so that you can choose which theme you want to see. To switch themes just click on the desired theme icon in the upper left hand corner of the homepage under the browser war stats. Currently you can switch between banana, watermelon and fall 05. I know its a little early for fall 05, and it's not done yet, but I wanted to give you more options. I am also working on adapting some of the old themes to the new format and adding an Amerika theme.

[size=m]Quick Correct Support[/size]
I also souped up the auto correct feature the we have had for a year and renamed quick correct. It also has a new prettier icon. I know now works on at least firefox and IE. However, I would test it before trying it with any long entry on another browser. Basically, you type and entry and then just click the quick correct button. It fixes the most commonly misspelled ord typos such as switching the to the. There about 150 words it fixes, more will be added when I can think of them.

I totally redid low bandwidth mode and moved the toggle for it to the top left of the screen. You can easily switch between (high bandwidth) and (low bandwidth) mode. The link shows the name of the mode you will switch to by clicking it. Low bandwidth mode is obvious because there is a big low bandwidth logo.



Less bandwidth is good if you are on a slow computer, a dialup connection or a mobile. Media is reduced to links to the media, chat is present only as a link, calendar is a link, only 8 in the top 12, no inner scroll bar, no updating peep list, no banner, no stats, no big userpics, no user data, no journal dots, no journal overview, no fav five, no links list, no categories list.

But what you do get is something that is easier to load on a connection with low bandwidth, which is exactly what it is made for.

I also redid the media library so that it makes thumbnails which are bigger to see yet much faster to load and reduce bandwidth when oping the media library. Try it you will be surprised at how much faster it is..

What I really need is goldschlager. So if anyone wants to know what to bring on Saturday the answer is goldschlager.

More new features to roll out tomorrow. I compressed this image with gimp but the ocmpression sucks. Maybe I will have to use photoshop again after all.