I was wondering what you guys think about this. I record what theme everyone selects when logged in. Should I make it so that the theme you have selected is the one that shows when your journal is being viewed by others. On one hand I think it is a good idea, on the other, it might make the site look too dijointed if every journal was in a different theme. Right now, when you select a new theme and you are logged in, it displays your theme selection in the stats bar after hangman score. Maybe that is enough, people could always choose after reading that.

[size=l]P.S. Does anyone want to help with the help files or the newbie guide or am I all alone on this.[/size]

--Paul

[size=m]Wanna Help Out Help[/size]
If more people are interested in working on the help files with (e:uncutsaniflush), we can probably get through them all in about a week or so if there were more people. If you are interested just tell me and I can make you a help admin. That allows you to edit help files directly from the help interface.

[size=m]Fixed Journal Dots[/size]
I fixed the journal dots and overview mode, both had been down for a while - I just didn't realize it was down. It was basically two lines that had to change and was a result of the date format switch I implemented about a month ago. I didn't realize till (e:uncutsaniflush) wrote about it on the news journal comments the other day.

In response to (e:uncutsaniflush)'s comment I would like to point out that you guys are in fact beta testers.

Part of this being a community is you guys aiding in and helping guide it's development by using it. I have consistently repsonded to people's feedback. The reason things change so much is because I am constantly adapting it to user feedback and because as the community evolves and grows the needs change.

I think in general the site has been extremely stable for about 3 years using window with IE or firefox or mac with firefox which is 99% of the computer based viewers setup according to statics. Even on linux it hasn't been that bad. In fact I think that it is actually more stable than most operating systems.

So, the other day I was complaining about all the work for the site and trying to think about what would make it easier. Then (e:ucnutsaniflush) had the brilliant idea to write a newbie guide to get new people started. This is the perfect kind of task for other people to work on, because it involves no programming or technical savvy, just a little time investment for your fellow estripppers.

Maybe (e:theecarey) because she has excellent writing skills and she seems to be good at breaking stuff down. If anyone else is interested in working on it, you are all invited.

It would definately make it easier on the newbies and easier on me because it would answer many of the questions that people ask all the time.

The help files have lots of info, but I don't keep up with them, and I am not sure if (e:uncutsaniflush) (help admin) did either. A newbie guide would be an excellent supplement to that.

How should we do it? You can leave comments here. I guess the first task would be identifying what belongs in the help and what belongs in a newbie guide. I would like it one simple searchable, printable document. Does anyone else have ideas?

I added two new themes today. They might still get changed some bit, but they are usable now. One is called Polluted River and is about the Niagara RIver. The colors came from a vector illustartion I made about the time I lived off of river rd in riverside.



The other is sand. It is about my wish to be out in the sun. Both have new icons in the theme bar at the top of the page. Sand is the sand dollar, and polluted river is the tire image from the pic above.

Good news, I fixed the image upload bug from yesterday, you can now upload images again. It was due to a switch in the mobile media upload code. Unfortunately, I didn't upload the changes after making them as I still am not used to the new IDE I am using. Thanks for reporting it Carrey.

The last winner now links to the last winner's journal. It also keeps track of score. You can see your current score at the top of your journal in the stats bar after views. It only shows up if you have more than zero. I think (e:kara) has 5!

Sorry, someone had hijacked our email server and the hosting company shut us down for spam. I think I have it all fixed now. You can no longer email peeps as guest. I appologize for any inconvenience this caused anyone.

The site should be faster now too!

--paul

Microsoft Corp. Monday told Mac users of its Internet Explorer that they should switch to a rival browser such as Apple's Safari before IE support ends.

Although the Redmond, Wash.-based developer stopped work on the Mac edition of IE more than two years ago, its previously published lifecycle for the browser set Dec. 31, 2005 as the end-of-support date. No security or performance updates will be issued after the end of this month, Microsoft said in a bulletin on its Mactopia site.
Quoted from Information Week

Hangman only plays when you are logged in. The bots were playing to much. I also fixed the problem with guess accumulating between word sets.

1. Thanks (e:uncutsaniflush), he helped me discover what everyone thought was the apostrophe eating bug in the chat. It actually had nothing to do with apostrophes, and everything to do with a few spelling errors in the spell check module (does anyone else see irony in that.) It was incorrectly trying to fix the word I'm (contraction: I am) and couldn't without the apostrophe.

In the future when anyone has a bug with the chat and/or any estrip feature I would like more information about the error, such as a copy of the text you are trying to send. I also need to know the operating system, the browser, if any errors showed up and what media plugins you have installed. Oh how I dream of the days when I had (e:twisted) on QA. She was the best bug squasher ever.

I am no longer dealing with bug reports that start out with it just doesn't work. I need more feedback or it's not getting worked out. This is not a commercial site where anyone has paid for service. I provide the site and thousands of dollars/hours of my personal time and require only a few things when people report bugs so that I don't have to spend hundred of hours hunting down the problems.

This issue could have been over months ago if anyone had given me an example of what they were typing when the chat "ate" their line of text. It is a lot easier than me having to try and type every possible word variant. I was not just any apostrophe as was obvious by the fact that I could type don't and won't and wouldn't, it ws very specific.

[size=m]Linux Users[/size]
2. On another note, if you are an (e:strip) user and are running linux. Do you find that it crashes firefox? I am using firefox and konquerer on Suse 9.3 with no prob on a sony viao laptop. I have also used centOS with no problem on a server workstation. I have previously tried Fedora with no problem, but not recently. However, (e:uncutsaniflush) is using some debian based linux flavors that are having a problem with crashing firefox? Anyone else have linux experience to report about. Good or bad, I want to hear. You can just respond as comments on this journal entry. I would really like to figure out what is wrong for (e:uncutsaniflush) and (e:leetee). My thoughts are that it is a media plugin related issue and I am going to test their linux on my laptop. It certainly does look pretty.

update -wow it downloaded in 45 minutes using my adelphia connection.