Site News

Hi Everyone,

First and foremost, I want to apologize for the recent rollout of weblogs.asp.net. This update is something that has been in the works for a while, was tested, and generally well planned but did not go off how we had envisioned. There are a variety of reasons for this, but in the end, they really do not matter.

I personally started this blogging community on my own little server nearly 5 years ago. It is the only big aggregate feed I still actively subscribe to and read. Although it may not seem like it, every change we have made to the service is one that we believe will be in the best interest for everyone. This does not mean we are always correct and we are certainly willing to work with anyone of you on ways to improve the site and community.

If you have any suggestions, comments, etc please feel free to contact me at any time directly at scottw@telligent.com.

As for how we can improve things:

1. You received this email, so we now should have a system in place that will let us actively communicate with you.
2. We will post minor updates/notices posted on the old SiteNews blog I used to maintain in the old days: http://weblogs.asp.net/sitenews/. I will remove this blog from the main feed, so if you are interested, please subscribe to it directly.
3. We will set up a beta site before any major significant upgrades and will try to get you 7 to 10 days to test and give feedback

What has changed or happened recently:

1. The new version of the site supports a much improved theme engine. You can extensively personalize your blog (including images) without writing any CSS. If you want to you can also still add custom CSS too.
2. The new version of themes also supports sharing of themes (in the "Change how my blogs looks" section of your blog look for the Import/Export buttons). So please share any great themes you create with your fellow community members (as an FYI, our October release will allow you to re-arrange and add widgets to your blog)
3. We now support adding files/images to your blog (Control Panel > My Blog > Manage Content > Blog Files). This is very different from the previous attachment/enclosure support. These files can be used in your design, screen shots for a post, etc.
4. Much better spam support.

If you want more details on how blog themes work: Wiki Article: http://docs.communityserver.org/wiki/page.aspx/203/

Video: http://communityserver.org/blogs/videos/archive/2007/04/23/blog-themes.aspx

Some of what weve recently fixed:

1. Fixed: JavaScript encoding issue. If you previously had JavaScript in your news section it was accidently encoded during the upgrade. This issue has been fixed, but it will require you re-insert your JavaScript.
2. Fixed: Self trackbacks some posts seemed to trackback to themselves. This was a result of the staging server grabbing content from the live database. It has been disabled and will not be a problem in the future.
3. Fixed: The file feature I mentioned in #3 did not have the proper server credentials and caused an error when saving a file.
4. New hardware: We recently upgraded all the hardware for this site (web and database). Things seem to be performing much better and we will have a significant update as well by the end of July which should push things forward even more.
5. Fixed: Issues with IE6.
   

Again, we are really sorry the way things transpired. Myself and Rob have been part of this community since back in his Microsoft days. We fought hard back then to make changes to give this community a chance to survive then and I assure you we are still doing the same today.

Thanks,
Scott
scottw@telligent.com

P.S. About 50% of the emails sent were bounced, so we are going to have to figure out a safer way to send email updates in the future, so I have reposted this to the SiteNews blog. After it clears the home page, I will remove this blog from aggregating to the home page, but for now it is the best way to get the message out. Sorry to all of you who just want to read some excellent .NET content. It is coming. :)