The mo'Times

Articles of interest about mo'time, the blogosphere, culture and society

Downtime and service advisory

We had a major crash -- as some of you undoubtedly already know! ;-(

Due to a power and a hardware problem, we suffered a world of worries and troubles down on the server farm. It's 3:00 a.m. where we are right now, and we've got it basically working again. We had to turn off the photo, video, audio and file uploading and viewing until we are able to get some brand new hardware online again. This will take another 12 hours ago, estimated.

I will continue to post status reports on the status blog as soon as I have some news for you. Please accept my apologies; I know it sucks when we go offline. It makes me feel like something is not right with the world when this happens. I guess that's because something is not right with my world when that happens.

posted by: howard at 03:12 | link | comments (4) |
technical, advisory

"Community" feature enhancements

I am pleased to announce a series of updates designed to make meeting and greeting easier and more fun. We are trying to extend the definition of what it means to be registered on Mo'time... it's more than just having a blog, it's having an online presence that you can define the way that suits you best.

It is now simpler for you to invite non-Mo'time friends aboard. (Even if they have a blog somewhere else, they can comment with their own username, put some info in their profile and have their existing blog be linked to all their comments on your blogs.) If we're lucky, they will come aboard and start a blog here, too.

You will notice a new button in the Community section of your control panel on the home page, if you're logged in, obviously: "Add a friend". Check it out.

We have placed your avatars (profile pix) in as many places as we could think of, with a series of indicators that travel with your avatar: logged in (a green light), not logged in (pale gray light), chat/IM opened (green chat icon) and chat/IM off (pale gray chat icon). Look at the new latest posts page and the online page. The new avatar layout makes these pages more personal and friendly.

Underneath your avatar there is a "contact" link that lets other logged in people leave you a private message or open an instant message chat. You can be contacted via Mo'mail (private messages), chat (our instant messenger) or through comments on your blog.

We've added a recent comments page, just like the recent posts page! On the home page, under the "Home" menu on top you will see "Mo'timers online", "Posts" and now "Comments". It's just as rewarding scanning recent comments as posts!

The profile section is getting more interesting. Now you can see the avatars of the friends of your favorite bloggers. It is a great way to discover other Mo'time people that you have not met yet.

Onward and upward. Feeback is always appreciated. What do you think? (We're still working on it as I write this, so if something looks funky, try hitting Control-F5, in Windows, or on the Mac empty your cache and refresh the page.)

posted by: howard at 00:11 | link | comments (8) |
updates, community, features