Last night we recorded the third episode of the WinCustomize SkinCast.  From what Spencer is telling me as he edits this one, it's the best so far and I think we're finally starting to get a hang for recording these.  Technical issues aside, it took about 45min of recording to get the 20min of quality content.  Most of the 20min cut out is just us laughing anyway.

So with three episodes in the can, here are some random thoughts on creating a podcast for a community site:

1. When nothing is going on of note, it's really hard to come up with a topic
   The idea behind the SkinCast is to react to what's happening in the community.  Sometimes though there isn't much happening.  For episode 2, as an example, there were very few new skins that week.  It was a lot of logons and bootskins, but no much that we could get a discussion going about.  The forums were also particularly quiet that week so there wasn't even a topic of controversy to go over. 

Twitter is one of those semi-recent crazes sweeping the techno-elite across the Internet.  It seems to be continually gaining steam as more and more of the "Names to Know" jump on board and start to broadcast their lives across the tubes.  Like the blog, it's a soapbox from which you can broadcast every little thought to as many people as are willing to click and read.

I get blogs.  I get podcasts, video casts, live video feeds, live audio feeds, myspace, facebook a...

Technology, Entertainment, Design.  TED is an annual conference that has been going on since 1984 where visionaries from all over the world come together to present "Ideas worth spreading"  Originally a conference focused just on those three disciplines, it has since expanded to cover many disciplines.

The annual conference is invitation-only, so for years the only way you would get a piece of what was presented was if you were part of the elite group, or if you knew someone who went and gave you a recap later.  This keeps the conference very controlled, and keeps a feeling of intimacy and adds a bit of weight to what is discussed.  This isn't some massive industry event with press and bloggers crawling all over it.  This is about important people sharing important ideas.

1: //This is a test of the codeblock plugin for Windows Live Writer 2: using System; 3: public class HelloWorld 4: { 5: public static void Main() 6: { 7: Console.WriteLine("Hello World!"); 8: } 9: }

This is just a quick test of the "Insert Code" Plug-in for Windows Live Writer.

JoeUser Tags: blogging, misc, politics Do the tags from LW work?

My ePenis is huge...  I just got this new PC on Tuesday.  Complete with a 24" widescreen monitor and an nVidia GeForce 8800GT video card.

Alright, I missed out on last week's fidget, but I blame that mostly on the fact that I took Friday off and didn't touch my PC pretty much the entire weekend.  It was a much needed and helpful bit of rest.  I gamed, I slept, I watched a lot of TV and generally did nothing productive.  But now I'm back again with a weekly wrap-up of what I've been up to and my random thoughts.

What I've Been Playing

Burnout Paradise
I finally got the Burnout License, and have ro...

This is a public service announcement for everyone who uses Microsoft Word, Frontpage, Expression or some other separate WYSIWYG editor to write your blog posts and then paste them onto JoeUser:

Don't do it.

These tools do their own special formatting, and all a lot of junk tags that don't play nice with the site (they didn't play nice with the old site either, but you didn't always notice since we weren't doing half the things we're trying to do on the new site.

I missed my Friday Fidget last week, but I blame that on simply being insanely busy.  You see, we launched Sins of a Solar Empire at the start of the week to retail and digital distribution.  This means there was a fairly constant flow of work related to Sins that needed to be taken care of, on top of everything I do on a daily basis already.  This week things were starting to calm down, then we decided this coming weekend was the perfect opportunity to do our massive database migration.  No rest for the weary.

Anyway, on with the Fidget...

After months of teasing, today I'm extremely happy to let you all know that we're ready to let everyone take a crack at the new site.  It's open to anyone who wants to take the new blog community for a spin

http://www.joeuserbeta.com/

A few very important notes before you start:

1. The beta site is 100% test data
   Every post, comment, blog edit etc that takes place on the beta site WILL BE DELETED when the site goes live.  This is a sandbox for you to play with the new site, its features etc.
2. You will have to create a new blog on the test site
   We only imported a handful of the top blogs for testing.  Chances are that once you log in, you will need to create a blog on the beta site.  Again, this is all test data that will be wiped and overwritten when we do the full import from the existing JoeUser.  Your basic login information will however still work.  Do not create a new account, just a new blog site.  Your current JoeUser blog will be automatically imported when the site goes live.
3. Not Every Feature from JU1 is in JU2
   This is phase 1 of the site.  We have not ported each and every feature to JU2 just yet.  Things like blog "skins" are not implemented yet.  We have a long list of additions for the next several months as we go through Phase 2, 3 etc.

We are specifically looking for the following feedback at this moment:

1. Critical-Stop Bugs
   Anything that prevents you from posting, commenting or interacting as normal on the site.  Any page errors, any script errors etc.
2. Incorrect/Missing Links
   Did you click on a link and get taken somewhere completely wrong/unexpected?  Do you get to a page that has nothing on it?
3. Browser Problems
   Does the editor actually work on your web browser?  Does everything show up in neon pink?

Please post all feedback, questions, comments and concerns regarding the beta site on this thread.

When: Sunday February 17th, 8pm EST - Monday February 18th 9am EST

This weekend we will be upgrading the database that powers Stardock's forums & articles system.  This upgrade will impact every site across the Stardock Network.  During the upgrade, you will not be able to post threads, comments, or blogs.  The database will be locked during the maintenance window to prevent data loss.

You will be able to read any content posted prior to the 8pm lock.  You will not be able to post anything new.

Writing an article that attracts readers is as much about formatting as it is about actual content.  Attractive images, lists, clear paragraph breaks and more can turn your blog from an intimidating wall of text into an easy-to-read post that invites the reader in.

I'm sure you've seen the blogs/articles where the author just puts everything down as a giant block of text.  No breaks.  No pauses.  Nothing to visually divide the content.  The result?  A post that is incredibly hard to read, and may drive the reader off immediately, never bothering to even scan to see if there's interesting content worth reading.

You could write the most interesting article ever posted to the Internet, but unless you know how to format it, no one will read it.  Formatting is the key to taking a good article and making it great.

Here's a fun question to start everyone's week out:

How did you pick the handle/nickname you use online?

We have an odd collection of names out here.  Ranging from Little-Whip and EmperorOfIceCream to Locamama, DrGuy, Frogboy and more.  It's always interesting to see what names people pick for themselves when they are given the chance to create a completely new persona for themsleves. 

So, how/why did you come up with yours?

Mine?  Everyone alwasy figures there's...

Ok, this can be chalked up as being one of the absolute worst weeks I've had in quite a while.  If it could go wrong, it did, and after going wrong it seemed to just compound and get worse.  I'm so glad it's almost the weekend, I could dance.

So, even though this has been a more active blogging week for me than most, I'm still doing my new weekly bit, if only to get into the habit.

What I'm Playing

Burnout Paradise
Last weekend, I grabbed the Burnout Paradise demo from XB...

Since I don’t often have time to blog anymore (though you could argue that with all the time I spend on forums and writing content for WinCustomize that I post more now than I did when I was actively blogging) I wanted to find a way to do at least one regular bit every week.  So, instead of one blog on one topic, I’m going to do one post with a bunch of mini-blogs.  A hodge-podge of topics floating in my head.

The idea is to do this every Friday to wrap up the week…

What I’m Play...