Yesterday the news broke that Firefox 3 final would be released to the public on Tuesday, June 17th

With every new major version of Firefox, changes are made to how the browser renders pages, in an effort to get closer and closer to published standards.  Unfortunately, since the major web browsers all render pages slightly differently, custom stylesheets have to be built for each specific browser we support.  Since Firefox 3 will render pages differently than Firefox 2 did, this means we will need to update our stylesheets so Firefox 3 works properly with our web sites.

At the moment, we do not officially support Firefox 3 on WinCustomize, JoeUser, ImpulseDriven.net or any of our forums.  We will be adding support for the new browser version as quickly as we can, but we do not anticipate that we will be ready by the browser launch on Tuesday the 17th (we're kind of busy with something else right now).  If you use Firefox 3 with our sites in the meantime, you will still be able to use the sites well enough, there will just be formatting glitches where elements may not display properly on the page.  We know about these, we are working on them.

As we know about these issues, please do not post threads to the forums complaining that the site is broken with Firefox 3.  This post is everyone's official notice that we're aware of the problems and will be working to fix them.  Any posts complaining of issues will be moved to the Site Issues forum and locked.  Please do not clutter the forums with such posts.

Currently, we do not have a definite ETA on when Firefox 3 will be fully supported on our sites. In the meantime, please continue to use IE6, IE7 or Firefox 2 to browse our sites.

This morning, as I updated myself on the happenings of my friends via e-mail, Facebook and Twitter, one of my friends posed an interesting question…

“My worry about this brave new world of social networking is that it may alienate us from “real life” friends, especially ones not on the grid.  So, great, I feel so connected to people I’ve never met, but what about family and friends I’ve known for years?  Do they get short shrift?”

I actually think the real danger here is something related, but much more basic; the strong sense of familiarity and safety we develop with people we, in fact, do not actually know.  It’s just so easy to share our lives with the world with a few clicks of the mouse and taps at the keyboard.  We post our innermost thoughts once and let everyone read them.  We follow the lives of our friends and acquaintances, and even complete strangers with ease.

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.

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.

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

https://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.

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’...

Last month we announced that JoeUser 2 was under development.  You got a few very early mockup shots of what the site was going to look like and I talked a little bit about the improvements everyone will be able to expect.  Well, a month in and we've made some excellent progress, and we're even getting ready to start having select users test the site (more on that in a future update). Today, I'm going to take you on a tour of the site, showing off what has been implemented so far, a...

I want to take a moment today to introduce you to the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America.  For those who don't have a copy handy, I'll make it easy and give it to you now: Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievance...

Dear JU Faithful, At the moment we are looking into what would be involved in an update to this site.  There's no question that it's been a while since it got some tender, loving care from development, and we're thinking we *might* have some time in the coming months to address this problem. As we do these updates, we also might be able to sneak in one or two new features, if time permits.  So, we'd like to hear from you on what you would like to see added to the site in an updat...

We did a little bit of clean-up work on a few of the databases connected to JoeUser today.  Here at the office, it feels like the site has been snappier in pulling up articles. How does the site speed "feel" to everyone else now?  Were you even noticing any slowness the past few weeks?

The new forums went up the other week, and the reaction has been decidedly mixed, with some very vocal opponents to the new format. The goal with the forum upgrade was to have a consistent forum system across all the Stardock sites that was: 1. Faster (the old system was very slow under load) 2. More Stable (Fewer server application errors are a good thing!) 3. More closely resembled the "standard" sort of forum layout you see elsewhere on the 'net, making it easier for new people to ge...

The forum updates that have been going on across the rest of the Stardock websites have finally made their way to JoeUser.  There are a whole slew of changes that hopefully I'll get to describing and documenting later for everyone, but one of the most immediate differences people have already noticed are the Forum Avatars; the little pictures that appear next to people's names on forum posts. We've had avatars for a while, as anyone who had one before would have it show on any comment they ...