First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!
The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.
A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.
Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.
On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.
And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!
~ daisy
As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.
The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.
When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.
It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.
Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.
As always, thanks for your patience.
Go forth and fill your libraries with media.
Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.
I was just told that the Amazon Conduit will be fixed by tomorrow. I will post here as soon as I get word that it's back up and running.
I know this has been frustrating and I am sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it less so. I really appreciate your patience though.
Cheers,
Bad news. As many of you have probably noticed, the Amazon Conduit was not fixed in the last week's release. Unfortunately, there was an undetected bug that is preventing the conduit from working.
We are working on this bug fix and hope to have the Conduit back up and running this week.
I will keep you posted.
Thank you for being so patient.
Blog Action Day is every October 15th, when blogger are asked to post something about a single issue to show our strength and conviction as an online community. It's a great way to feel connected to the greater good, and the participation of so many bloggers to support the world's leading non-profit organizations is something you can do to help, right now. By blogging today, you're supporting some of the world's leading non-profits and sharing your voice for change.
This year's topic is climate change, and we'd love to read your thoughts on the topic. If you participate, leave us a link to your post in the comments, so we know to check out your post!
Go to www.blogactionday.org to learn more, get a badge for your blog showing your participation, and see some ideas for your post on climate change.
Can't wait to read your posts!
~ daisy
The Amazon Conduit will be working again on October 15, 2009. Thank you to everyone for your patience.
Have a great weekend,
daisy, Team Vox
I'm even more excited to go to Roma next spring after seeing this bit from the wonderful travel blog, Galavanting.tv.
In his final years he wasn't a happy man. He had lived a life increasingly full of alcohol, lost his son to alcohol and watched my grandmother succumb to dementia (most likely brought on from years of alcohol) before she died a few years ago. He stopped liking people. He was grumpy, angry and crabby all the time. He pushed away many people in his life with the terrible negativity that had grown around him.
He wasn't always like that. In my younger years it was easier to hide the negative effects of alcohol from the grandchildren. In truth, he was one of the reasons why I feel like I had such a happy childhood.
There are so many things I remember about him. He loved to bake and a birthday cake from him was a treat. He and my grandmother made incredible candy at Christmas every year. They had a big house on the edge of a canyon overlooking the Snake River in the tiny town of Burley, ID. Every summer we would go down there for a month or so. I looked forward to the summers for that reason...it felt so magical to go visit them. The sunsets there were incredible. So was the garden, the Russian olive trees, the massive lawn that eventually when we were old enough we had to help them mow. Papa had a riding lawnmower to do most of the lawn but there were hilly parts that we had to help with the push mowers. For years my little brother begged Papa to let him ride on the lawn mower. He thought that was the best thing in the world. In the house they had a wonderful fireplace in the family room downstairs, with a huge hearth that became our stage. We put on countless plays there for relatives every summer. In the basement was his pool table, where I learned to play pool both correctly and incorrectly.
He loved animals and there were always cats and dogs in his life. When I was little it was Penelope, a huge St. Bernard. I've never seen a live one since then...they're such big dogs that I don't think many keep them as pets. He let me name one of the kittens that his cat had one year. I named it Little Paw. They kept the kitty and he used to write me letters and send me pictures of the cat as it got bigger.
I collected stamps with him. Sheets of stamps, first day covers, 14k gold stamps. A few years ago he gave them all to me...it was the one thing I hoped I would be able to keep from him and he knew it. We used to go fishing a lot. I remember one time I sat my ass down on an ant nest of fire ants. I think, despite my pain, I convinced him not to throw me in the lake fully clothed. I never wanted to put the worm on or take fish off the hook (or watch him clean the fish, which he did right after we caught them). He was ok with that. He just liked having us around.
He wrote me letters all the time when I was little. I loved getting his letters. I loved hearing about Burley and the cats and dogs, and all the goodies that he was baking. I loved dreaming about going back to visit them.
As we got older and more jaded, and more aware of the pain that their alcohol abuse had inflicted on my mother and her siblings during their life, much of that lustre wore off. I did keep in touch with him over the years and after my grandmother died and he was sober, living alone with his little dog in the empty house, I tried to call him every week if I could. I'm the only grandchild that even bothered, mostly because had pushed everyone away. We would talk about things he remembered, about World War II, about selling insurance at Prudential (I still have these funny round TUITS that they used to give out as a marketing gimmick), about politics (he loved Hillary, which shocked me, but couldn't stand Obama because he was black, sigh), about things I remembered growing up.
I hope that he's in a place where that self-inflicted pain and loneliness is gone. Where he is full of the memories of good things, and good times with the people that he loved.
I love you Papa.
In my last Team Vox post, I let you know that we're aware that the Amazon conduit is broken and that we're working to fix it. Many of you want to know when it's going to be fixed and I'm so sorry I haven't gotten back to you about that sooner.
Unfortunately, I don't have an exact date to give you, but rest assured, the Amazon conduit will be fixed in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, I'm about to finish my latest book and I could use a few suggestions as to what to read next, so... if you don't mind, let me know in the comments what's on your nightstand and/or what book you think I absolutely must read next.
Thanks! :)
