Speed Up Browsing Of This Site

One of the changes that is now with Onvertigo Bloggers is the adaptation of “Google Gears” in the administration area.   Not sure what that is?   It really is a simple thing for you as a blogger here.    There are quite a few “files” that are loaded when you are viewing the administration of your site and what “Google Gears” does is allow you to download copies of those files to your computer so that it loads much faster.

So how to I do it?   Simple as clicking the “Turbo” button in the top right hand corner of your administration area (dashboard):

It really is that simple!   A note though, this is not wise to use on a computer that is either shared or public, but if it is your own home computer, it is a nice addition!

No Adverts For Friends Or Members

I have to admit it, I am not really a fan of advertisements when I am reading blogs.   It is frustrating to see flashing ads and images all over the page when really all you want to do is read the content.    The service is still not open to the public and we wanted to look at ways to keep the service free.   One of these ways was simple text based google ads on the sites (small ads).    The other way was just eating the server costs ourselves.   After speaking with the current members, we have come up with a nice compromise.

As of a couple of days ago, all blogs will have ads displayed on them, but they are only content related and small.    The bonus though is also the following:

1. Ads are not displayed to anyone that is logged in to the service ever.    If you are reading other blogs on the service and logged in, you will never see an ad on a post.
2. Regular readers of your blog are also considered and if someone visits your blog often they will also never see an advertisement.    This is a way not to upset your regular traffic and works extremely well.
3. Most advertisements are served up for traffic from search engines and the “occasional” visitor to your sites.

After speaking with some great friends about these rules, they have found great success and is something that is accepted by their members.    We are also going to be offering the ability for members to “opt out” of having advertisements served on their choice of blog for a small nominal fee.   This will be introduced in a upcoming (soon) announcement on this blog!

Of course, we are keeping with our existing premium services offered to our members for their additional functionality.   If we end up in a situation where the service is running fine without the advertisements, we might retire them after covering all our costs.    It will depend on how we go in the future

Avatars for Comments

We now have all the themes working so that they work with the Gravatar avatar system.   What that really means is that you can signup for an account on gravatar.com and when you make a comment on any site on Onvertigo Bloggers (and around the web) you will automatically have your little “global avatar” follow around when you make comments!

Let us know if you have any questions!

YouTube, Flick Video, Embeds, Etc.

After doing some serious thinking on this issue and the inability to find a video plugin that works for multiple services, we have decided to allow embedding in posts.   So what does this mean?    When you are viewing a youtube video, flickr video or something similar, it usually has a “share” embed code.   Now you do the following:

1. Copy the embed code
2. In “write post” click the HTML tab
3. Paste embed code
4. In “write post” click the Visual tab
5. Finish writing your post

It really is that simple!  Have fun!

New Administration Dashboard

We have officially launched our new administration area with the recent upgrade!    Things are going to look quite a bit different than you are used to, but it really is a great change!   As well, the admin pages are also going to load much faster now that we have the security (ssl) only on the login and profile pages now.   It is just as secure as before, but we realized that securing “everything” in the admin was overkill and slowing things down!

We are still working on the new “login” page look since this is now changed, so it will be back when we can!    Try it out and don’t forget to let me know what you have for comments on the new look and functionality!

Themes Should Be 100%

Currently, we are running 104 themes on Onvertigo Bloggers!    While we plan on adding more as we go, that is many ways to customize the look of your blog!    Several of the themes also allow you to upload your own header image and many have customization available to easily change around colors and built-in images!    Once you activate a theme in your Dashboard => Presentation, don’t forget to check out your options on the same page!

After getting some feedback from existing users (thank you!), there were some of the themes that wouldn’t play well with the administration bar for logged in users.    This should be fixed now for all the themes on the service with the exception of “Fresh Bananas” and “Redoable”.    These themes need some TLC and should be working as well really soon!

After awhile here, we are going to release a page that shows the themes that are available on this main page.    It should be fun!   Customize away!

Onvertigo Bloggers Email?

I am playing around so that users of this service can get an email address on this service if they so require. The format I am looking at is:

• username@onvertigo.com

The email will be accessible exactly like Gmail as it is run on their Google Apps network. I have space for a few users to test this out and see how they like it. The username will be determined by you and it doesn’t have to be the one you use on Onvertigo Bloggers. Let me know in the email you send me. If you are interested, please send me an email or contact me through my contact form on my main site. Only members of the service have this opportunity
In addition, I am setting up users with their own domain name so that they can have their email on Google Apps as well, but they are responsible for setting up their own account. I will do the backend work required though on the domain registrar and server end though! Currently, all users with their own domain has this working as I have already setup all the accounts! It is free to use Google Apps for your email for your domain!

Facebook Group for Onvertigo

After having some great testing here in January and early February we have decided to work through and grow the community a little more. The community itself is still invitation only through members, but working on building a greater user base!

Today we launched a new facebook group called Onvertigo Bloggers which should help promote this community more to our friends and family! It would be appreciated if you join or follow this community to become a fan Some people feel more comfortable with facebook as a medium for communication and we decided to help join that was well! Just look for the following emblem in your friend sidebars!

Service Updates Blog!

This blog really should have a purpose of displaying changes and information for the “blogging service” in general and all the little problems and issues that happen with the server and the software really are not something that should be in here!    It should be reported though for you all to see!    That is why the server has a new blog dedicated to service updates, scheduled updates and outages and explanations if things occur that we didn’t figure on!

So, why wait!   Head over and find out about the most recent news on trentdv.com about the service and servers we use!   This of course includes the latest entry about our recent server move and backup services!

Welcome To Onvertigo Bloggers!

Welcome to Onvertigo.com. This is a service for friends and family of Trent Adams to have their own blogs without the hassle of finding your own host! It is also free! Signing up as easy as letting Trent know by contacting him through his contact form on his main website!

This service is not for anyone else though! If you would like your own blog and you are not a friend or family member of Trent Adams, please head over to the best blogging service around at:

http://wordpress.com

The service is still in “baby stages”, but I will be adding more theme designs to choose from and adding some other great functionality! I have turned off registrations, but as I mentioned above, you can get a blog by contacting me if you are interested!

I am also in the process of offering the ability to have your own domain name for your blogs if you are interested! I am in the process of testing this functionality as I write this and should have it working really soon!