Sheta Kaey :: Friends blog

http://magicalexperiments.wordpress.com

http://imagineyourreality@wordpress.com

http://www.thegreenwolf.com

http://www.imagineyourreality.com 

In the previous post, I discussed my decision to find a new spiritual name. I've settled on one that I think resonates with me a lot better than the old one. It just feels special, while the other one felt more like a convenience. Formally I was Vira Cerhaes.

I'm proud to anounce that I have officially chosen Asta Vira as my new spiritual name. You can now contact me at astavira at rendingtheveil.com rather than the former Vira Cerhaes name if you have any questions.

 Other new things going on with me: I approached Sheta about doing a column on festive activities relative to the sabbats. Look for Sabbat Celebrations in the upcoming issues :) I've also volunteered to help edit articles. I'm really excited about these new endeavors.

  

Default Settings:
I've set all current users to the following settings:

Public comments: On
Comment notifications: On
File storage: 1 byte (effectively disabling the system except for administrators)
User icons: 20

These settings are being done manually until Matt can set it up as a blanket rule. Since we've only got ~130 registered users right now, it didn't take long.

If you wish to change your comment settings, click "Account Settings" at the top right in the gray bar. You will also find, at the bottom of that page, where to set your blog editor (wysiwyg by default; this can be turned off).

If you have questions or comments, leave a comment at this post.

Premier accounts

I'm considering what to grant Premier account holders who use their blogs regularly. I'm thinking, so far, that anyone with a full profile by the middle of the year 2008 who also regularly uses their blogs for six months following sign-up (posting at least once a week), will be granted 100 user icons permanently, along with any other paid account options we offer within a set period (to be determined), all free. The Premier account will only be offered to the first 500 users who meet the criteria. The terms of this offer may evolve, particularly the mid-2008 time limit if the site doesn't take off very fast.

- Sheta

Never Fear, I am working hard on getting my profile here up and running.  I'm just trying to word it so I don't come out sounding like an arrogant jerk or a loon. 

Patience is the watch word here.  Thank you all for your support.

I'm really excited about RTV's addition of the blog feature. I think having a blog here will make the transition away from Six Apart much smoother. Live Journal has been great but after reading about the 6A Nazis, it's time to make a change. Plus I'll be much more comfortable posting about my spiritual journey here, rather than on LJ where my non-occult interested friends can see it. They get creeped out by the stuff lol.

 I just hope that the people that I like to read that haven't already joined will make the jump with me *nudges Aydira and Tanisha*

-Vira

 (My first entry is going to be public, after that I'll probably have my posts set to logged in users only. So if you've found this entry and aren't a member yet, climb aboard. It's nice here :D )

As is no doubt obvious by the time you see this, we've implemented the new blogs, based on the Elgg blogging platform. We're still working out the kinks as well as various little things we don't care for (such as link text). Right now, for instance, we're working on keeping the system from compressing the profile images if images are kept within a certain parameter, but we're between tweaks, so the images are liable to look pretty strange for a bit. We have successfully prevented the platform from squishing user icons in the sidebar (which I thought was a stupid idea to begin with - it's not like they're big anyway). If your computer's resolution is less than 1024 x 768, you may see some page distortion or scrollbars in the sidebars. Feel free to complain to webmaster@rendingtheveil.com if it's intolerable. You might also consider tweaking your resolution enough to split the difference.

I'm sure we'll be adjusting the details for a while, so you have time to get your suggestions or bug reports in. We aspire to finishing the worst of it by official launch on October 31, but that may be optimistic. ;-) We'll see.

Thanks so much for joining us!  I hope you'll like it here as much as I think you will.

- Sheta Kaey
RTV Managing Editor

Here it is, blogging. At long last! After so many struggles with LiveJournal it was decided that its just not suited for standalone install, unless you have a lot of time on your hands...

 So here we go instead with Elgg based platform. I await nervously as the first beta testers hop on and try it out. I hope nothing breaks! And I hope my  conversion scripts transfered the old user accounts over ok!

Once this thing is laucnhed and we're sure its working we can get to some of the stuff thats been on the todo list waaay too long already. Let me know if you have any problems.

 

Enjoy!

-Your local geek