March 16th, 2005

Visitor Times and More About Chain Letters

Andromeda members will now find that their visitors list contains the date and time of the most recent visit for each visitor. This way you can tell exactly how long ago each visitor was viewing your profile. The times displayed work with the time zone offset feature and should be accurate to within a few minutes.

If you'd like to find out more about Andromeda membership: Click Here

I have disabled the automatic blocking of repeated posts (suspected chain letters) for the time being. Instead of using that, I've added a tool that will allow me to quickly remove every post of any chain letter from the site. I've been removing some of the more popular chain letters that were going around the site (so far around 10,000 chain letter messages have been erased). If you come across any chain letters, feel free to leave me a message with the content of the chain letter and I'll wipe it from the site.

I may eventually expand the tool to detect who the originator of any chain letter is if this measure doesn't take care of it. I'd hate to do it, but if necessary, I'll start suspending the accounts of those who start chain letters on this site.

Chain letters not only consume site resources that could be better used for other things, they annoy many of the people who receive them over and over.

Friends don't let friends post chain letters.

 

March 12th, 2005

Chain Gangs

Having heard from many people who are tired of receiving chain letters on this site and also being a bit fed up with it myself, I've added a little pit-fall into the code for people who post the same comment too many times in a row.

Sooo... be warned; posting a copied/pasted comment too many times in a row will result in your being automatically blocked from posting further comments for 10 minutes.

There are some obvious implications here and so I'm doing this just for now on a trial basis. I may or may not keep this feature up and running, we'll see how it goes.

 

March 11th, 2005

Changes on the Backend

I've made some changes to the way the site works "under the hood" in order to speed things up and allow more online users at once. You may have noticed some strange errors kicking out on your profile pages earlier today because of that, all should be well now, however.

Please let me know of any bugs you may encounter from this point forward.

 

March 10th, 2005

Delete Comments on Polls and Articles

Just two small updates. It is now possible to delete comments left on polls and articles. The author of a poll or article may delete any comments that are left under it. Due to an unfortunate database error, you won't be able to delete comments under any old articles you posted, only articles that you post from today forward. This does not apply to polls (you may delete comments from any poll you created previously).

You will also be able to delete any individual comments that you yourself leave under any poll or article.

Also, thank you for the feedback you provided on the two polls I posted in the previous news item. Knowing that the vast majority of you favor the recent design changes, I will move forward with that general theme.

 

March 8th, 2005

Your Opinion Matters

Hopefully you've noticed the recent design changes to the site. These changes are apparent on search pages, control panel pages and on the screen used to leave comments. What do you think of these design changes?

Please take the following poll and let me know what you think.

Also, I'm running a second poll that pertains only to members who reside in the United States. This regards running distance searches to find people who live near you.

If you live in the United States, please take this poll also.

Thank you for your feedback...

 

March 2nd, 2005

Searching the Books for Good Times

As was anxiously requested by many, it is now possible to use the 'Search Members' feature to search for others based on what favorite books they have entered. Dig in, you crazy book worms.

Also, a new feature has been added to correct time zone problems on the site. If you're tired of comment time stamps and 'last online' times being incorrect when browsing the site, go into the 'Control Panel' and look for a new option called 'Time Zone Offset'. Read the instructions there for fixing your time zone, it should be pretty easy.

Note: If you live on the east coast in America (Eastern Time Zone) then there is no need to adjust the offset.

Let the good times roll...

 

February 26th

Bookmarks for Articles and Polls

While browsing articles and polls, you will notice that each entry has a "Bookmark this..." link under it. Click the Bookmark link on any poll or article to bookmark it. Then, to view your bookmarked items, click the "Bookmarked Polls" or "Bookmarked Articles" while browsing either section.

This is a good way to keep track of articles or polls that capture your interest without having to wade through the rest to find them.

You may delete any bookmark by browsing your bookmarked entries and clicking any "Delete This Bookmark" link.

Thanks go out to Xer0 for this fine idea.

 

February 25th

Andromeda Improvements: Special Page Counter and Larger Visitors List

Andromeda members may now enable a special page counter for their profile by going to the 'Experience' menu. The page counter will only count registered members who view the page (and will not count page views from the owner of the profile). This gives better information than a generic page counter since all of those will simply count each time the page is viewed regardless of who views it (for example, generic counters will add a count every time the profile owner does a refresh to check for new comments).

Andromeda members will now also enjoy a larger visitors list. Previously, the list only displayed the last 40 visitors; it will now display the last 100.

If you'd like to find out more about Andromeda membership: Click Here

February 21st

Updates and Stuff About the Polls

Okay, first, I did a few bug fixes and updates to the way the polls work. I've got some huge ideas for future updates to them, some of which I don't think we've seen anywhere before. My lips are sealed, you'll have to stay tuned.

Now, having said that I want to let you know that I have been deleting some of the polls. If you posted a poll that has disappeared, that is probably why (unless you deleted it yourself). I'm trying to keep a really open mind about these things but guys, come on, let's not totally junk it up with a bunch of drivel. I removed one poll about the nature and consistency of our fecal matter. Do we really want to have a poll about our stool samples? I've also removed a few that appeared to be duplicates or repeated polls. One I saw twice was about... you know what.. nevermind. Anyway... You get the idea. I'm not trying to be a nazi or anything but I will make some judgement calls on the quality of these polls. So please don't be offended, I'm just trying to keep the content in that section of the site somewhat meaningful.

Having said that...

I'm really pleased with the level of participation I'm seeing in them, I've really enjoyed taking them, they're strangely addictive for me. So yeah, I hope you guys are having fun with them too.

I suppose that's all for now... be good!

 

February 19th

Polls

A new site feature has been added: Polls. Look for the link to the polls area from the top of your profile page after 'News' and 'Articles'.

Right now, the polls work similarly to articles. Anyone can post or vote on polls and they're listed in the Polls area, grouped by topic. Just as with articles, you may also comment on the polls.

I have many planned enhancements for the polls, you'll have to stay tuned for those. For now though there is enough there to have some fun with. =]

Please try them out and let me know what you think!

 

February 18th

Bug Fix in Articles

Previously when you chose an article topic to browse, when you tried to go to other pages, the topic was changed back to "all". You may now browse through multiple pages of any article topic.

 

February 13th

Change in the Links

You will notice that a new link has been added at the top of the page called 'Andromeda Members'. This lists all of our current Andromeda Members as a thank-you for their contributions to this site.

If you'd like to find out more about Andromeda membership: Click Here

You will also notice that your 'Edit Comments' link has now been moved down to the space just above your comments. It should be more handy there. Please note that this link will only appear on your own page.

 

February 11th

UPDATE

If you saw an earlier post about "Lost In Space" disregard it. I've changed things back to the way they were before. I have a better idea about how to do this... that will come at a later time.

Thank you, Will Robinson.

 

February 8th

New Andromeda Features: Check Status and Transfer Time

A new section has been added to the 'Account Management' section of your Control Panel that displays your Andromeda details.

From there you can see how much Andromeda time you have remaining and you can also transfer any amount of your remaining time to another account. This is useful if you want to create a new account and move your Andromeda subscription over, or even if you want to send a friend a few days of Andromeda time just so they can see what it's about.

 

February 7th

Time for a Shave

So I purged a bunch of inactive accounts today, around 2500 of them. We were in need of a shave, I think, all of that stubble was just unsightly.

We were getting close to 13,000 members and now we're back down to a more gaunt 10,500. Ah, but at least we know it's an active 10,500 right?

Yeah, we clean up pretty good...

 

February 5th

New Andromeda Features: Mutual Friends and Mass Messages

Andromeda members will now find two new links on their profile below their friends lists.

Message All Mutual Friends: This link will allow you to send a mass message out to everyone who you have listed as a friend who has also listed you in return.

List Mutual Friends: When two people list each other as friends, they are "mutual" friends. Use this link if you would like to see a list of your mutual friends--these are people who will receive any group messages you send out.

If you'd like to find out more about Andromeda membership: Click Here

 

February 3rd

Favorite Books and Shared Custom Layouts

Two new features were added today. The first will appeal to some of you bookworms who have been nagging me about this for some time: There is now a section in your profile for "Favorite Books". Knock yourselves out, you crazy kids.

The second feature is a big plus for those of you who like designing custom layouts and sharing them with others:

There is now a text area in the 'look and feel' section of your control panel called 'custom css'. You can add all of your customization code into this field instead of putting it at the start of your profile. Then if you share your layout using the 'Share' option, people will be able to use your customized layout simply by clicking the "Use Layout" link on your profile. See my news post from February 1st for more information on the very groovy 'Share' feature.

So the idea for all of you layout-design people is this: Create a profile for each of your layout designs and then enable the share option on those profiles. Then when someone wants to use one of your custom layouts, they can just browse your customized profiles, find one they like, click the "Use Layout" link and BANG! man... they're done.

No more rocket science for the HTML impared.

One other big plus to using the new section for all of your CSS: Your picture gallery and comments pages will all take your custom code as well, giving your profile a much more cohesive feel.

February 1st

Peace and Euphoria, Share the Love, Share the Layouts

Whoa, like, I just added a totally groovy feature, man.

Check out the 'Look and Feel' section of your control panel. There is now a 'Share' option that will allow you to share your profile layout with others.

If you set 'Share' to 'yes' then there will be a link added to your profile under your friends lists that people will be able to click in order to use your layout.

Clicking a link to use someone else's layout will result in your profile taking on all of their color and layout settings (except for any MP3 file they may have linked).

Note: Layout sharing will not share any custom CSS that was added to a profile. Any custom CSS you've added to your own profile will also override any settings you try to use from a shared layout.

Some of you layout-designing cats might dig this one, I dunno, man...

January 31st

A Big Dumb Fun Show

The Big Dumb Fun Show, a syndicated terrestrial and Internet radio show from Kansas City, Missouri, is to have their resident stunt man, Aaron Somers (aka - "Fluffy") help raise money for the American Heart Association. All of the money raised (100%) from this auction will go directly to the American Heart Association--and there will be some nice perks in exchange.

The winner of this auction will get the satisfaction of knowing that they will be responsible for all of Fluffy's hair being removed (all of the hair on his head, that is).

We are confident that Fluffy has enough hair for us to donate it to "Locks of Love", a charity for children suffering with cancer. Hopefully someone else can make good use of Fluffy's locks and be very happy.

Please visit:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5554971477

January 23nd

New Andromeda Feature

Andromeda members may now block javascript on the profiles they visit. The option can be found in the 'Experience' menu. Some music players are javascript based as are all of those lovely pop-up messages some of us like to put on our profiles. ;)

For more information on Andromeda, click here.

 

January 22nd

Picture Galleries

All of your uploaded pictures will now optionally display on a separate gallery page. The gallery page will have the same background image and color settings that you set for your profile in your look and feel section to make it feel like a continuous part of your profile. This is very handy if you have an Andromeda account and have uploaded 20-30 pictures; your profile page will be much cleaner this way.

If you would rather not have your pictures separated into a gallery, just go into the Look and Feel part of the Control Panel and set the 'Gallery' option to 'Off'.

 

January 22nd

Flavored Files

Just added to the "Look and Feel" section of the Control Panel: "Flavors". Now you can pick from six mouth watering color combinations that will automaticaly fill in all of your color values for you. This is a good way to get a basic scheme to start with. This is also awesome if you're just lazy (like me), don't want to fool with color coordinating every aspect of your profile and yet want to display some nice color combinations. Flavors currently on the menu: Orange Banana, Kiwi Lime, Dark Cherry, BlueBerry, Plum and Cotton Candy.

Sink your teeth in...

 

January 21st

Missing Backgrounds and MP3s

If your background or mp3 has disappeared from your profile and you haven't already added anything else back in, you can get back your background and mp3 settings by going into your Control Panel, clicking on Look and Feel and then clicking on 'save changes' (even if you make no changes).

 

January 21st

Layouts Unleashed

I've finished working most of the kinks out of the new "Look and Feel" control panel. All of the features currently there should be working properly and for those of you who prefer to do most of your own CSS, picking a few items from this panel should no longer interfere with your custom code bits. If you do have a profile with lots of custom code and noticed that some elements of it messed up recently, you should be able to fix it simply by going into your control panel and clicking "save changes" (even without making any changes).

Now, a little bit of bad news for those of you who previously picked general "color schemes" from the old control panel. For now, those are no longer available and so if you save anything in your control panel at this point your color schemes are going to be wiped out. I will eventually add some options that will make it possible to pick general color schemes as before, so if you're not into picking out colors for each individual element on your own there is help on the way.

In the mean while, why not give the new control panel a shot? You might just surprise yourself with your own creativity...

January 16th

Look and Feel

I am completely re-working the "Look and Feel" section of the control panel to make it easier to more precisely customize the look of your profile (such as the colors of the links, text, scrollbars, various parts of the layout, etc.). Soon, instead of just picking general color schemes, you'll be able to pick colors for each element of the profile. To make this easier, there will be little color swatches that you can click on to choose the colors.

It's still in the testing phase, but if you'd like to play with it: click here.

Be advised: If you do decide to play with it, you will be making changes to the appearance of your profile. This is a live demo! However, if you do something you don't like you can always go back into your regular control panel and change it back by simply clicking the "save changes" button.

I would greatly appreciate your feedback and any ideas you may have about this, so if you decide to have a look, drop by my profile and tell me what you think. I have lots of ideas and other things I'm going to add to make it more intuitive; there will be some options that will make it possible just to pick general color schemes if you're not into fooling around with each little bit of your design, so don't freak out... yet... ;)

January 13th

Fo-ged-aboud-it!

The 'Remember Me' option has been removed from the login page and I've made some changes to the site that should allow you to stay logged in until you decide to log out. The only exception might be if you're away from the site for a few days. The 'Remember Me' option created a slight security risk and so that was my reason for removing it. Please let me know if you encounter any difficulties with this.

Articles

We will soon have a new feature: "Articles". Articles will be a place for you to post rants, essays (and yes, poetry) on various topics to share with others. This is a little bit different than the Blog feature because Articles will be kept in different categories for easy browsing (such as Life, Death, Rants, Current Events, Poetry, Essays, etc.). Also at some point the articles will post on the front page of the site when approved by editors. More on this to come.

 

January 10th

Andromeda is Here

The new 'Andromeda' accounts are now available. Signing up for an Andromeda account will add some great features to your profile as well as help to support DarkStarlings.

Click here to find out more.

Those of you who previously made donations to the site are entitled to two free months of Andromeda features. If you made a donation and haven't already contacted me about it, please do so. Simply leave me a comment with the payment method (PayPal or Amazon) and email address you used to make the donation.

January 7th

Problems With Comments

Many of you are worried about problems with new comments not showing up after they're posted. This is due to a problem that was encountered while moving to the new server. For a good few hours, the time on the new server was set a day ahead, so all messages posted during those few hours were posted "in the future". Woooo!

After I set the clock back to the correct time, all further messages (the messages you are now trying to post) appear lower down in your comments list *below* any "future" messages you may have received.

So it breaks down like this: If you're missing any messages, scroll further back into your comments and you will find them there. Comments will begin to post normally again when the terrible wormhole I opened up closes around 11 AM CST this morning.

The New Server

We've finished our move to the new server and other than problems related to the strange time distortion mentioned above, all went well. Things appear to be running smoothly and so far the performance has been impressive.

Marty McFly?

If you're still feeling confused about all of this space/time stuff, I apologize. Try not to think about it too much. Try watching "Back to the Future", parts I and II. But mostly part I. Part II kind of sucked. These movies won't help you to understand the problem any better, but they are entertaining and maybe after you watch them a few times it will be after 11-o-clock--at which point we'll all be "back to the future", as it were, and the problem will have corrected itself.

You're beautiful, goodnight.

January 5th

Friends, Starlings, Countrymen

Tomorrow during the late morning or at mid-day, we will commense with a move over to a (much) upgraded server. This shouldn't result in too much downtime, but it's not like you guys aren't used to it anyway. Heh. Anyhoo, I anticipate greatly increased capacity on the new server (meaning more users online simultaneously). While things will surely be much speedier for a good while, I'm certain we'll test the limits of the new server sooner or later (I'm hoping for later!).

New feature: For all of you meany-heads, you can now remove yourself from other people's friends list. IE, if someone has listed you as a friend and you'd rather they not, you can break their heart with a decisive click of your mouse. Just go to the "X People have listed" link on your own profile page and you'll notice some 'delete' links that appear next to each person who has listed you as a friend. You know what to do...

In other news, yo momma so fat... she's really... really... like, big.

That is all.

January 2nd

Titles

You will now notice a "title" section on your profile. The default title is 'Starling'. I have not yet decided if it will be possible to promote through different titles except for as follows:

Site Operators will have (oddly enough) the title of 'Operator'. To find out more about what our Site Operators do here, check out the new Help section. Today, four new site operators have joined the team: DeathWizard DarkElegance LaLunaBlue and RazorBunnies.

If you have made a donation to the site in the past, please contact me with your email address and method you used to donate (PayPal or Amazon) if you wish your title to be changed to 'Contributory'.

In development is a paid account with some extra perks (don't worry, free accounts won't be losing any features). These accounts will have the title, 'Andromeda'. More to come on that as more is available.

 

January 1st

Silence!

If the music in your profile suddently stopped working last night, the fix is simple. Go back into your Control Panel and then into Look and Feel. Make sure the MP3 location there is correct and then (even if it is correct) click Save Changes.

 

December 31st

Happy New Years, all. Just a couple of notes for today.

Remember Me, Won't You?

If you leave checked the new "Remember Me" box when you log in, when you return to the site later on you won't have to re-enter your username and password; it will already be filled in for you.

 

Undoubled

Due to, uhm, popular demand... the extraneous comments were cleaned from the database today. In all, about 350,000 duplicate comments were removed. *whew!*

 

The Faculty

At this point in time, there are two administrators present on the site. Those would be myself and xxxShattered_Princexxx. If you have trouble with your profile HTML or have an issue of abuse to report, you may now contact xxxShattered_Princexxx.

 

 

December 28th

Yes, my darling starlings, it's been a rough ride. For those of you curious, this community has been open to the public for just a little over two months now and it's come quite a long way--however, there is still much more to be done before this place will begin to resemble what I've imagined for it.

Growing Pains

The community is growing at a seemingly exponential rate. While I've seen as many as 350 people online during peak hours, right now the server is hard pressed to handle much more than 250. As a result, I've spent this past week doing a great deal of work on things under the hood to increase the efficiency of the code and the software systems that power the site.

 

Comment Doubling (aka: Why the hell did all of my comments before a certain date suddenly double?)

While making some sweeping changes to the way the comments database works, I goofed and replicated lots of the comments. So if you see that all of your comments before a certain date are posted twice, that would be why. This was a one-time error, meaning that you shouldn't see this continuing to happen. You can safely delete your extra comments, though I realize that for some of you this would mean sifting through possibly hundreds of pages of comments. I will eventually write a script to clean up the extra comments but that's not a priority at this time, so please be patient. Besides, a little deja vu never hurt anyone, right?

 

Lagging and Outages (aka: Why the hell does the site slow down or just go down from time to time?)

I wish I had better news for you, this is related to the aforementioned exponential growth. In all honesty, this community is growing much faster than I ever thought it would and it's become a full time job trying to keep up with it. As I mentioned, I'm doing lots of work "under the hood" to make things better. However, as a result of this work, the site is going to have some downtime now and again. I'm doing my best to keep it at a minimum. Right now my focus is on making things efficient enough to handle a greater number of online users without slowing down. I can't give you a solid time frame yet but things may be a bit dodgy over the next couple of weeks.

 

The Light at the End of the Tunnel (aka: Where the hell are you taking this, Eon?)

Things will get much better very soon, I promise. A fantastic server upgrade is on the way that will greatly increase the site's capacity. Strangely, running this site on a server with such limited resources is kind of an ideal thing for me. It's forcing me to hone the code and server configurations to their utmost levels of efficiency. It's sort of like training for a race by running laps with weights around your ankles. It's hard work but when the weights come off, you'll feel like you're flying. The weights will come off soon...

 

About the Chat Room

I'd like to add a note about the chat room (the chat link at the top of profile pages). We've got an awesome group of people hanging out in the chat now, but we need to see more of you! If you've had trouble with getting into the chat room in the past, please check it out again. It's very possible that many of you don't have the necessary java support to load the chat program. This should be an easy fix; there is now a link from the chat page that will send you to an automatic java installation. So if you're having trouble with the chat, just click the link and follow through the prompts and hopefully you'll be able to join us. Also, for those of you familiar with mIRC, you can connect to our chat room that way (I highly recommend it). If you wish to use mIRC instead of the java chat, here are the settings you'll need:

server: darkstarlings.com
port: 8089
channel: #darkstarlings

If you've never used mIRC before, feel free to get in contact with Restless soul who has kindly offered to show newcomers the ropes. You can also find out more about mIRC by visiting www.mirc.org.

 

A Thank You

I'd like to thank everyone for all of the support, encouragement and valuable feedback that you are providing. I'm very impressed with the culture that is developing here and the new people I meet each day have made my ongoing work more than worth the effort.

Besides, a little deja vu never hurt anyone, right?