Here is that new site feature I hinted about a while ago! I have been a little hesitant to launch this new section since Jelsoft (the company that created/updates the forum software that we use) will be releasing their own blog system in the near future... I learned about this AFTER I had our blog framework in place and running good.

This new blog system is powered by Drupal, which is a well-known and thoroughly tested blog cms script used on MANY sites. There are alot of great modules for it as well to improve the features. Once I stumbled upon the script that combines Drupal with VB I knew what had to be done. So rather than wait for Jelsoft's solution, PLUS there is already a ton of add-ons and support out ther for Drupal, I decided to keep the current system and am now ready for some help testing it out!

PC Apex Member Blogs

This new section/feature is available to ALL PC Apex Members!

"Why a blog section?", you ask? This will allow our members to flex their creative muscles and/or keep a sort of ownership for the posts. guests and members can visit your specific blog to keep up with your activities which is still added to the forum as well. PLUS, we have Google Adsense Revenue Sharing enabled allowing you to make 75% of the revenue generated from the Adsense ads displayed with your blog! That will let you hopefully make a little extra change for your efforts. The more and better your content, the more change you can make. I have some great ideas for extending this section so keep an eye on it. Those that run exceptional blogs with regular, quality content will be rewarded for their efforts.

I will be posting an extensive Blog Guide when we officially release news of our new section to help people use it effectively, but for now, here are the basics:

- The main post type you will use is a Blog post. Blog posts cover a wide range of uses. They can be used very flexibly.

- Whenever you make a new post YOU MUST SELECT THE APPROPRIATE FORUM for your comment thread to be created in AS WELL AS THE APPROPRIATE TOPIC; the topic category you pick will be the same as the forum... you need to set it in two places. This essentially adds-to the content in the forums and helps to get exposure for your new post. Just pick the forum which best fits the topic of your post. If you would like a new forum to be added as a selection, just let me know in this thread.

- The thing that trips people up most so far is the "Input Format" selection right under the posting window when adding new content. There are 3 options for members to use. Filtered HTML (which is pretty plain HTML and should be used most of the time if you do not need any special HTML formatting), FULL HTML (which is exactly that, full HTML use for advance post formatting), and vbCode (for those VERY familiar with the formatting code used in the forums). If you find that your post doesn't look like you intended it to then most likely this selection is the culprit. Just edit the post and select the appropriate format. YOU CANNOT MIX AND MATCH VBCODE AND HTML.

- Use the blogs wisely! If you abuse the blog system by making EVERY new thread through your blog then you will lose your access to this feature. Usually, a good way to judge when to use the blogs for posting content is this... Content that you are presenting to the reader is better suited for the blog. A question you want an answer to, a quick blurb about a movie, etc should be a regular forum post. That is not to say that you cannot ask for help/question in a blog post... but that blog entry should have some background and plenty more info than a simple question.

NOTE: This is still under development! You may encounter some quirks/bugs. If you do, please info about them here for others to confirm and for me to check out. The basic framework is there but there is still plenty more to be done in the way of tweaking and styling.

EDIT // The Google Adsense Revenue Sharing for the blogs is now in place. You can go to http://www.google.com/adsense and sign up for a free adsense account. Then all you have to do is go the blog area and click on the "My Account" link on the right menu --> Click on "Edit" tab --> Click the "Adsense" link right under the tabs --> Enter you google client ID in the field on that page and save it.

You can get your Google Adsense Client ID by creating any old ad at the Adsense site and when it gives you the banner ad code for it just take the "pub-XXXXXXXXX" code from it. That is the client ID.

Once you do that, your ads will displayed 75% of the time, giving you 75% of the profit from traffic on your blog. I plan on eventually changing this to 50%... maybe not... for now it will be 75% since you guys are helping to get this area rolling!

Feel free to give this new feature launch a Digg!

GlitterKill I am glad to see you will be having a guide to this and how it works, man i am so far behind in time and a total newbie and idiot for not knowing what a blog is, i have a feeling it will take me sometime to learn how to use it.

Quick question...

Do blog entries count towards post counts?

Sorry if ive missed the answer... im a bit tired (just been paintballing)

Hey... i could write about that in my Blog! lol


Mark

Yes, when the blog is posted a comment thread is created under your name so it counts as a post.

I'm trying to post something in dbbcode format, and I'm getting a " Validation error, please try again. If this error persists, please contact the site administrator."

Thoughts? Should I try it in HTML?

(EDIT) HTML didn't work either.

(EDIT EDIT) Okay, it worked now, but it's showing the HTML tags... weird?!?!

The blog stuff is awesome dude.

Thanks... still working on it DN.

Funky: You can't mix html and vb code. Either or.

Thanks, GK, I was trying to over-think it. It's working okay for me now.

But why is it that I can't see anybody's comments except j-dawg's? Anybody else's and I get a "You don't have access to this page". Interesting.

That means they are not assigning the correct forum for the feedback thread. When that happens it goes into a moderation queue. That is why it is so important to pick the topic category AND comment thread when posting.

The Google Adsense Revenue Sharing for the blogs is now in place. You can go to http://www.google.com/adsense and sign up for a free adsense account. Then all you have to do is go the blog area and click on the "My Account" link on the right menu --> Click on "Edit" tab --> Click the "Adsense" link right under the tabs --> Enter you google client ID in the field on that page and save it.

You can get your Google Adsense Client ID by creating any old ad at the Adsense site and when it gives you the banner ad code for it just take the "pub-XXXXXXXXX" code from it. That is the client ID.

Once you do that, your ads will displayed 75% of the time, giving you 75% of the profit from traffic on your blog. I plan on eventually changing this to 50%... maybe not... for now it will be 75% since you guys are helping to get this area rolling!

What do you guys think about opening this feature up for worklogs? It would allow for an uninterrupted worklog presentation but still allow for comments. The author would need to updated the original Blog post with the added progress and simply leave a post in the feedback thread about the new updates. What do you guys and gals think?

Also, I have announced this new feature at Digg.

Quote: Originally Posted by GlitterKill What do you guys think about opening this feature up for worklogs? It would allow for an uninterrupted worklog presentation but still allow for comments. The author would need to updated the original Blog post with the added progress and simply leave a post in the feedback thread about the new updates. What do you guys and gals think? Also, I have announced this new feature at Digg.

Well, you know what I think about that, but I will voice it here for everyone, I think that worklogs and blogs were made for each other. The only thing that I would change from your description is to have the comment thread updated evey time the author posts a blog update. If you could get it to do that, it would be a grand slam.

Quote: Originally Posted by DickNervous Well, you know what I think about that, but I will voice it here for everyone, I think that worklogs and blogs were made for each other. The only thing that I would change from your description is to have the comment thread updated evey time the author posts a blog update. If you could get it to do that, it would be a grand slam.

I thought about that and it MAY be possible... HOWEVER, if I setup a method for a post to be added to the comment thread each time the blog is updated with new content then it could get messy if the author has to do multiple edits in order for it to look how he wanted or if he found typos and fixed them.

Maybe if they add a "Last Updated: xx-xx-xx" or something like that to the first line of the worklog, that will be sent to the original post of the feedback thread. But I wonder if it would flag the thread as having new posts? Time to experiment!

GK, if anybody could pull it off, it'd be you. Run with it.

Don't worry about any text editor issues tonight... I am moving to a better wysiwyg post editor in order to allow worklog blogs.

Quote: Originally Posted by GlitterKill I thought about that and it MAY be possible... HOWEVER, if I setup a method for a post to be added to the comment thread each time the blog is updated with new content then it could get messy if the author has to do multiple edits in order for it to look how he wanted or if he found typos and fixed them. Maybe if they add a "Last Updated: xx-xx-xx" or something like that to the first line of the worklog, that will be sent to the original post of the feedback thread. But I wonder if it would flag the thread as having new posts? Time to experiment!

Simple solution: A third button. Preview, Submit, Publish as Update (or whatever you think makes sense). The Publish button will trigger the following things to happen:

1. Update that they are making gets submitted to the blog.
2. New post in comment thread with the teaser text
3. Updated on XX-XX-XXXX added to the Blog title
4. Worklog Updated on XX-XX-XXXX added to comment thread title (though this may be redundant if there is a new post

This way when the author makes a post to the blog, they can control when a New Update! notice is posted. So if I want to make an update and it is going to be several posts, I can simply check that box/button after the last one and only generate one new update notification.

And when someone edits a post, that button isn't even available so if I edit my post 30 times 'cause I can't spell for beans, the comment thread won't get flooded.

Now the next step is to create RSS feeds for each worklog and comment thread and get them setup with Feedburner to drive more traffic.

See, I told you I have tons of ideas, some of them even good. Just no time to implement them myself....

Yup, I already had the RSS Feedburner stuff in mind... we already use feedburner quite a bit.

The features you are talking about would require quite a bit of research and hacking. I am still getting used to the Drupal system. It's very freeform with a ton of new terminology to learn. I am happy to have things where I have them at this point.

For the time being, we'll just have the author leave a post in the thread to let everyone know that the worklog has been updated. It's a really simple thing to do and a small requirement to have such a neat and orderly worklog format.

I finally have it nailed! I can't wait to see someone use this new method for a worklog! Think about it! If it is a hit and gets alot of views it can actually make you some money! I am about to post some rudimentary instructions in a sticky in the worklog forum to get people started. Really exciting times...

I never claimed my ideas were easy to implement...

I think it will be a big hit. Now if only I had a worklog to post.....

n1 wrok will make a blog too soon

there... i noticed we have am official blog section now... so i gave it a little jumpstart