July 4, 2016

• Pushing things Forward

  Hope everyone is having a great Fourth of July Weekend!

  Please let the professionals handle the fireworks... and please be mindful of those with sensory issues.

  Ok, onto the latest of updates -

  My focus this month is to get Autisable off of Xanga's servers and the new design launched.

  To help expedite the process of getting Autisable moving forward in its transition, we're going to set to 'private' all posts that still have to be matched to their respective authors.   We have enough on the site to relaunch that is already matched up, so we can take care of the remainder after we make the switch.  There's still over 50 author's that need to be added to the user database, and a few hundred articles still needing to be matched up.  This can be done after we relaunch.

  We're connecting with several businesses to get the advertising displayed regularly, with one being an ad serving company that has already vetted companies that want to promote to the Autism community.  The person we're in touch with to help facilitate serving ads is also an autism dad, which is just a pretty cool thing - considering what we're doing.

  To help test out the site from a user standpoint, a few select users were asked to log in and test drive the new design.   I want to be sure their experience is pretty seamless before we launch the site into its next phase.
  Due to budgetary constraints, Autisable will not be a multi-site when we go into this next phase.   For those curious as to what a multisite is, the short version is that users would have their own subdomain when they sign up for an account.   Such as username.autisable.com.   Having a multisite set up is similar to what Xanga is now, where people have some controls over their accounts look and feel.  Of course we could 'flip the switch' and allow this to happen, but there's some other infrastructure with the site we'd like to build in to make sure users have the best experience.  In short, I don't want to launch something halfway.

  Other priorities will be taking precedence on the site once we launch the new design - such as updating all SEO, and setting up the RSS feed importer.   Updating SEO will help with the sites search engine rankings, and the RSS feed importer will help us share the stories from other bloggers and non-profits on a more regular basis.

  We want to make sure all the basic work flows for the site are in place and most of the bugs worked out, before we start opening things up more.

  I've been asked a few times why I don't just pay for some of these things out of pocket to get them done?    Well, for those who have known me over the years, I have one major rule:   Whatever I do online has to have the ability to pay for itself.   Nothing I've done is an out of pocket expense, except when people gift me money.

  Over the next several weeks there will be some more updates as to what specifically we are doing with site - what plugins we're using and why... what third party sites we use....etc...

  Eventually these autisable updates will be switched to autisable, while this blog will remain more xangan.

  Which leads me to the standard Xanga update:  nothing new to report.   But, if you have ANY issues regarding an account - e-mail Eugenia at 'help@xanga.net' with your account username and the e-mail address associated with the account.

  Ok - back to the grind - and hope you're able to enjoy today!

  • 10:17 am
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