The AboutUs Blog » DailyBuzz http://blog.AboutUs.org The largest editable directory of websites Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:33:48 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 We’re Testing Our Redesign of AboutUs.org http://blog.AboutUs.org/were-testing-our-redesign-of-aboutus-org/ http://blog.AboutUs.org/were-testing-our-redesign-of-aboutus-org/#comments Thu, 11 Nov 2010 21:49:36 +0000 Aliza Earnshaw http://blog.AboutUs.org/?p=6880

If you’ve visited AboutUs.org lately, you may have seen the new design we made available to a fraction of visitors last week.

As of today, every AboutUs visitor gets to see the new site. We’ve been working on this design for a few months to make it easier to use and deliver better information about websites more quickly.

One change you may notice right away is the navigation menu in the left-hand sidebar of every website profile page. Each link in that menu takes you to a different kind of information about that website.

We’d love to get  your feedback on the new site. Anything you can tell us will help us improve it for you. You can email us at Questions@AboutUs.org, or simply click the “contact us” link at the very top of every AboutUs page.

]]> http://blog.AboutUs.org/were-testing-our-redesign-of-aboutus-org/feed/ 19 Google Voice ~ Two Thumbs Up http://blog.AboutUs.org/google-voice-two-thumbs-up/ http://blog.AboutUs.org/google-voice-two-thumbs-up/#comments Thu, 28 Oct 2010 23:51:30 +0000 Suzi Ziegler http://blog.AboutUs.org/?p=6312

Skype is dynamite for the office. If you’re in front of your computer,
nothing beats it.

However, if you’re traveling or want a little long distance freedom,
I recommend Google Voice.

A couple of weeks ago, my boyfriend was working in Japan. With a 16-hour time difference, Skype was our only means of communication. Aside from hotel connectivity issues resulting in dropped calls, Skype worked pretty well. The only downside was my boyfriend had to stay glued to his computer. With this in mind, I followed a link to learn about Google Voice. To my surprise, I found I could call Japan using Google Voice and my cell phone for only two cents a minute. I signed up and within minutes I was speaking to the hotel concierge in Tokyo.

When you sign up for Google Voice, you get to select a phone number from the area code of your choosing. You also get to assign which phone or phones you want Google Voice to access. I chose my cell phone. Now, I want to add my land line. Google Voice let’s you designate specific phones for different callers — and you can customize out-going messages for each caller, too. For example, you can have a professional message for clients and co-workers that differs from a message for friends and family. Calling is free within the continental U.S. and international rates are stunningly low. I bought ten dollars worth of calling time which will last quite awhile.

Here’s how it works — Sign up and receive a phone number. Enter the number you wish to call in the popup window. Google Voice will initiate the call and ring your designated phone. When you pick up, your party is being connected on the other end. Voilà! The only negative thing I’ve heard about Google Voice is that you can’t download the app on a computer that shares Skype. My colleague and I tested this theory and we had no problem operating both apps at once. Hmmm.

]]> http://blog.AboutUs.org/google-voice-two-thumbs-up/feed/ 8 In Defense Of The Long Form http://blog.AboutUs.org/in-defense-of-the-long-form/ http://blog.AboutUs.org/in-defense-of-the-long-form/#comments Fri, 15 Oct 2010 17:00:00 +0000 MarkDilley http://blog.AboutUs.org/?p=6028

What I find most interesting about Happy Cog’s new system of commenting is not the twitter commenting, but rather the ability to easily add your response in the form of a weblog post. Aside from the fact that I hate the ugly word blog and much prefer the term weblog, I think this is a very interesting invitation to easily link your thoughts through the long form of a weblog post.

Blog Your Response

I know people are thrilled to use Twitter to make comments — that in itself is an interesting experiment. My interest is to see how many people will write weblog posts as responses.

Will there be more weblog posts because of the ease of this new commenting system?

Looking briefly through the huge comment stream, I found these really nice, long form, weblog posts: Joshua Taylor digs deep into the subject, John Rainsford mentions that it might be better than inline comments, Christopher Cashdollar also supports the long form, and lastly, Thibaut Sailly makes good suggestions about weighing weblog posts more than tweets, more than RTs.

Will there be more long form or will tweeting kill it?

(being a wiki person, I look forward to testing this easy linking feature to a wiki page!)

]]> http://blog.AboutUs.org/in-defense-of-the-long-form/feed/ 1 AboutUs pagecount tops 14 million* http://blog.AboutUs.org/aboutus-pagecount-tops-14-million/ http://blog.AboutUs.org/aboutus-pagecount-tops-14-million/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:11:36 +0000 Ted Ernst http://blog.aboutus.org/?p=2211

Back in February, I reported that the AboutUs pagecount had reached 13.3 million (I missed 13 million by a bit).  Now I’m pleased to report 14 million.  I’ll repeat my disclaimer that we still don’t have a way to filter out stubs, redirects, etc. So here you have it from the stats page:

Site wide Statistics

Last Updated: Mon Apr 27 08:49:31 UTC 2009

AboutUs statistics

There are 14,015,295 total pages in the database. This includes “talk” pages, pages about AboutUs, minimal “stub” pages and redirects.

1,065,742 files have been uploaded.

There have been a total of 18,298,006 page edits since AboutUs was setup. That comes to 1.31 average edits per page.

User statistics

There are 420,408 registered users, of which 106 (or 0.03%) have Sysops rights.

]]> http://blog.AboutUs.org/aboutus-pagecount-tops-14-million/feed/ 1 AboutUs pagecount tops 13.3 million* http://blog.AboutUs.org/aboutus-pagecount-tops-133-million/ http://blog.AboutUs.org/aboutus-pagecount-tops-133-million/#comments Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:38:49 +0000 Ted Ernst http://blog.aboutus.org/?p=1565

Nick Burrus just pointed out to me that I’ve been asleep at the stats/blog switch. Last year around this time I reported that AboutUs pagecount tops 11 million* and then in August AboutUs pagecount tops 12 million*. Due to my missing 13 million, today I’m pleased to report that we’ve surpassed the 13.3 million milestone. I’ll repeat my disclaimer that we still don’t have a way to filter out stubs, redirects, etc. So here you have it:

AboutUs statistics

There are 13,355,616 total pages in the database. This includes “talk” pages, pages about AboutUs, minimal “stub” pages and redirects.

1,023,119 files have been uploaded.

There have been a total of 17,552,606 page edits since AboutUs was setup. That comes to 1.31 average edits per page.

User statistics

There are 363,920 registered users, of which 102 (or 0.03%) have Sysops rights.

Sorry for the delay!

]]> http://blog.AboutUs.org/aboutus-pagecount-tops-133-million/feed/ 1 Ignite Portland post-game commentary (better late than never) http://blog.AboutUs.org/ignite-portland-post-game-commentary-better-late-than-never/ http://blog.AboutUs.org/ignite-portland-post-game-commentary-better-late-than-never/#comments Sat, 22 Nov 2008 11:29:29 +0000 Tak Kendrick http://blog.aboutus.org/?p=1009

Okay, it’s been over a week and we’re still recovering from the fast fun of Ignite Portland #4.

The speed-presentation fest we previewed a few weeks ago featured a variety of exciting 5 minute presentations (14 of them to be specific) as well as 30-second videos from the various sponsors (including AboutUs):




A number of AboutUs staff turned up to see the event, which our very own Lyric Hartley rightly described as feeling “like a combination of standup and little micro speeches/soap boxes. I enjoy getting exposed to things that I otherwise might not have, and if it was something less interesting, just wait, the topic will change in a minute.”

More Ignite Portland recaps/information:
• Open thread from Ignite Portland on what could’ve been done better
• News report on the event from local TV station KGW
• Ignite Portland twitter feed

For those wishing for a taste of what you missed, YouTube features of variety of Ignite Portland videos from all four events, including all the sponsor videos (with reactions).

The next Ignite Portland will be held at the Bagdad Theater on February 19 (making it a nice appetizer for Recent Changes Camp the following three days), so be sure to plan on attending. And, if you’re interested in giving a talk, submissions for Ignite Portland #5 presentations are now open.

Be sure to check out the various proposals offered for next time to see if you can do better, and – if you’re stuck for a presentation idea, Lyric mentioned something that could be interesting: “I thought it might be fun to take advantage of the rare opportunity of having that many interested people, and create a type of ‘group’ presentation, that involved the crowd. I think people will play with the concept more and it will keep getting really interesting, I am looking forward to the next one!”

]]> http://blog.AboutUs.org/ignite-portland-post-game-commentary-better-late-than-never/feed/ 1 DailyBuzz 21-29 March 2008 http://blog.AboutUs.org/dailybuzz-21-29-march-2008/ http://blog.AboutUs.org/dailybuzz-21-29-march-2008/#comments Tue, 01 Apr 2008 03:02:29 +0000 Ted Ernst http://blog.aboutus.org/2008/03/31/dailybuzz-21-29-march-2008/

]]> http://blog.AboutUs.org/dailybuzz-21-29-march-2008/feed/ 0 Daily Buzz 19,20 March 2008 http://blog.AboutUs.org/daily-buzz-1920-march-2008/ http://blog.AboutUs.org/daily-buzz-1920-march-2008/#comments Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:59:56 +0000 Ted Ernst http://blog.aboutus.org/2008/03/21/daily-buzz-1920-march-2008/

  • Congratulations to Michael Berkley and our friends at SplashCast for raising a $4MM Series A! – Ray | talk
  • Among the things that the new (still under construction) “Domain Box” layout does was made the various badges show up a little weird, especially ones based on my initial template design. I fixed all the ones I knew about and added them to Category:AboutUsBadges.
    • This should fix the vast majority of badge issues in “Domain Boxes”. Especially where more than one badge (like VentureNW, PortlandTech or SeattleTech) were present.
    • Common issues that still happen are on pages with multiple badges where people added <br/> or <br /> tags to try to bludgeon a fix under the old “Domain Box”. To resolve these issues, just take out the <br/> tags.
    • The way badges now show really is forcing some more standard sizes for these so they play nice on pages with multiple badges. To accommodate this, I created better instructions on badges, which is also on the Category:AboutUsBadges.
As there are likely to be more changes to the way badges happen in the future as we noodle with the “Domain Box”, please be sure to add the Category:AboutUsBadges category to your badge template (the code I propose on the category page includes this) so that in the event things change we can double check all the various badges. If you have any questions or problems with setting up your own badges, just let me know. — TakKendrick | talk Comment_green.gif 15:57, 20 March 2008 (PDT)
]]> http://blog.AboutUs.org/daily-buzz-1920-march-2008/feed/ 0 DailyBuzz 15-18 March 2008 http://blog.AboutUs.org/dailybuzz-15-18-march-2008/ http://blog.AboutUs.org/dailybuzz-15-18-march-2008/#comments Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:02:04 +0000 Ted Ernst http://blog.aboutus.org/2008/03/19/dailybuzz-15-18-march-2008/

  • Wow, good post and he’s local, thanks for finding this Mark. –Simon | talk 13:50, 18 March 2008 (PDT)
]]> http://blog.AboutUs.org/dailybuzz-15-18-march-2008/feed/ 0 DailyBuzz 14 March 2008 http://blog.AboutUs.org/dailybuzz-14-march-2008/ http://blog.AboutUs.org/dailybuzz-14-march-2008/#comments Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:39:02 +0000 Ted Ernst http://blog.aboutus.org/2008/03/15/dailybuzz-14-march-2008/

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