Saturday, October 31, 2009

New Feature - Author Contact

Actually, there have been quite a few changes since the last post, mostly in the area of infrastructure changes. I switched the VPS from RapidVPS to Linode. Also in there somewhere I switched over from two old-school engines (Tomcat and Apache) to more advanced solutions (Jetty and Nginx) that support a leaner, meaner application, which in the end means a better user experience.

The new feature for today is Author Contact. Authors can now be available for contact to editors, readers, and anyone else that might want to make contact. Authors control this setting through their Profile. Author's emails are kept private. This option is turned off by default. If you want to be contacted, you have to log in and turn it on.

For readers, this means that you can now contact your favorite authors, and ask for more great stories, poems, whatever. Editors/publishers can browse the site, and contact promising authors.

Authors that are available for contact will have a little envelope next to their name in the story lists. Readers of stories will see a "Contact Author" button while they're viewing the story. The reader's email and message will be sent to the author, allowing them to reply directly to the reader.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

A New Star

I'd like to introduce you all to an up-and-coming star in the universe of photography. Also, he's my son, Taylor. I may be biased.

Please take a moment to visit his web site PhotoImageOgraphy. I think you'll be glad you did.