Nominate TWLOHA!

Notes augmented

We've enhanced and de-bugged Notes. If you haven't tried it yet, now's the time! You can create a private note when you ban multiple users. You can also delete multiple notes at once. Lastly, paid users have the option to add a note (visible only to you) whenever you add or remove a friend (guaranteed to avoid embarrassing social mishaps). If you don't currently have a paid account, you can upgrade now! It only takes a few minutes and costs less than a bad shopping mall haircut (plus, it's way more fashionable)!

Product tweaks and bug kill

1. In another effort to zap spam, comments containing links from domains LiveJournal deems untrustworthy are now automatically screened
2. If you sign up to get notifications of the Writer's Block question of the day, you'll now see the daily question in the email notification, so you'll have a little extra time to ponder before you post. You can subscribe to Writers Block notifications here
3. The issue causing random comments to vanish has been fixed!
4. If you visit a LiveJournal page and get prompted to log in, you'll be returned to the same page after you sign in (Thanks, Dreamwidth)!
5. If you don't edit the timestamp for an entry at all, the entry timestamp will indicate the time the entry was posted instead of the time the Update Journal page was loaded
6. Comments with paddings/backgrounds render correctly within the comment box (and will no longer wrap outside the box and break frames/margins)

New FCK fixes rich text editor!

1. We've updated our RTE (Rich Text Editor) to FCKeditor version 2.6.5
2. When switching from the RTE to HTML editor, links for syndicated feeds are no longer broken
3. RTE now functions properly in Safari 4.0
4. An extra line/space will not be auto-inserted whenever you switch from RTE to HTML editor
5. The insert image link now works correctly in all browsers

LiveJournal Cares

We’re pleased to introduce you to lj_cares, a new LiveJournal community dedicated to raising awareness and funds for U.S. charitable organizations that improve the health and well-being of people around the world. Each month, we’ll spotlight a nonprofit that is making a significant global impact through medical research, public outreach, and/or humanitarian social programs. Charities will be selected in accordance with the U.S. calendar of national health observances based on a high rating (of over 60%) on Charity Navigator and global scope of impact.

In this, our inaugural month of November, we will celebrate national adoption month by offering a charitable virtual gift (priced at $2.99) to support Love Without Boundaries, an organization that saves the lives of orphans with life-threatening diseases and places them in loving homes around the world. LiveJournal will donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of charitable vgifts (we'll cover the cost of credit card transaction fees). To learn more about Love Without Boundaries, please visit lj_cares and read about how they helped save Baby Kang and the Rainbow Twins from fatal illnesses, who are now thriving in nurturing families. You can purchase your Love Without Boundaries gifts in the Virtual Gift shop.

Papered in postcards

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in postcards to surround us with LiveJournal community. Thanks for coming through! We've received postcards all the way from Germany, Finland, and Canada and from all over the US, including Texas, Florida, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Indiana, Hawaii, and Oklahoma just to name just a handful. We're thrilled with our improved decor.

Please keep the love coming for one more week by writing to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be drawing the names of ten random contributors next Thursday to win paid account credits!

Photos of the week

We have more dazzling images posted by talented LiveJournal photographers from around the world. We're hoping to span the entire globe, so please continue posting and tagging. Of course, you can also sit back and enjoy the view at lj_photophile.

You can see a sample of this week's gorgeous photos and check out spotlight communities and awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

We thank you, once again, for joining us. See you next week!

On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.

Kels is supposed to come here on Thursday, but she may not be able to. After that I'm supposed to go to CT, but that may not happen either. Two things I've been extremely excited about for a while now.

Ontop of all of that I'm stuck in the house all day with no car. Once again I have to postpone my job searching because I have no way of getting there. None of my friends have their cars on the road just yet. When I can use the car it's late and there's pretty much nothing to do. Oh, and to put the cap on it, I get bitched at for staying out an hour longer than I said I'd be out for, yet that person is out longer than I was last night, tonight. Both nights they have completely disapeared. I can't stand when people act hypocritical. Tomorrow morning I will probably get excuses, or just not get anything at all.

Honestly, none of this is even THAT big of a deal, but for some reason it's getting to me so much. It's all making me so upset.

I wish I could find someone I can truly rely on. I wish I could find someone that will love me back just as much as I love them..

sixwordstories
Whether you're in the mood for a creative challenge or you're short on time or attention span, this semi-addictive community is perfect for those who find flash fiction way long. Once you get the hang of it, you won't be able to stop. The prince turned into a frog. The girl ran home to mother. Tough to write. Easy to read. It's a double threesome of fun.

dailyfoodie
Delicious, ambitious, and occasionally nutritious dishes make for an eclectic, all-you-can-eat feast. Whether you're searching for recipes for your next dinner party or you're jonesing for a late-night brownie fix, your cravings are sure to be well sated. A warm and inclusive community that welcomes all orientations, from carnivores to vegans, from gourmands to junk-food junkies. Guaranteed bias-free, food-positive, and pan-epicurian.

I dreamt Steven Segal tried to kill me because I was a Japanese slave hiding under a bed because I tried to free another girl who was in chains. He turned into dry spaghetti and I chopped him up and killed him. I was in my grandma's house. My mom told me to bury him in the backyard. She told me she was proud of me and we would go out to eat to celebrate.



I'm not normal.





Also, I'm up an hour early because my stupid roommate is here.

Dear Juliet,
Its been a long time since we last spoke. You've been dead for how many years now? My count says ten years ago. Holy hell that is a long time. Remember how young I was? I was just a little kid but you treated me like an equal, a friend even. I took out your garbage and brought you your mail and you talked with me about everything under the sun; philosophy, technology, life anything that my mind could come up with(and in rapid succession most likely)
I wonder what you'd think of me now. I wonder if who I am would please you. I still write poetry, though it is a lot darker than the poem I wrote for you. Your son probably still has a copy of the poem I wrote for you. I remember your funeral like it was yesterday, and I still wish there was a grave to go visit.
Enough of that though, remember the summer spent on the porch and you taught me about the different plants on your porch and we marveled over then one that shot its seeds out of these little coiled pods. I remember the laughter of that day.
I'm 21 now and my life has taking a turn on its head. I lost someone dear to me and my father died of AIDS this summer. Shes still alive but he isn't. Its totally screwed up, you should've seen it. How much I look like him. But beyond all of that though I'm trying to live up to the potential you said you saw in me.
I just wanted to say thank you, and that I'll never forget you, old friend. You shaped who i grew up to be. I'm sorry my sisters ruined your lord of the rings books.
And, I know its cliche, but if you're still floating around the summerlands and you see my father(you'll know him because I look just like him.) introduce yourself and explain who you were.
Thank You, I'm going to give my first daughter your name in some way or another. I hope my children are so lucky to meet someone who treats them like you treated me.

-Dan

This whole quitting thing?


Such a pain in my fucking ass.

The empire strikes back

In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.

RSS feeds again

If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!

c_s_i

If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.

Enveloped in postcards

Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.

Photos of the week

If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
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Note to self: Write a short story with these points:

- The setting begins in a laundr-o-mat.

- There are at least two characters speaking.

- One of the characters is cleaning sheets.

- One character has some similarities to the blond outside of humanities, the other like the brunet in the computer lab (think Peter Pan).

- At least one part of their discussion must pertain to an ex-partner and some eccentricity about him/her.

- One must smoke, but actually having the character smoking is not important.

www.zambooie.com/twloha

She's sitting alone smoking cigarette after cigarette, drinking lukewarm coffee. She has a cough building in her chest she's ignoring, sitting there until she's close to wheezing. Ink dyes her fingers, some smudges on pages. The words don't hold much meaning; she's just waiting, passing time. How much longer until he shows? She'll repeat words that catch her eye, tracing over, dark blotches marring the pages. She lights another cigarette, the ash forming a small mountain. Her over-large mug finally running empty, she rises to start a new pot. No break in smoking; she doesn't want to breathe fresh air. Sitting down with a fresh cup, she finds the words start forming more meaning. Words mirroring her current state. Stale air traveling through the window. Lightbulb casts yellow tint on everything, her skin looks jaundiced. Starving off hunger. If she smokes enough, he'll come back. Reprimand her for her bad habits. Words become declaration. More coffee consumed. Puffs taken quicker. A slow frenzy. Fingers begin to cramp, wrist cracks.
The screen door opens, slams shut. The spring needs fixing. She pauses writing, drinking, smoking. Footsteps. Noise ceases by her. She snaps out of he reverie. No. Nothing. Flick cigarette, drink cold coffee. Damn drink never stays hot. Rereading words. Arch back, sigh. Stub out cigarette. Gulp remains of coffee. Deep stretch, twist body. A few steps back. Close book, sweep up ash, clean mug. Go outside. Silent closure.

black lung travels to fingers
then turn to smoke and float away
wisps of nothing in the air
eyesight muddled
we are lost in our manic frenzy
you're dragging me down with you
you're dragging me down with you

aiyatheydidnt
The Chinese version of ONTD, AIYA is a dynamic international community that welcomes users who share a love of contemporary Chinese pop culture. Dedicated to celebrity gossip and entertainment news, you'll enjoy gorgeous photos and breaking stories featuring the glitterati of mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

wendylady2
Designed to rescue fashion victims everywhere, this Brit-based community reads like a rag-ezine. Published once or twice weekly, you'll view bizarre highlights of the global fashion scene through captivating photos and delightfully snarky editorial. Sit tight for a virtual fashion tour from the runways of New York to Milan to Paris and back home again to London in homage to the adage: you can't buy good taste.

soldiers_heart
A passionate community for veterans of all ages (mostly American), plus families, friends, and supporters. View poignant snapshots detailing life in combat and back on civilian soil in the form of original artwork, personal narratives, poetry, and photos. Be forewarned that members don't shy away from describing their disappointments, disabilities, and struggles.

EDIT: If you're reading this, our maintenance is OVER! The problem was not found on our equipment, which means we'll have to work with our ISP to fix this small problem -- which also means another maintenance window in the future -- but at least we have eliminated our side.

Thank you everyone, and a special shout out to rekoil for giving me a great suggestion AND also the opportunity to feel like I've just called in to a local radio station.

Have a great day, night or afternoon wherever you may be.

---

Hi everyone, sorry for the late notice but I'm going to have to do some testing on 1 of our 4 internet circuits TONIGHT; Friday night or Saturday morning depending on which time zone you're in.

Most of us shouldn't notice any impact, though there may be some slowness or lag when I switch traffic on to our other ISP circuits and then another hit when I stop the tests. If a page won't load or times out, try hitting refresh 1 or 2 times and it should load then. If it doesn't work at all... trust me, I'll be typing really really really fast to try to undo whatever I just did. Hopefully you'll have some Halloween candy (if you're in the USA and celebrate that kind of thing) nearby to take away the bitterness of a small site outage. :(

Here's the handy-dandy Website That I Always Use to get a feel for when the maintenance will start in your area. Our site traffic historically dips on Friday afternoons until Saturday morning which is why we tend to pick this time for maintenance work.

( tech details )

status.livejournal.org will, of course be updated before and after the maintenance window. Or else marta will get mad at me. :D

bt