FromJournalScapeHQ

New Settings Pages

support@journalscape.com — Tue, 16 May 06 13:38:00 UT

The Preferences, Group Management, etc, etc, has undergone a face lift. Instead of having several choices to edit settings from your front page, you simply have an "Edit Journal Settings" link which takes you to a page with more specific options. The options are broken up into better groupings and hopefully the interface should be a little nicer.

Let me know if you run into any problems!

Unexpected Outage but Fixed Now

support@journalscape.com — Fri, 3 Feb 06 12:35:00 UT

I'm _really_ sorry about the outage, but it should be fixed now. The hard drive on the server filled up, which stopped the database from working which generated a bunch of error emails to be sent to me, but the mail server couldn't write them to the hard drive (because it was full) and compounded the problem. The server choked hard after that and started giving that bad error message you saw.

I'm really sorry about the problem, everything is fixed and restored now. Let me know if you see any problems.

Kenny Smith
JournalScape.com

Scheduled Maintenance After Thanksgiving

support@journalscape.com — Wed, 23 Nov 05 09:40:00 UT

Our ISP is requiring that we switch IP addresses on our server, which will supposedly help us transition to some better network or network connectivity... but really it's just a scary proposition. It requires the juggling of several different balls that all move at different speeds and have a delay as they propogate across the internet. :/

So... sometime soon after Thanksgiving I am going to try to perform the requested changes on the server. This may very well mean that JournalScape disappears for potentially up to 1 full day or more (I can't imagine there is any situation that it would last more than 2 days, but still).

I apologize ahead of time for any inconvenience this may cause, if it were up to me I'd prefer not to fix it, cuz it ain't broke.

ISP Power Outage

support@journalscape.com — Thu, 9 Jun 05 16:40:00 UT

JournalScape's data center had a fatal power outage today. They fired up the backup generators, but it turned out the generators couldn't support the whole data center so they had to shut off some servers. We were in the unlucky group that had the plug pulled. Despite the ISP's generator problems, I think they got us back up pretty fast considering the circumstances.

Sorry for the service outage!

New Feature: JournalScan to track new entries and comments

support@journalscape.com — Mon, 16 May 05 13:40:00 UT

JournalScan is our new feature that allows you to browse your favorite JournalScape journals ordered either by mostly recently posted or most recent comment. This feature has been in development for a long time, but honestly World of Warcraft has a serious impact on my productivity. :)

Here is my JournalScan page as an example. The left-hand column lists entries in descending (newest to oldest) order based on entry date and time. The right-hand column lists entries in descending order based on the most recent comment date and time.

This makes it very easy to keep track of new comments, assisting you in following a conversation or noticing when someone comments on an entry from a year ago.

To access your JournalScan, go to the URL:

http://www.journalscape.com/your_username/scan/

For example, my JournalScan URL is:

http://www.journalscape.com/kenny/scan/

Just type the nickname of a favorite journal in the Add Journal Nickname box and click Go. If you want to delete Journals from your JournalScan list, just click the Manage JournalScan link below the Go button.

Give it a try and let us know if you find any problems.

You can post problems in the comment section here or email support@journalscape.com.

Database Outage

support@journalscape.com — Fri, 25 Mar 05 10:08:00 UT

Several users noticed some problems using JournalScape last night, which was caused by an instability with the database. I've restarted the database and it is back to normal, but you may seem a few minor odd things here and there, like the number of comments on a Journal Entry might be wrong. We haven't seen any major problems like missing data, but if you do please contact support@journalscape.com.

Sorry for an inconvenience!

Error with special characters

support@journalscape.com — Wed, 6 Oct 04 20:43:00 UT

Since the error this last weekend, we have been experiencing problems with special characters in journal entries. I think I may have fixed it, please let me know if you were experiencing this problem but it looks fixed now.

<geek>
I don't know what I did this weekend to break it, but I've fixed it by setting a meta header that tells the browser to use UTF-8 encoding to display the page.
</geek>

Error on Server: Software restored from older version

support@journalscape.com — Sun, 3 Oct 04 11:56:00 UT

We had a major problem on the server and had to restore part of the Journal management software from an older version. Just to be clear, your journal entries were not affected nor were they in danger. We have nightly backups of all of your data that are periodically copied off of the server and privately stored in case of catastrophic server failure.

This problem was centered around one source code file that contained the logic for Adding, Editing and Deleting Journal Entries, as well as Subscription notifications.

Please let us know if you notice any features missing, problems using the site, or any strange behavior. We sincerely apologize for any problems this causes.

New Feature: Privileged Group Subscription Notifications

support@journalscape.com — Fri, 23 Jul 04 15:38:00 UT

This feature should have been done a long time ago, for that I apologize. It is by far the #1 requested feature and it's finally here. Your readers can now subscribe to your journal and receive Privileged Group entry notifications in addition to Public entry notifications!

All the reader has to do is login to the group and then click the "Subscribe to this Journal" link and it will offer them the ability to subscribe to that group. If they are already subscribed (just publicly or publicly with groups) this new subscription will simply be added to it (once the click the URL in the confirmation email of course). Since the system only supports being logged into 1 group per journal (probably the next thing I'll improve), if a reader wants to subscribe to multiple groups on a journal, they will have to go through the subscription process once for each group.

The whole thing could use some beautifying and probably some deeper testing, so please let me know if you find any bugs or find any part of the system confusing.

Have fun!

Journal Counter Bug Fixed

support@journalscape.com — Mon, 28 Jun 04 10:43:00 UT

We recently noticed the counter feature wasn't behaving consistantly and determined that it was only incrementing when you visited the month page. So, if you were subscribed to a journal or clicked from the Recent Entries page directly to the entry, your visit wasn't added onto the counter.

We sincerely apologize for the hits that were not counted. The counter has been fixed, so most likely you will begin seeing the counter rise much faster. Again, sorry for the problem.

Images in Journal Title + RSS

support@journalscape.com — Fri, 23 Apr 04 15:58:00 UT

This may get a little too geeky for most.. but if you are interested:

Several users have been gettin' jiggy with their Journal Titles and imbedding images instead of just text! They are looking pretty cool, so we want to encourage such things. The only problem with this is that the RSS feeds that are automatically generated for all JournalScape journals were getting really ugly Title and Subtitle information. So, we have added two new fields in the Preferences were you can set the RSS Journal Title and Subtitle separately from the standard Journal Title and Subtitle.

If you would like some examples, you can browse the following links (but the index.xml links are geeky, be warned):

http://www.journalscape.com/jenn/
http://www.journalscape.com/jenn/index.xml

http://www.journalscape.com/greg/
http://www.journalscape.com/greg/index.xml

5 New Color Schemes!

support@journalscape.com — Fri, 23 Apr 04 15:42:00 UT

We took a look at the general usage of the color schemes and saw that people like the White and Black based schemes the most, so Jenn has created 5 more!

Black - Dark Crystal: Dark. Powerful. Purple.

Black - Legacy: First generation Goth... if you know what we mean.

White - Ghost: Casper was never this friendly.

White - Marooned: Classy, professional, or just good ol' maroon.

White - Mist: Clean, cool, refreshing.

The above screen shots are part of our new Template Style / Color Picker. On your preferences page, you'll see that the Preview button has disappeared and been replaced with a screenshot like those above. When you click on a different color or template style the screenshot will automatically change to show you the new color.

Database Upgrade Notice

support@journalscape.com — Mon, 22 Mar 04 15:52:00 UT

We have been running into some problems with our database software, so we are going to be upgrading it either tonight (Monday, March 22nd) or tomorrow night (Tuesday, March 23rd). Hopefully, this will fix the periodic slowness or freezes that we have been having lately. Keep your fingers crossed.

I'll put up a notice when I being the upgrade and hopefully it won't take more than an hour or two to complete, but if it goes a little longer take pity on me. :)

6 New Colors Schemes and Revamped Templates

support@journalscape.com — Sun, 18 Jan 04 12:53:00 UT

I have been working on reworking the template styles to be more uniform and to enable some speed improvements I'm planning. You should only notice a few changes like some of the templates are wider and the Previous and Next links are uniformly sized and colored.

If you experience any problems, please email us at support@journalscape.com.

Jenn has put together 6 new JournalScape color schemes together for the new year!

Black - Electricity: Shocking!

Brown - Parchment: Old-fashioned appeal.

Grey - Greyscale: Living in a Black and White world.

Red - Victorian Rose: The name says it all.

White - Marshmallow Sky: Soft, light and fluffy.

White - Seaglass: Rough edges washed away.

The above screen shots are part of our new Template Style / Color Picker. On your preferences page, you'll see that the Preview button has disappeared and been replaced with a screenshot like those above. When you click on a different color or template style the screenshot will automatically change to show you the new color.

Server Migration Complete (essentially)

support@journalscape.com — Fri, 28 Nov 03 17:58:00 UT

Just as I was about to retry the migration to our new Red Hat 9 server, I received news from our ISP that Red Hat 9 has been officially scheduled for End of Life (by Red Hat) next April! So, our ISP has started offering Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers (a new version of Linux specifically designed for the kind of stuff we do at JournalScape). We decided instead of sitting on the Red Hat 9 server, we'd go for it and get an Enterprise server... and viola!

The websites seem to have moved over without a hitch. :) Only the mail is left to migrate over, which shouldn't affect the users of JournalScape much at all. There may be problems with subscription emails going out, but if so it should be resolved very quickly.

I hope you enjoy the new server! Please let me know if you run into any problems by sending an email to support@journalscape.com or posting a comment here (email is best though, I don't check this board as often).