[announce] Admin notes & new Linuxchix gear

[deb]

Hi all,

It's probably become obvious that I don't keep up on my Linuxchix mail as
often as I should, and for that I apologize.  My only excuse is that I'm
usually hip-deep in other things, including:

1.  building a brand new Linuxchix site
2.  wrestling with PHP
3.  work (as usual)
4.  a couple of other projects (OSWG, dria.org, another brand new secret
project that will be done in a couple of months, etc.)
5.  spending a lot of time at the dentist (hoorah)
6.  actually trying to relax a bit (as some of you know, I burned out a
while back and have just recently started to get back into the swing of
things)
7.  playing far more Baldur's Gate II than is probably healthy ;>

Anyhow, all excuses aside, I have been working on the new site, and it's
coming along quite nicely now.  When it's unveiled it will include the
following features:

1.  user accounts
2.  personal weblogs (a la advogato.org)
3.  profile pages that you can create and update without any intervention
on my part
4.  chapter pages that you can create and update without any intervention
on my part
5.  a slashdot-esque news and announcement posting system (no comment
system, however -- that's what the mailing lists are for)
6.  a wikiwikiweb for random sharing of information (ie: FAQs and such)

and so forth...

At this point, parts 1, 3, 4, and 5 are mostly done, 2 has to be
implemented, and 6 is simply a matter of dropping in phpwiki (with a bit
of customization thrown in so it matches the rest of the site.  

There are plans for even more and better features in the future (book
reviews, software reviews, etc), but those will come in time.

I'm hoping to have an alpha-testable version of the site available
sometime in the near future, but I'm not exactly sure when that will
be.  Sooner rather than later, at this point, which is a nice change
:)  I've been promising a new site for a long time now, I know, but I
wanted to pop in to assure you that I am actively working on it.

When the new site goes live we will also be moving linuxchix.org to a new
server.  This new server is a co-located machine hosted at
rackspace.com.  It's not free (by any means), and I'm currently paying the
costs out of my own pocket.  If you would like to help defray those costs
at all, I've created a Linuxchix.org Collectible Mug series over here:

http://www.cafepress.com/linuxchix/

For each mug purchased I get a small profit (about $2.50 after I sock away
the taxman's share), which I will use to help pay for the server and
bandwidth fees.

If you have any suggestions/ideas for the new site (and/or for different
mug designs :), please send them to me at deb at linuxchix.org.  I'm terrible
at responding to mail, but I do read everything that is sent to me
directly (that isn't obviously spam :).  

In particular, I would like to know what you think is good about Linuxchix
as it currently exists, and what you think is bad or needs 
improvement.  The more feedback/ideas I get, the better...many of you are
more active in this community than I have been lately, and I'd really like
to know what you think of it all.

Thanks a million for your patience and support.  I'll post more news when
it's available (especially when I need people to alphatest the new site
:)  Finally, a heartfelt apology to everyone who has emailed me but has
never received a response.  I really do feel terrible about it, but if I
responded to all the mail I got in a day, I'd never manage to get anything
else done.  

- deb


--- Deb Richardson (aka: dria) ---
deb at dria.org
http://www.dria.org
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