We got an e-mail earlier this week stating that there was a problem arranging the order of photos and videos in the “arrange items” page.  Has anyone else (who uses albums) noticed this problem?  I need to know specific browser and OS settings.  I’m putting a bounty on this – the first person to reproduce the bug – and provide the steps to do so gets the prize of a 1000 eprop mini from me. 

Rolled out the themed Video comment page today along with smileys for a bunch of comment pages.  I have been wanting to add smiley capabilities to the “unified” commenting system for some time now, and I had a few cycles to spend adding them to photo, video, and chatboard comment pages.  I would have rolled it all out last night, but I had a CRAZY glitch with the smileys. The error occurred when using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (update your browsers people!) and only on the video comment page, and not on any of the other smiley enabled pages. 

Special thanks go out to Sean, whose Super Smileys actually provided the key insight on how to fix the problem.  The Super Smileys kept working, even though the normal Smileys were broken.  Since the Super Smileys piggie back off of Xanga’s normal smileys system, it stands to reason that he had to be doing something extra that we weren’t.  Turns out that installing and resizing the flash movie player steals focus from the text editor.  The super smileys have a special line of code that returns focus back to the comment box.  Needless to say, I owe Sean several beers the next time he comes to visit us in Manhattan. 

Alrighty, back to work.  Feel free to message me if you’re noticing any glitches or bugs with the comments or the video page. 

For anyone who hasn’t seen the Haley Joel Osmond movie.  Pay It Forward, is a movement where you do three difficult good deeds to three people who need your help.  The only thing you ask in return is that each person continue the chain by doing three good deeds for three more strangers.  It is a sort of save the world pyramid scheme.  Of course the first thing we wonder is – “what’s the opposite”?  We’ve gotten a couple suggestions, 1) pay back, 2)  pass the buck, 3)  comeuppance – but none of them really have the same strength in the negative direction as pay it forward does in the positive.  Any ideas?

Oooh.. I’m so steamed!  I was on TheXangaTeam page’s chatboard the other day, and I came across the following comment directed at Natalia. 

Staff wise, Xanga is what you’d call a “tightknit” company.  We all share a very tight bond – since we all essentially work in a one big, open-air, no-walls-between-us office – and in general, we spend more time together than we do with our significant-others or spouses.  Even though I’ve only worked at Xanga for little over six months, I consider the folks here to be my second family.  In general, we’re pretty chill about people being rude or obnoxious to us, since we understand that a person’s weblog can be a very important part of someone’s life and that it can be agitating when something goes wrong.  We’re happy to listen to complaints and suggestions, and we totally try our best to follow through with those suggestions given our own limited resources.  (Seven entirely insane, but extremely talented software engineers + me, and three fulltime product designers).  Additionally, knowing the devious nature of my coworkers, it is entirely possible that one or more of us deserve it – though to date, I don’t think we’ve actually pranked a non-Xanga staff user. 

However, the two people who do NOT deserve your flak, insults, self-righteous, or asinine comments are Natalia (and Eugenia).  Here is why. 

1)  Eugenia is probably one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met.  I think she rescues kittens in her spare time.  Think of the kittens. 

2)  Besides being an amazingly cool person, Natalia is a ninja.  She can kill you three times before you hit the ground. 

3)  The two of them work
their tushes off trying to make the Xanga Community a better place.  I’d
estimate that 99.9% of requests for help are answered by them.  If
you’ve had a problem with your Xanga, and you aren’t a close personal friend
of someone else on the Xanga team, then chances are, the person who helped you solve your problem was either Eugenia or Natalia. 

4)  If feature doesn’t work properly, or breaks regularly, then it is the fault of me, or one of my engineering brethren.  (and we’re very sorry!)

5)  If you don’t like a new feature that we added, or think that we’re totally missing an important feature that you need, then it is the fault of one of the people involved in product decisions.  (pssst.  Their user names are Marc, John, Dan, Chris, Ayca, and Ben. )

6)  If you don’t like the ads, then blame capitalism for not allowing us to provide you with Xanga services without some sort of monetary compensation.  (I’ll try and post more about which pages do and do not have advertisements and how premium effects those pages) 

7)  Don’t think that we can’t just fix someone else’s problem instead of yours.  Because we can.  Especially if you’re a jerk. 

Alrighty.  I thinks its out of my system.  Night!

The last half a year, we’ve been steadily working to standardize the whole of Xanga under the “themes” system.  My particular role for the last couple months has been to create a “unified” commenting system, that will allow every “Themed” item type to have a consistent look and feel, as well as a common set of commenting capabilities (equal in richness to the weblog comments), including Rich Text, Comment Replies, and eventually Minis.  The final goal is to, every time we add a new commenting feature, to have ALL Xanga comments acquire that ability all once once, regardless of type (weblog, photo, pulse etc…)   But first we need to update all the items pages to use the system. 

The first baby step in that direction, was the themed chatboard, which acquired the “unified” commenting system in multiple stages over the last three months.  Starting with its themification, the addition of rich text commenting, it completed with the addition of comment replies.  The next domino in that set is the photos item page, which was themed and linked up to the unified commenting system during these last couple weeks.  (BTW, that page inherited a TON of features from the old Photo page, in addition to the unified comments.  I’m still not sure I actually caught them all.  >_< :massages his poor tired typing hands: ) 

The hardest part was the crazy Ajax filmstrip that it inherited from the original photos item page.  The one currently on the new page works the same way, but it doesn’t have the same smooth scrolling transition that the original one did.  Bleh…  It also only supports a maximum of seven images at a time – because thats what the old one supported.  One of the hardest parts was making the system work for ALL themes, because different themes can fit different quantities of thumbnails at any given moment.  We have to detect that for EACH page, and calculate how many can fit using javascript. 

Anyways, next on the queue is a themed video page.  Hopefully that will roll out with 1) a slightly more polished filmstrip that can support more than seven images at a time and will have smoother transitions and 2) smiley’s capabilities for all pages currently under the unified commenting system.  Theoretically, your custom smileys (if they work on the themed weblog page) should also begin working on those pages as well!…  Well.. at least Sean‘s super smileys will work…  :crossing fingers:

Personally, I’m most excited about comment replies on Pulse!  I get so many comments on my pulse, where I wish I could just reply to the person instead of having to pollute one of their random pages.  Hopefully I’ll get to that soon.  OK, tired now.  Have a good night!  ^_^