Here is the list of those who were able to post 30 blog posts in 60 days on Geekwithblogs.net:
If your name is on this list, we will be in contact with you shortly to get your shirt size and your choice of URL for the back (either your GWB url or your registered custom domain).
Congrats to everyone who was able to reach the mark and keep your ears to the ground for the next GWB contest.
Well it looks like everyone who is going to be getting a shirt has made it over the line unless someone goes crazy and starts writing. It has been great to see the quality of content that has been coming out of Geekswithblogs.net during the last few months and I am excited to announce the next contest in the GWB Newsletter.
Current Winners of 60 in 30:
Almost There:
Remember, if you want to get your own custom Geekswithblogs.net shirt, this is the week to do it. All you have to do is have a combined 30 posts in the 60 days (starting May 15th) and you are in. The last date is July 14th so get to typing!
Here is the list of people who have already won:
Here are the ones who are very close:
It has been 4 years since we ran our original Geekswithblogs.net Game Development Contest! Wow does time go by fast. George Clingerman wrote a game called Bob the Fish that shocked the world (well our world) getting him the prized Xbox 360 and later allowing us to play his Xbox game, Kissy Poo. That contest was a huge success and several of our most popular bloggers gained their readership from that event.
So a long enough time has passed and enough has changed in the way we develop software now that we believe it is time to run another game contest at Geekswithblogs.net. It is not right away by any means, but it will be in the near future. I would like to have some of the new features built and released to make it easier to release games, but this is just a feeler to see if anyone else is in the mood.
Also, we don’t want to limit you to platform, iPad/iPhone, Android, WM7, Xbox, Mac, or PC should all be options for game delivery. If you want to use .NET, use .NET. If you want to use Java, use Java. If you want to use Objective-C, go for it. We want to see what the strengths of each platform is and where the downfalls are. We want this to be a learning experience for all, the game designer and the reader.
Finally, we are all getting older and tired :D, but there is a new generation of developers who are coming out of High School and College that feel the weight of this economy on their shoulders. Valid experience of working with Object Oriented languages, beat down with deadlines, and a large pool of references they could use is critical to set themselves apart from those who have been in the field for 3-5 years. If you are just too tired or busy to write a game, could you mentor and assist someone else who wants to break into software development?
So the big question is, would you participate in a Game Design Contest on Geekswithblogs?
One month after the contest started, we definitely have some leaders and one blogger who has reached the mark. Keep up the good work guys, I have really enjoyed the content being produced by our bloggers.
Current Winners:
Almost There:
Coming Along:
We are very close to having our first blogger to reach 30 posts, Enrique Lima. Stuart Brierley is over the hump with 16 posts and Dave Campbell and Eric Nelson are definitely in the running.
If you don’t know what I am talking about, we are running a contest for our bloggers. Anyone who blogs on Geekswithblogs who creates 30 posts from May 15th to July 13th will receive a custom Geekswithblogs.net t-shirt with their URL on the back. This could be their Geekswithblogs.net address or their custom domain. It is definitely not too late to get started and with TechEd or WWDC right around the corner, there is definitely a lot to talk about.
Current Standings:
Follow Us On Twitter: @StaffOfGeeks
The contest has definitely ended the first week with a clear leader. One of our new bloggers, Enrique Lima, has posted 20 times since the beginning of the contest with some great content on Team Foundation Server. Another noticeable face we see on the leader board is Chris Williams who is making headway. Chris, are you going to challenge up D’Arcy Lussier for the lead position on GWB again, notice who isn’t on this list :D. Also, Chris House who is a new blogger is making some strong strides. And finally, let us not forget Dave Campbell who writes Silverlight Cream who always has great content for us.
We hope to see more names joining this list soon, what else could be better than a world full of Geekswithblogs.net custom shirts?
Current Leader Board:
![apple-touch-icon[2]](http://geekswithblogs.net/images/geekswithblogs_net/Administrator/WindowsLiveWriter/OwnaniPadiPhoneorTouchAddGWBtoyourHome_6EB1/apple-touch-icon%5B2%5D_thumb.png "apple-touch-icon[2]")
I know it is goofy to geek out about such things, but I am a pretty goofy geek. Today we published support for the Apple icons for devices like the iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. Now when you add Geekswithblogs.net to your home screen (via the little + in Safari) it will load the icon to the left instead of a screenshot of the site.
We have been using my iPhone and iPad to surf to GWB for awhile and we were tired of that screenshot. Simple Google/Bing search and a little Photoshop CS5 (Amazing!!!) work and there it is.
Next step we are taking in the Apple iPad/Phone arena is getting our developer kit and seeing what possiblities there are for Geekswithblogs.net and a custom App. Got any ideas?
Here is a shot of my iPad 3G:
Also, would anyone be interested in a Geekswithblogs.net custom background for the iPhone or iPad? I can put something together real quick if there are any takers.
We have struggled in the past with different approaches of getting feedback from you as bloggers. We really want to know what you would like to see, what other systems have that is helpful, and where we need to grow. This community is made up of many different individuals so the system for feedback needed a voting or liking tool for us to gage what was a popular thought or just one guys request. We would love to put every request in, but that would make the system function for some and unusable for others.
This is where UserVoice comes in. In a suggestion of features, Martin Hinshelwood suggested we give UserVoice a chance. He had used it with other projects and sites and thought it would be a good feedback tool for Geekswithblogs.net. We tried it out and agreed.
Give it a try and let us know what you want to see on Geekswithblogs.net and vote on other suggestions. Feedback is key to the success of this community and we would love to hear what you have to say.
UserVoice for Geekswithblogs.net Feedback
I want to officially let everyone know the 30 posts in 60 days contest has started. The current standings as as followed for those in the “Top 10” (there are twelve due to ties now). For those who don’t know about the contest, we are ordering custom Geekswithblogs.net t-shirts for those members who post 30 posts in the 60 days, starting May 15th, 2010. The shirts will have the Geekswithblogs.net logo on the front and your URL on the back.
Top 12 Bloggers in the 30 in 60 Contest
I will be publishing updates throughout the contest on this blog.
Geekswithblogs.net - May 2010 Newsletter
Was your newsletter messed up?
If the first newsletter we sent was all white with links all over the place, I apologize. We haven’t sent a newsletter in quite some time and I forgot the rules of theming for email clients.
TechEd 2010 New Orleans - Who is coming?
John and Jeff will be at TechEd 2010 New Orleans for a short time to pass out shirts to our bloggers. These are the standard GWB shirts you see some of our other bloggers wearing and one could be yours if you let us know you are coming and what your size is. We will announce where we will be once we arrive so you can wear your Geekswithblogs.net shirt and let everyone know where you blog. These shirts will be without URLs, if you want one of those, you will have to join the contest mentioned later in the newsletter. Deadline for response is next Wednesday?
Email support@geekswithblogs.net to let us know you are coming!
wblo.gs Shortened Url
Everyone has URL shorteners these days so we needed our own. Currently Geekswithblogs.net has implemented http://wblo.gs as a shortened URL for you blog. Instead of pushing people to geekswithblogs.net/your_url you can now use wblo.gs/your_url. We hope to published a version of the shortener that will give each post a short URL and a button via your blog to publish to Twitter. This release should be available in the early summer time period.
Always wanted one of our awesome Geekswithblogs.net T-Shirts?
Starting on May 15th until July 13th, we will giving our Geekswithblogs.net t-shirts away to those members who create 30 technical posts. That is 30 posts in 60 days! This should not be a difficult task with all the new releases from Microsoft. You have Visual Studio 2010, Team Foundation 2010, SharePoint 2010, Silverlight 4.0, Office 2010, SQL Server 2008 R2, and so many others to pick from. We will be keeping an eye on the results and publishing those bloggers who successfully meet the requirements by the date.
A few rules to remember. The post must be technical in nature, the post must be original content created by the blogger, and the post must be originated during the contest (no pulling content from you old blog).
Each shirt will be customized with your URL on the back and you can let us know you size and address when you successfully complete the contest.
What features do you want to see?
We would love to hear your feedback. It has been awhile since we have published a release of Geekswithblogs.net and we want to get your feature requests in it. Do you like a particular skin we don’t have? Do you want to see comments change? Do you want to see more Twitter integration? Whatever it is, we want to know. Submit your thoughts to support@geekswithblogs.net and we will start a dialog with you shortly after we receive them.
Follow Us on Twitter
We want to hear from you and make sure you know what is going on with Geekswithblogs.net. Follow the staff on Twitter (@StaffOfGeeks) and feel free to let us know what you think or questions you have here.
We just wanted to send a shout out to all those who have entered or have been renewed into the MVP program. I always wondered why they wouldn’t move the April date off of April Fool’s Day cause that would be an interesting email to get on April 1.
If you are a GWB blogger and an MVP but your name does not have an MVP logo next to it on the homepage, let us know via support and we will get you added.
Related Tags:
Geekswithblogs.net,
MVP,
Microsoft
We have been getting hit very hard with comment spam as of late. As mentioned in the last post, this is something we typically deal with on a regular basis for the past 6 years, but some weeks are like this week where it is just crazy. Because of the way things are right now, I have disabled the ability to toggle on or off the CAPTCHA controls for comments. I know some bloggers are going to get mad, but we need to see if the lack of CAPTCHA on some blogs is the key cause of SPAM or if they are manually entering the data and filling in the CAPTCHA. I will report back on what we are seeing, but for a few weeks we are just going to require CAPTCHA controls on comments.
This has been a public service announcement for Geekswithblogs.net :D
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I don’t know a member on Geekswithblogs.net that is not frustrated with the amount of spam they get. It is a major problem that we have been dealing with for 6+ years and trying to come up with new ways to fight. As spammers get smarter, we have to continue to upgrade the tools we use to combat it. Just like any spam filter, sometimes good comments will get caught up. This has been a huge concern for some bloggers causing us to tame what we call spam and not spam.
So this post is here just to state we know the spam problem is like a wave, sometimes it is not so bad, other times it gets worse. Right now it is worse. One measure we will take is a requirement for CAPTCHA soon if it continues since most members don’t clean up their spam via the admin tools (which are not the best tools, I know). Also I want to solicit a better approach from the members, what would you like the spam interface on GWB to be like? Be realistic cause we all want “Zero Spam, Good Comment live”.
Related Tags:
Geekswithblogs.net,
Spam
The first suggested item (and only at this point) was a higher level of skin customization on Geekswithblogs.net.
Currently we have over 10 skins to pick from and the ability to change the CSS for those skins. In the skins list, you will find one labeled Naked that doesn't add any formatting, but allows you to define what items look like and what gets displayed. I understand our skin approach is not good by any means and needs a dramatic update. Here is what we came up with in our conversation with the blogger.
- Better tools for editing CSS from the server
- Preview of changes before publishing
- Retrievable CSS configurations for different custom themes
- Better image upload for use of custom themes
- More skins selection
- Updated current skins to fix formatting issues with newer browsers and Firefox/Opera/Chrome
I would really like to gauge your feedback on these items to see what is important. I know one of my biggest complaints I get is customizable themes, but typically users don't know about the options so we have done a bad job of explaining what is possible and showing every user how to do so. We have a public tutorial system we once tried and wanted it to be member managed as well and the GWB staff contributing, but that went downhill at some point. Maybe it is time to kick that back into gear for the new bloggers we have added over the past couple of years.
What do you think? What else is on your mind?