We are terribly sorry for the long outage. Our server died tuesday night and it
took us much longer to rebuild a new server than we expected. We plan to expand
our setup to two servers which will give us redundancy for the future as well as improved
performance.
Now that the bad news is out of the way it's time for some good news. We've
hit 50,000 registered users in under 6 months! Our community of bloggers who
love reading and creating extraordinary content is growing, and we couldn't be
happier. This explains the increasing number of great posts and comments on the site.
New members are discovering what we've known for a while -- SoulCast is fun,
easy, and compelling!
Along with welcoming new users, we would like to welcome new features that
will make your SoulCast experience even better. First of all, the WYSIWYG
editor for creating posts and comments. Instead of typing BB code, you can
turn Bold, Italicize, or Underline text with a single click. You can also
add links, numbered lists, and bullet points to your posts and comments
just as easily. The WYSIWYG currently fully supports Internet Explorer
and FireFox only, but don't worry. If you use a different browser, or if
you're more comfortable with HTML, we're now enabling HTML tags in your
posts and comments! The list of allowed html will be given soon, but the
basics (a, b, i, ul, li, etc) are allowed.
Secondly, you can now choose a different theme for your blog! We understand
that you want to have your page look as colorful, vibrant and as fresh as
your posts, so we've prepared 7 new themes to do just that. To try out your
colors, simply sign in and click on Edit my profile for 7 different ways to
personalize your blog.
This is the beginning of some really interesting ways to express yourself on
SoulCast. Stay tuned, because we're not done yet. Coming up next: more
tweaks to make SoulCast faster (we love instant gratification too) and
what everyone has been looking forward to -- a way to upload, manage, and
post photos!
We would also like to hear from all of you. Please let us know what features
you'd like to see. What problems you've had with the site. And, your thoughts
in general.
-- The Soulcast Team
SoulCast posted on Oct 18, 2006
| views: 2578
Comments
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TheNakedProfessor said on Oct 18, 2006....
You realize, of course, this will become another hilarious mockery by yours truly. I simply cannot resist an attempt at satire. -
bloc said on Oct 18, 2006....
I really like the themes :)
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silverwhisper said on Oct 18, 2006....
interesting. this is going to take some getitng used to, at least for me. and it appears that blocking anonymous commenters is working properly as well, so that makes me happy.
oo, and comment editing is back! OK, i'm officially happy now. :>
ed
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Zayda said on Oct 18, 2006....
Yay for comment editing being back!
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SoulCast said on Oct 18, 2006....
Glad to see all of you back so fast :)
Comment editing was never away, it just had a bug and wasn't working for some of you.
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silverwhisper said on Oct 18, 2006....
i will cheerfully confess to having been awfully darned twitchy. :>
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satyr said on Oct 18, 2006....
damn, I was going through withdrawal - welcome back - hopefully better than ever -
uptowngirl said on Oct 18, 2006....
woo hoo! =D
btw, anyone going to check out z-trip tonight? if you are, you *won't* see me there ;)
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willbrich said on Oct 18, 2006....
Cool! We are back!
Testing the new features now...
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missb said on Oct 18, 2006....
Oh thank God.....I'm getting my fix again...
I love the themes...but posting pics means it's not so anonymous anymore :/
But I embrace any improvements.....!!
Cheers :D
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silverwhisper said on Oct 18, 2006....
one peculiar thing i've noticed: w/ every keystroke, i see the faint impression of another "phantom" message box that mirrors whatever is in the comment box. most peculiar. i'm running the most current version of firefox & win XP pro over a t1.
ed
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momsrock said on Oct 18, 2006....
Why does it have (10) beside my reads and who's reading me? There are pages of names but the number is wrong.
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SoulCast said on Oct 18, 2006....
@momsrock
It's just a display issue and it will be fixed on the next update.
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RollingC said on Oct 18, 2006....
Yessss Finally. Good Show
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GrapeKoolaid said on Oct 18, 2006....
Can I not copy and paste links anymore? Do I have to use the add a link button? The option for pasting is gone.
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GrapeKoolaid said on Oct 18, 2006....
Oh, but otherwise, good job and thanks for your hard work! The new features look great!
One other thing I noticed: You can only edit once. After that, I can't post another comment.
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Frlncwrtr said on Oct 18, 2006....
Looks like a fine job. I like the WYSIWYG editor for creating posts and comments! Could you possibly add a spell checker?
I look forward to the increased speed. Next, I' check out the themes.
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chaime said on Oct 18, 2006....
wow! i thought soulcast was gone for good....
I thought something realllly bad did happen..
good thing it didn't...
Looks like everything is back to normal,
thank you soulcase team :)
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FaithfulDisciple said on Oct 18, 2006....
Was that 3 days of Soulcast outage? I thought you'd never come back. It feels a little lost without Soulcast in cyberspace. What 50,000? I don't see no visitor's counter? How are we supposed to really know how many are viewing Soulcast at any given time? And where are the counters?
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monozuki said on Oct 18, 2006....
(smiling) -
Expendable said on Oct 18, 2006....
Very nice - except color doesn't work now. *sigh*
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Ormocanon said on Oct 18, 2006....
How about adsense ID editing? how can I possibly delete someone else's
adsense ID from populating my web page?
Here's the ID#: pub-4743950894250545
when I click my page source, I see that number instead of my own ID.
Could you please enlighten me why this is so?
I'd really appreciate if you reply. Thanks.
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Frlncwrtr said on Oct 18, 2006....
I checked out the themes and just can't seem to find one with satisfactory colors! -
Frlncwrtr said on Oct 18, 2006....
Also, I am having the same problem as Ormocanon and would like something to be done about it.
The code appearing on my page is also pub-4743950894250545.
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anonymous said on Oct 18, 2006....
I DONT KNOW.....!!!!!
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Alyss said on Oct 18, 2006....
Where have all the colours gone?!!! < sulks >
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RollingC said on Oct 18, 2006....
I like the changes (although still experimenting). But I've noticed that the themes don't work all the time. Only in my own Blogg page. Doesn't it work for all? Oh well!
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JadeLondon said on Oct 18, 2006....
I am really frustrated because I cannot get the new formats to work, I assume because I am using a BlackBerry. I could get over that, but what I cannot get over is that fact that I cannot break my paragraphs anymore. Or at least, my last post wouldn't allow paragraphs. Thankfully, it was a short post. Good to see SoulCast is still alive and kicking, though. -
Alyss said on Oct 19, 2006....
RollingC; the copy/paste right click functions don't seem to be supported anymore but you can still do both with the hot keys CTRLC & CTRLV by highlighting as usual and from within the Edit function on your browser toolbar.
Soulcast; Please can we have the text colours back? Pretty please with bells on...
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Alyss said on Oct 19, 2006....
Also I'm reading about permissioning or blocking anonymous commenting but can't see where that option exists. Can anyone advise?
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JadeLondon said on Oct 19, 2006....
Alyss: I think you should be able to block anonymous comment by tagging on an anonymous comment. Beyond that, I am not certain. -
varada said on Oct 19, 2006....
OK OK, let me try and then come back to you.
The new look is interesting.
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Bronx said on Oct 19, 2006....
Welcome back and Congratulations on your 50K milestone! This would mean over 2.5 million viewers per day if each Soulcast member receives just 5 visits daily. Wow.
There is always resistance to change, even though it is inevitable: I am happy about the proposals; please, just don't move too fast. Personally, I like the way my blog page is currently because changing it would make it look like some other website.
By the way, Guys, I have complained about the problem with the comment notification feature in my blog. This is hoping that the necessary changes can be effected as soon as possible? It would save some precious time.
The final expression of my thoughts on this matter is this: would the inclusion of more colours and photo download features and the rapidly expanding membership not overload the current two servers? I am not sure that I would want to lose sleep again because of my inability to post in my blog. I was miserable!
Best regards to you all.
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Zayda said on Oct 19, 2006....
I'm not getting email notifications any more even though I have that option checked.
Jade: Since you are using a Blackberry, to do paragraph breaks you need to use the html code for a paragraph break or a line break.
Paragraph break is < p >.
Line break is < br > .
Note: Take out the extra space betweenb the < > and the letters or it won't work. I had to put the spaces there so the code would show up for you.
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Frlncwrtr said on Oct 19, 2006....
Zada: Hitting the return/enter key twice also creates paragraph breaks. -
indianspicey said on Oct 19, 2006....
Thats really intresting........hope not to get bad comments hhmm!!
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no_nom said on Oct 19, 2006....
Stay away from Microsoft, Soulcast would save much more and back online if such event happen again.
The new feature is nice but only half done. :(
All my previous blogs 'feel and look' been wipe-out.
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LtCmdrWorf1 said on Oct 19, 2006....
I'm having problems posting some comments, but I guess that will work itself out in time. Peace and Long life.
Worf
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LtCmdrWorf1 said on Oct 19, 2006....
I'm having problems posting some comments, but I guess that will work itself out in time. Peace and Long life.
Worf
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LtCmdrWorf1 said on Oct 19, 2006....
I'm having problems posting some comments, but I guess that will work itself out in time. Peace and Long life.
Worf
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LtCmdrWorf1 said on Oct 19, 2006....
I'm having problems posting some comments, but I guess that will work itself out in time. Peace and Long life.
Worf
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LtCmdrWorf1 said on Oct 19, 2006....
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WhyChromosome said on Oct 19, 2006....
SoulCast, thank you for your honesty re the server. We are all relieved and deeply grateful you fixed it but I'm amazed that you had no backup. However, I assume they cost a small fortune. It is also good to know that the 'bug' re editing comments has been fixed, although it seems it was a pretty universal bug.
I think we would all appeciate it if you could keep in touch with us a little more regularly. You could have informed us of this 'bug' problem some time ago, for example. Five minutes it all it would have taken, but instead you had many bloggers becoming increasingly frustrated because they could not edit their comments!! If you want good quality you must have an ability to edit. And as some others have asked, how do we know that the 50,000 figure is correct? Not that it matters so much as it's a totally meaningless number anyway. I mean, what number of those registered Soulcasters are actually active, meaning that they post at least occasionally?
Uploading: I personally am NOT in favour of having photo uploads available on this site! Some of us have written some extremely personal and sensitive posts on the understanding that our anonymity is guarenteed, and now I can envisage the very real possibility that a third party -- perhaps a disgruntled recent ex of a blogger, for example -- could post photos of said blogger with the malicious intent to cause harm. (That might be a tautology..sorry.) Everyone reading this take note and accept the fact that such a thing is possible. How would you feel if your image was placed on this site without your permission? The whole concept of anonymous blogging, which is one of this site's greatest attractions, is that we can write about virtually anything without any fear of being visually identified. I also believe that you at SoulCast made this concept of guarenteed anonymity a major 'selling point' in the early days. IMHO allowing photos uploads is detrimental. We don't need them. We are wordsmiths or at least we are trying to be, and we can express ourselves quite adequately without resorting to pictures. I hate to be blunt but that's my opinion. Please, if you want us to continue to write free-ranging and uninhibited posts, keep your promise to maintain our anonymity!!
One last thing and this is a serious gripe. I noticed a link to you via Yahoo's hot jobs and it listed positions open for creative writers with SoulCast in San Francisco, LA, NYC and a few other places, and it reads like these are legit 'jobs'. You know, turn-up-for-work type jobs. But when I click on these 'placings' it is simply the same thing you offer here. Namely, sign up to Soulcast, blog away, and get paid according to how many hits we get on the ads attached to our blog page/s. So they are not really 'jobs' at all and are certainly not specific to where we live, and I any case I doubt that anyone here could even consider living off their 'earnings' from blogging on this site. (If anyone is making enough to live of please let me know!) In other words, these ads are very misleading and frankly do not belong in a 'hot jobs' site -- much as we like you!!
Whyc.
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SoulCast said on Oct 19, 2006....
Thanks for all the feedback everyone. If you are finding problems, bugs, please report them through the help page so that we can communicate with you more easily. Also, when you post to the help page please be specific. Don't just say "all my posts are messed up". Give us a link to a specific post that is messed up so we can find the problem faster.
@WhyChromosome
I really don't understand your concern over anonymity. The images are completely optional. We still do not log ip addresses or anything of that nature. You say that someone you know might upload an image of you. That person could just as easily upload your real name and address.
"how do we know that the 50,000 figure is correct? "
I'm sure you realize there is no way for us to prove this to anyone.
@Ormocanon and Frlncwrtr
The google ID you listed is ours. We use your ID 50% of the time and ours the other 50%. This is in the FAQ -
mr_right14 said on Oct 19, 2006....
SoulCast
Thanks for these improvement and I hope more things to come.
I suggest that the themes can be configured.
Or just have an option to customize it on our own. not just selecting a theme that are preset.
Another, the HTML.
I'm more confortable with HTML.
I want to create comments and posts using HTML coding.
It creates more features and more pleasing.
Anyway, even there's no improvement I like SoulCast.
Glad to be here...
Thanks SoulCast!!!
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SoulCast said on Oct 19, 2006....
@mr_right14
We plan on doing both of those :)
Right now our top priority is the performance. The site was getting far to slow and that's not acceptable to us. This past update has some performance improvements, but we still have a few more to make.
Keep the suggestions coming!
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Frlncwrtr said on Oct 19, 2006....
I am having the same problem as Zayda. I am not receiving email notifications. Is there anything you can do regarding that? -
RollingC said on Oct 20, 2006....
There's a problem with " EDITING " as I cannot do it at all...don't know if this is common or widespread but I used to be able to do it...SOULCAST...can you please take note and fix? thanks.
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RollingC said on Oct 20, 2006....
oh and the themes is a good idea...now if they could only work...
mine don't...which is funny as they it seemed to work at first but then stopped working...
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RollingC said on Oct 20, 2006....
Sorry to bother yo'all again...but add to the list that copy and paste don't work no more.
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missb said on Oct 20, 2006....
Hello SoulCast,
I also have the same problem like Zayda and Ltcmdrworf1. I don't receive email notifications for the posts that I commented anymore. Maybe you should also know that we haven't been receiving notifications for our own posts before the outage either. So hope you can fix that.
It's kind of hard to keep track without the email notifications. And one more thing, the right indent goes further than the line in the text box, so if i keep typing without breaking the paragraph, I can't see some of the words. It's kind of annoying. So hope it's gonna be fixed too.
Sorry to bother ya. Thanks a lot :)
Cheers!
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secretlife said on Oct 20, 2006....
Now I can't post-
I just spent an hour keying in a new post only to be told i wasn't logged in when i am logged in -
AND my post is LOST.
Don't you guys test any of this shit before sticking it out here???
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silverwhisper said on Oct 20, 2006....
SL: the back button didn't bring back your post with all the text?
ed
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secretlife said on Oct 20, 2006....
ed: the back button brought me back to create post but without ANY text.
i've been trying to post for several hours- test posts......it won't let me- does the same thing
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secretlife said on Oct 20, 2006....
ed: at work, i get paid real good for testing software, and i resent the hell out of doing it on my own time for nothing. -
silverwhisper said on Oct 20, 2006....
SL, my dear friend, lease take a few deep, cleansing breaths. :>
there should be a "fast rewind" button. use that to go back 2 pages next time. the text editor creates a second page.
ed
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Alyss said on Oct 20, 2006....
it's definately being freaky again. Just dumped me out apropos of nothing & is making sign in again to make each individual comment like it did once before.
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silverwhisper said on Oct 20, 2006....
i'm not having that experience and i'm even running firefox!
ed
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SoulCast said on Oct 20, 2006....
Let me say this again
If you are finding problems, bugs, please report them through the help page so that we can communicate with you more easily.
@secretlife
We do a lot of testing, but it's impossible to mirror the setup of all 50k users. 99% of them aren't having the problem that you are having. Yoru problem should be fixed now. It
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secretlife said on Oct 20, 2006....
LOL .....yeah exactly. -
Ormocanon said on Oct 23, 2006....
"The google ID you listed is ours. We use your ID 50% of the time and ours
the other 50%. This is in FAQ."
Okay if you say so, but just to humor me, what number is it in the FAQ?
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fotoskif said on Nov 04, 2006....
Any idea when we will be able to upload and manage photos? -
Bill2 said on Nov 04, 2006....
We do need a spell checker, if you will add one. I made a lengthy post, then got stumped on a word. When I went to dictionary.com, I lost it all and said "phooey on it!" lol.......... thanks! -
no_nom said on Mar 06, 2007....
My wish list in SC is 'color text' so I could write in color within a click. :) -
no_nom said on Mar 06, 2007....
My wish list in SC is 'color text' so I could write in color within a click. :) -
silverwhisper said on Mar 07, 2007....
you should be able to do that now using HTML.
ed
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