Editor's Roundup
It's the end of another exciting year at SitePoint Forums. We've introduced a multitude of new things this year, among them enhanced user profiles and SitePoint Social Groups. Still, I prefer to look forward, and although it's the time of year when many businesses are winding down, there are some great things happening at SitePoint.
Straight off, I owe you an apology. I messed up. It seems I lost a whole week! (Yikes!) Last issue, I told you that your Community Crier would be in your inbox the first Monday of every month. Not so. As you can see, it's the second Monday. (Can you tell I wasn't a math major? Uh 1, uh 2 ...) So without losing any more time, let's get busy exploring the latest news at SitePoint Forums.
Summary
Hornblower's Corner
Usually we reserve this spot for one member who's been extra-special, but this month we honor a crowd of fantastic SitePoint members. It's time for the Annual SitePoint Community Awards. Advisor, Dave Maxwell did a bang-up job on gathering the nominations and putting together the ballot.
The SitePoint Community Awards are your chance to vote for the SitePoint members who regularly stand out in our different forums. We've streamlined the categories and upgraded our ballot to make voting easier than ever. And ... as an added incentive to cast your vote, you have the chance to win one of four SitePoint kits (worth nearly $200 each). With a spectacular list of nominees to choose from, the SitePoint Community Awards are worth blowing our horn about!
The polls are now open through to December 21.
Find out the details or Vote Now!
Simply Brilliant!
Josh Catone is SitePoint's head blogger, and as far as this holiday season goes, he's way ahead of me. Aside from having the ability to blog nearly about anything web-oriented, his recent blog post is simply brilliant and one you can't afford to miss. 15 Awesome Gifts for the Geek in Your Life is THE shopping list for the geek who thought they had everything, and it's a great post to forward on if you're hinting to have your own Xmas stocking filled!
Need some extra cash? SitePoint pays for blog posts. Matt Magain, the Managing Editor of SitePoint publications, tells me that SitePoint is looking for bloggers for some of our tech-related blogs. If you're passionate about PHP, Rails, or .NET, Matt would love to talk with you. Contact him at editor@sitepoint.com.
But before you contact Matt, you might want to take advantage of another great blog post from Josh. 10 Essential Tips for Landing Your Next Job is useful to keep in mind during this time of economic uncertainty. This post will give you the tools you need to land that job and stay optimistic during the process. And speaking of optimism ...
SitePoint Social
An interesting Social Group started late last month at SitePoint: The Positive Thinkers, created by member, daniel.moss. So far, it's a small group, but it looks like a promising place to learn some positive tips, as well as connect with other like-minded members, helping you to stay sunny side up!
How to Stand Out in a Crowd
Are you feeling lost in the crowd? Too shy to start a thread of your own? With so many members at SitePoint, sometimes it's hard to find a thread to post to without repeating what's already been said. SitePoint has the solution: at the top right-hand corner of each page, there's a link to Unanswered Threads.
Posting a reply to an unanswered thread will ensure that your solution, feedback, or opinion is at the top of the thread (well, almost the top -- it will appear directly below the original poster). Not only will this ensure your voice is heard, but you'll also be helping a fellow member keep his thread active, thus keeping conversation flowing. Give it a try!
Support Our Sponsors:
Don't forget to check out our current sponsors:
- 1 Dual Core ADM Opteron + 1 GB Ram
- 250 GB SATA Hard Drive
- 500 GB Bandwidth per Month
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Microsoft Windows Server 2004
Whether you are a web designer, or a small site owner; HostGator offers a web hosting plan to fit your needs. With their Hatchling Plan starting at $4.95 ranging to their Reseller Plans and Dedicated Servers you will definitely have room to grow.
- 3,000+ Premium Website Templates, Flash, Office Templates
- 1000+ Vector Icons, Premade Logos, Corporate Id-Kits & More!
- 159 Premium Joomla + WordPress Themes
- Over 6 years in Web Hosting Business and Providing professional web hosting solutions to over 50,000 web masters.
- Affordability, great uptime and customer satisfaction come as standard.
Purchase your Budget Web Hosting or professional Reseller Web Hosting plan today.
Pluck On Demand is a free self-serve product that adds relevant content and social media to your site in minutes. Add our free widget code to your site and get:
- Content and Site Growth
- Social Media - Tools to engage your users.
- Revenue through advertising
Visit ondemand.pluck.com for more information.
Shout-out
Tell Us Your Favorite Holiday Story
Our December Shout-out asked you to Tell Us Your Favorite Holiday Story and, as usual, the diversity of our membership shines through!
- Busylinks1 told us about Eid celebrations, the "Festival of the Fast Breaking," which marks the end of the month of Ramadan.
- Sq707 shared the Korean tradition of giving money to kids on New Year's Day for good luck.
- Datura related a beautiful Christmas story -- the type of Christmas that created golden memories for her and added a warm glow to my day.
- Tiger325 likes playing in the snow. Just what you'd expect from a tiger!
- HAWK told us her New Year's is about letting off fireworks and generally behaving badly. Who would ever believe that Hawk could behave badly?
Other members related stories about meeting up with family and laughing over the funny things they did, and the usual tasks like baking cookies, decorating trees, and snooping on Santa. And there's still time to add your own story to the list.
January Shout-out
Lots of folks make New Year's resolutions every year -- to lose weight, spend less, and make more. Our January Shout-out is a two-parter.
Firstly, looking back at 2008, what resolution did you manage to stick to? Secondly, what's your geeky New Year's resolution? In plainer English, what will you do to make your work as a web entrepreneur/programmer/designer/developer a success in 2009?
Drumroll Please
This month, HAWK interviewed our MOM (Member of the Month), JJMcClure. The SitePoint Search Engine Marketing Kit brought him to SitePoint and lucky for us, he stayed. JJMcClure is always ready for a good debate and has some innovative ideas, like giving the MOM a beer for every post! Be sure to stop by the MOM thread and congratulate him.
That's it for this month. Thanks for reading and until the second Monday of January, I'll see you at SitePoint Forums!
Linda Jenkinson
crier@sitepoint.com
Editor, SitePoint Community Crier
No comments:
Post a Comment
Keep a civil tongue.