Newsletter

If you have signed up for the forum newsletter, you should have received #5 by now.  If you haven’t subscribed yet, do so here.  The newsletter covers our referral competition as well as our featured thread, along with some additional information.

Referral Competition

Flyer and I have recently started our second contest, our Referral Competition.  You will have until midnight GMT on October 31st, 2008 to bring in as many active referrals as possible.  Your referrals must make at least 10 posts to count.

So far we have had one referral from Akira, so Akira will be the one to win first prize if no one steps up to challenge him.  You can see the rules and prizes of the referral competition in this thread.

The reason that we’re having this contest/competition is to bring more activity to Using Your OS.  We do have more activity then we had a year ago, but we’re still behind where we need to be, so try your hardest, and we hope the prizes will motivate to you refer as many active members as possible.

For over 21 months, we have barely made it on free hosting.  We have endured weeks of downtime, and have finally broken through the barrier.  You should now notice that things are more reliable and faster, and I have more space and bandwidth.  Now, I can focus on bringing more activity to the forum and elsewhere.

I am also considering getting a new theme for the blog.  There’s nothing wrong with the old theme, but I just want a new theme to keep things fresh.  The old saying is, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” and that may or may not apply here.  Either way, voice, er type, your opinions in this thread.

Another new big change that I have made is to make the posts in the General Discussion forum count towards your post count.  You will notice that if you have made any posts in that forum, your post count will go up.  I now have over 1,200 posts because of this change!  Initially suggested by a user, I applied this change because the posts in this forum brought great discussion, and I wanted to credit the user for this.

Also be sure to visit the Arcade, as I have recently made it open to all active accounts (meaning you have an account and can make posts).  I am accepting ideas for tournaments, and I have to accept that eventually someone will take my high scores… *sigh*

I would like to take time to encourage you to refer as many people as you can.  If you have a forum account, you can give your referral link (found in your User CP) to someone who you think might enjoy the forum.  Word of mouth is also a good suggestion, in that case tell them your username and they will be able to type in your username when they are registering to count you as their referrer.

Also there are threads that don’t even have replies, or threads that have had their last reply from me.  Those are incentives for you to reply to those threads.  Was the thread covering something that happened a year ago?  Talk about the impact that thing has had!

I think the updates that I have made in the last few weeks have really made an improvement to Using Your OS as a whole, so I would like to call this period “Using Your OS 2.0″ from now on.  Just like how Web 2.0 made drastic changes to the way the Web was coded, Using Your OS 2.0 is a drastic change to Using Your OS, in the positive direction of course.

All we need to do is promote, promote, promote.  We have the content, we have the spiders (the Internet spiders, not the actual spiders!), we have an exciting niche, and we have a mission, and this mission is that from the “newbie” to the expert, we will providing exciting discussion for you.  Sure, the “newbie” may just want help with a problem he/she is experiencing, but this is still considered “discussion”, and will help others in the future who have that same problem.  We have a forum for operating system discussion where casuals and experts alike can talk about operating systems.  My intent was not to have the majority of the threads contain “geek speak”, but to be readable to all and be helpful to all.

Anyways, I’ll have to cover more in a future blog post.  For now, enjoy the new features and be aware that there will be new features in the future.  Keep your browser here, because soon we’ll be moving so fast you won’t be able to catch up!

You can see my introduction on another blog post at http://www.usingyouros.com/blog/2008/08/01/flyers-introduction/

Thanks Guys and Gals, Have a great Day.

~Flyer

A bit about me: I have been into computers basically since i was a child and messing around with programming since i was 10. I like technology, sports, reading. And i also like to give help where possible.

So Please if you need any help at all don’t hesitate to contact one of the staff over at the forums, we will respond, usually within a day.

Thanks Guys and Gals,  Have a great day.

~ Flyer

We are sorry for the inconvenience.

There is also a video that didn’t make it to YouTube.  This video had captions (I don’t caption this way anymore) that were impossible to read when I uploaded the video to YouTube.  The video is available to download, and the link to download it can be found in this thread.

I am also accepting requests for Windows videos in this thread.

Very recently, the forums have reached the 2,000 post mark.  You can see the celebration thread here.  It is very exciting to see us pass 2,000 posts, and I hope that there are many, many more celebrations like this in the future.

On October 31st of this year, Using Your OS will be celebrating its 2-year anniversary.  I already have a couple of ideas for the occasion, but they will be kept secret until the special day.  If you have any suggestions, please comment on this blog post or make a thread in the Suggestions/Feedback forum.

Updated Staff

I have removed the inactive staff members; the only staff you would see on the Forum Leaders page is me and Mesmer (not counting VIMs).  The other staff members haven’t even logged in for more than months, and definitely haven’t posted.  If they want their positions back, however, I would be glad to accept.

I also want to introduce you to our new Super Moderator: Mesmer.  After expressing his desire to become a staff member here, I could not say no.  He is also a Moderator at CompuTalk, and he has been a moderator at another forum for over 3 years.  With his experience, Mesmer is especially ready for his duties.  Please welcome him to his new position.

Posting Progress

Posting has picked back up again, with regular posts from Paul, Shay, and tracer9.  We now have over 1,900 posts and I will post a congratulations thread upon reaching 2,000 posts.   I would also like to mention that we have our first member referral: Shay.  He was referred to Using Your OS by Paul, so I would like to congratulate both of them.

A Bit of History

The official starting date for Using Your OS is October 31, 2006 (coincidentally on Halloween).  Using Your OS has been around for more than a year, and during that time I have seen periods of activity and no activity.  I think that with the recently new features, (chat, 3.7, etc.) Using Your OS will bring in activity from all over the world.

I do have something special planned this year for Using Your OS’s 2 year anniversary; I might release a bit more information as time goes by.

vBulletin 3.7

This will be the last blog post about vBulletin 3.7; more information about 3.7 can be found on the forum.  You can see in Tidbit #22 that vBulletin 3.7 has been officially released by Jelsoft.  Many of the mods that were for 3.6.x are now available for 3.7.  You can expect a new thread every weekend about a new feature in 3.7 that impacts you as a member.

That’s it for this tidbit.  I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a while, I just wanted to have one big blog post with a lot of information in it.  Also, if you have subscribed to the forum newsletter, you should be receiving the next edition shortly.

You can see the release at vBulletin.org. Using Your OS has already been upgraded to 3.7, and I will be posting new threads every week about the new features of 3.7.

I have also installed a new theme called “Curves.” There is currently a thread going on at the forum here, and I want your opinions on whether to keep the new theme or not. You can see the new theme by selecting the theme from the drop down list at the bottom of the forum page, or in your User CP.

You can see the official thread here, and you can access the articles system here.  Just be sure to read the Rules and you can start writing articles.
As I have said in this thread, I think the articles system could replace the wiki.  After all, a wiki would be very hard to moderate; anyone could post anything they wanted.  Also, I think the articles system is better because articles are written by individuals individually, and so I think it could replace the wiki.

There’s a poll in the thread I linked to.  Be sure to vote and post your comments there (or here).