Below are the most recent 7 friends' journal entries.

Friday, November 13th, 2009
forbeck_feed	7:51p	Game of Choice Up Now http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/forbeckcom/~3/DONTmo98LBE/ http://www.forbeck.com/2009/11/13/game-of-choice-up-now/ “Game of Choice,” my latest column for the High Adventure section of The Escapist, is up and ready for you to enjoy. In it, I write about how I decided to run my son Marty’s first at-home RPG using Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition. There are lots of great RPGs out there, and I’d guess that Marty will get around to playing all sorts of them, but this is where we’re going to start.     (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
news [ theljstaff ]	1:53p	LiveJournal Major Notes: Notes, Tweaks, Bug Kills, LJ_Cares! Notes augmented We've enhanced and de-bugged Notes. If you haven't tried it yet, now's the time! You can create a private note when you ban multiple users. You can also delete multiple notes at once. Lastly, paid users have the option to add a note (visible only to you) whenever you add or remove a friend (guaranteed to avoid embarrassing social mishaps). If you don't currently have a paid account, you can upgrade now! It only takes a few minutes and costs less than a bad shopping mall haircut (plus, it's way more fashionable)! Product tweaks and bug kill In another effort to zap spam, comments containing links from domains LiveJournal deems untrustworthy are now automatically screened If you sign up to get notifications of the Writer's Block question of the day, you'll now see the daily question in the email notification, so you'll have a little extra time to ponder before you post. You can subscribe to Writers Block notifications here The issue causing random comments to vanish has been fixed! If you visit a LiveJournal page and get prompted to log in, you'll be returned to the same page after you sign in (Thanks, Dreamwidth)! If you don't edit the timestamp for an entry at all, the entry timestamp will indicate the time the entry was posted instead of the time the Update Journal page was loaded Comments with paddings/backgrounds render correctly within the comment box (and will no longer wrap outside the box and break frames/margins) New FCK fixes rich text editor! We've updated our RTE (Rich Text Editor) to FCKeditor version 2.6.5 When switching from the RTE to HTML editor, links for syndicated feeds are no longer broken RTE now functions properly in Safari 4.0 An extra line/space will not be auto-inserted whenever you switch from RTE to HTML editor The insert image link now works correctly in all browsers LiveJournal Cares We’re pleased to introduce you to lj_cares, a new LiveJournal community dedicated to raising awareness and funds for U.S. charitable organizations that improve the health and well-being of people around the world. Each month, we’ll spotlight a nonprofit that is making a significant global impact through medical research, public outreach, and/or humanitarian social programs. Charities will be selected in accordance with the U.S. calendar of national health observances based on a high rating (of over 60%) on Charity Navigator and global scope of impact. In this, our inaugural month of November, we will celebrate national adoption month by offering a charitable virtual gift (priced at $2.99) to support Love Without Boundaries, an organization that saves the lives of orphans with life-threatening diseases and places them in loving homes around the world. LiveJournal will donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of charitable vgifts (we'll cover the cost of credit card transaction fees). To learn more about Love Without Boundaries, please visit lj_cares and read about how they helped save Baby Kang and the Rainbow Twins from fatal illnesses, who are now thriving in nurturing families. You can purchase your Love Without Boundaries gifts in the Virtual Gift shop. Papered in postcards A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in postcards to surround us with LiveJournal community. Thanks for coming through! We've received postcards all the way from Germany, Finland, and Canada and from all over the US, including Texas, Florida, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Indiana, Hawaii, and Oklahoma just to name just a handful. We're thrilled with our improved decor. Please keep the love coming for one more week by writing to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be drawing the names of ten random contributors next Thursday to win paid account credits! Photos of the week We have more dazzling images posted by talented LiveJournal photographers from around the world. We're hoping to span the entire globe, so please continue posting and tagging. Of course, you can also sit back and enjoy the view at lj_photophile. You can see a sample of this week's gorgeous photos and check out spotlight communities and awesome user content after the jump! ( Read more... ) Curtains We thank you, once again, for joining us. See you next week! (119 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
lj_maintenance [ dwell ]	2:00p	Network Maintenance: Saturday, November 14, 2009 at 04:00-06:00 UTC/GMT EDIT@08:16 UTC/GMT. Wow. That was ugly. I expected it to go for 30 minutes and have maybe 1 minute of broken connectivity. Instead it lasted over 4 hours and we had 10 minutes of downtime directly related to the load balancer upgrades and then another 5-10 minutes of downtime when our primary Pingback database server crashed and the secondary couldn't take over; which could have been indirectly caused by the network upgrade missing a self-VIP. Anyways, we're up, we're working, the load balancers are barely breaking a sweat right now and I need some food and a shot of whiskey. I don't even *like* whiskey!! Thanks mhwest and dnewhall for helping out! --- On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice. Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials. We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait! As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work. (39 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
news [ theljstaff ]	1:15p	LiveJournal Major Notes: Spam counter-attack, RSS feeds again, CSI Deadly Intent contest The empire strikes back In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal. RSS feeds again If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience. Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests! c_s_i If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here. Enveloped in postcards Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits. Photos of the week If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too! ( Read more... ) (220 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
forbeck_feed	6:14a	TAGIE and ChiTAG http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/forbeckcom/~3/U6NjqbNIK5A/ http://www.forbeck.com/2009/11/04/tagie-and-chitag/ I’ve been asked to be a speaker again at this year’s Toy and Game Inventor Expo (TAGIE). I had to back out at the last second last year due to a family illness, but I had a great time at the show the year before. The convention is held on Navy Pier in downtown Chicago on November 19 and 20. If you’re an aspiring mass-market game or toy designer, TAGIE is a fantastic introduction to that industry and provides a crash-course on what you need to do have a shot at succeeding in it. Hasbro is the lead sponsor this year, and that means you can expect to see top folks like Mike Gray and Mike Hirtle there among many other luminaries. I’m also going to attend the TAGIE Awards ceremony, which honor the top creators in mass-market toys and games. This is slated for the evening of November 20 at the Adler Planetarium. Even if you can’t make it there, there seems to still be time to nominate people for Toy Inventor of the Year, Game Inventor of the Year, Rising Star Inventor of the Year, and Young Inventor of the Year. Reuben Klamer, who designed The Game of Life, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. Leslie Scott, who designed Jenga, will be one of the presenters, along with actresses Daryl Hannah and Hilary Shepard, and Tim Walsh, designer of TriBond and Blurt. If you love toys and games but don’t want to see how they’re made, come out for the Chicago Toy and Game Fair (ChiTAG) instead. It’s held on Navy Pier too, but on the two days right after TAGIE, November 21 and 22. It’s all about seeing and playing the latest and greatest toys and games instead. I’ll be wandering around the show that Saturday, soaking up all the fun. If you’ll be at either event, be sure to say hi! (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
forbeck_feed	5:31a	Ann on TV http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/forbeckcom/~3/awBS3AyMpMc/ http://www.forbeck.com/2009/11/03/ann-on-tv/ My wife Ann is a school social worker for the School District of Janesville, Wisconsin. Her main job is to serve as the homeless student liaison for the district. In this role, she’s spoken at conferences across the country, and just recently she’s been on local television twice. Tonight, she also hauled herself out of her sickbed to appear on the Janesville Area Council PTA-Family Network show. This appeared on the Janesville public access cable channels (96 and 993) at 6:30 PM. Sadly, I can’t seem to find any archives for this show. However, back on October 26, Ann appeared on Newsmakers, a production of WisconsinEye, our state’s version of CSPAN. If you scroll down to the second show on 10.26.09, you can watch or listen to the entire show, in which Ann discusses the increases in the homeless student population in Wisconsin, along with her counterparts from Milwaukee and Madison. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
forbeck_feed	3:27p	Be an Angry Robot http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/forbeckcom/~3/t6Rf1QGGNw0/ http://www.forbeck.com/2009/10/27/be-an-angry-robot/ My friends (and publishers) at Angry Robot have helpfully provided a solution for all your Halloween costuming needs: the Angry Robot mask. Just print, cut, strap (or staple, glue, weld, etc.), and you’re all set to scare the simpering souls out of your fleshy, free-willed friends. Better yet, the Angry Robots promise the nebulous award of “prizes” for the best photos taken that include Angry Robot masks. That’s over and above the fun from playing with/wearing/fearing the mask itself, I think. [By the way, if you're interested in review copies of Angry Robot books, plus a shot at other prizes, be sure to join the Robot Army too.] (Comment on this)