You may have noticed the big change. Intoxination.blogspot.com is now intoxination.net. I enjoyed my time using Blogger and still maintain a couple other blogs on there but this blog is growing very quickly and I decided it was time for an upgrade. The blog is now powered by WordPress. WordPress is a far superior blogging system and extremely customizable. I have done numerous upgrades to this system over the past few months and done rigorous testing to it. I currently do not have all the new features rolled out but will in the very near future.
Basically all comments were saved. For the time being anyone can comment however I will be changing that in the future to make it registered comments only. Anyone can register and it is quick and easy. Just pick a username and enter a valid email then your password will be emailed to you. Once that is complete there are some nice benefits that you can take advantage of including:
- a customizable user profile with information about you, your homepage and up to 3 cool links.
- Customized comment signatures that can contain your homepage link or a favorite quote and is automatically added to your comments each time you comment.
- An uploadable avatar. You pick your avatar and submit it via the control panel and it will display on your comments making it easy to identify yourself or others.
Also do not forget the luxury of having your information placed in your comments automatically. No more having to fill out your name, email and homepage as once your registered that information is passed automatically. You also have the option in your control panel to not publish your email to help insure your privacy. Emails are kept by the system for security purposes – namely if you forget your password.
OTHER NEW FEATURES
Posts can now be rated. If you look at the bottom of each post there is 5 stars. You can rate each post if you wish just by clicking on how many stars you wish to rate it. Also the number of views per post is recorded.
The posts are now organized in categories also. This makes it easier to locate posts. I do not have all the old posts categorized yet but will be working on that as time allows. All new posts will automatically be placed in categories.
For a quick highlight of a news story I feel the readers will enjoy, I can place a special post that will appear in a box. It is a short description of the news item with the link to the original story. These are basically mini-posts and you can still comment on them. (Very similar to the gray box news items on Think Progress).
The polling system is entirely new. It uses javascript/ajax so you can switch between votes and views without reloading the entire page. It also archives all the old polls which can be viewed via the poll vault on the top menu bar. Of course I just put the first poll in so it is the only one showing in the poll vault.
If you go to an individual post’s page there is an option for the RSS feed just for that post. For hot topics with lots of discussion you can use this in your favorite RSS reader to make it easier to follow updates.
The blogroll has been updated. I did not remove anyone but to limit the size the actual blogroll will randomly rotate between all the blogs I have listed (over 100). The other sections of the blogroll will always remain the same.
The sidebar sections are collapsible. Simply click the title or arrow and that box will close. It will also remember that when you go to other pages and come back. This makes your viewing a little more enjoyable.
FUTURE PLANS
I am working to make IntoxiNation bigger and better. My first year has been very good and I want the second year to be even better. In the near future I will be opening up an authors section. What this basically will be is a section where selected users can maintain their own diary (blogs) on IntoxiNation. This will not be open to the general public. If you are interested in becoming an author then please feel free to email me using the contact me link above.
I will have more about this in the future.
OTHER INFORMATION
I am also going to start hosting some news clips and other news videos. I will be limiting those to help save on bandwidth. We already have a great site available, Crooks and Liars, for all our video needs but if I feel something is worthy of posting here then I will.
I hope everyone enjoys the new site. I feel it is a lot better than the old site and loads a lot quicker. Sadly all my search engine links are no longer going to work good but if you come here from the old site trying to find a specific post you can just search for it on the top of the page. This is an embedded search so it works fast and well.