Hooray! It's software upgrade time again. Eric, our programmer will shortly be commencing our upgrade which will bring us several new features, including...

* Video! Yes, will now be able to include videos in your profile and upload videos to your picture galleries. You can also put YouTube videos in your profile.

* Now you can choose the background that goes behind your profile page, a bit like MySpace.

* A brand new and sophisticated commenting system will allow you to post comments like those you already post in people's blogs but now you'll also now be able to comment on photos and videos in their galleries, Tranny Tribune articles and much more. On the downside, this new commenting system is incompatible with the previous incarnation so all comments posted in the blogs up to now will disappear.

* Members will now be able to "tag" content in the blogs, forums, emails, photos, classified ads, the Tranny Tribune, photo albums, and many other areas. These keyword/phrase tags will be clickable to search for other content sharing the same tag. Tags applied to private content will only show in searches performed by the person who added the tag.

* Our new "User Status" feature is similar to Facebook's status feature and allows members to post a short phrase in their profile describing their current status. Examples include "is asleep", "is happy", "is on vacation".

* Blogger will now have access to their own statistics, showing how many people have viewed and commented on their blogs in the last week and month.

In addition there will be many improvements to our existing features, for example, adding other member's blogs to your blog roll used to be a cumbersome procedure. Now you'll be able to do it with a simple click of your mouse.

Also when someone adds you to their list of friends, you will be asked to approve or decline their request instead of simply being added whether you want to be or not.

Messages sent from your TrannyMessenger will no longer be limited to 256 characters (although messages sent from profile pages will still be limited). You will also now be able to send one message to multiple friends in one go.

Although it's great to have all this new functionality, when the software is installed this week, there are bound to be bugs and problems which will need to be ironed out so if you discover anything that doesn't work right, or if you get any error messages, please let me know and I'll get Eric to fix them.

Thanks and huggies,

Katie x

She's here...

Hi Penny, unfortunately we are a bit stuck with the persuasions we have because if we change them, they new options will only apply to new members registering for the first time.

That's because the existing membership has already chosen their persuasion. We couldn't expect them all to come back and choose again so we'd end up with two different systems.

Also, no matter what list of options we come up with, some people will always say that our list is wrong and that it should be done another way.

This is an age old argument that nobody can win, so I'm afraid that we will just have to live with the option we have now.

Also, the reason we have never asked people to say what they are looking for here is because that would make us look like a dating site and we're not one.

And large numbers of our new members do not actually know what they are looking for when they arrive and those who think they do, often change their minds when they've been with us for a little while.

Thanks for the idea though. I hope you won't think that I've deliberately shot it down in flames. I have taken note and realise that there is a problem here. We just need to think of a way around it.

Please keep your ideas coming. They are much appreciated.

Huggies,

Katie x

Thanks for that. I've tried uploading profile pictures and icons but I can't make it go wrong.

I'll talk to Eric about the forum stuff.

If you see any more bugs, please let me know and I'll add them to my growing list.

Hugs,

Katie x

Hi Rae, yes, this is a transitional thing. The new comments system is totally separate and completely incompatible with the old one.

The new system will eventually allow you to comment on other items around the site as well as blogs, like photos in the galleries, videos and suchlike.

However, it will take some time to get all this new stuff into place as I have so many other jobs to do and not enough hours in the day.

For example, my little book is supposed to be published at the end of this month and I haven't finished writing it yet!

Hugs,

Katie x

Yes Rae, you are quite right again. This is just another little bug. I will draw Eric's attention to it.

If you or anyone else should find any more bugs, please let me know by posting them here.

Many thanks,

Katie x

Hi Donna, that sounds more like a problem on your own computer. I think you may have a corrupt cookie. Please take a look at this Trannyweb FAQ...

http://gendersociety.com/FAQ/[...]p?id=72

Hope that helps.

Hugs,

Katie x

Hi Rae, things like this do happen when we have an upgrade. Sometimes it takes weeks to work all the bugs out of the system.

I have looked at the blogs and I can't see any user names at all so I'm obviously looking at the wrong pages.

Could you give me an example of one? Please send me the URL of a page or pages that show user names rather than real names and I'll get it fixed.

Thanks and hugs,

Katie x

Hi Rae, I see what you mean now about user names being displayed and I've fixed it. Do let me know if you see anything else like that.

As for the blog visitor count, loads of people have been asking for statistics like that for ages. I didn't think that stats would actually put anyone off blogging.

Personally, I like to know how many people have viewed my blog but what does everyone else think? Should the stats stay or should they go?

Hugs,

Katie x

Hi Marsha,

Sorry about the forumid thingy. It's gone now.

If you scroll down to the bottom of your blog page you will see your stats.

Hugs,

Katie x

Hi Rachel, could you let me know which Post Type image appears incorrectly and I'll have it put right?

When you start to write a new blog entry, the font colour should be black by default. However, you can change it to whatever colour you like by clicking the T button. A little popup window will appear containing all the available font colours.

Hope that helps.

Hugs,

Katie x

Sounds like you might be in Text Mode. If that is the case then the options panel would be nearly all greyed out, except for one button with < > on it.

If you click that button, it will return you to WYSIWYG mode and the options panel will work again.

I just tried posting a blog comment with the smiley wearing sunglasses and that's exactly what was displayed. Are you sure you didn't use a different emoticon?

Hugs,

Katie x

Ah, it's a Mac. That explains a lot. You are therefore probably using a browser called Safari which we've had nothing but trouble with.

Although we are not MS fans, the whole site has been designed with Internet Explorer in mind because it is still by far the most widely used browser.

Unfortunately, Safari is not yet completely IE compliant so there will be some items that won't work here.

And it's not just us. Using Safari, you'll probably have all kinds of problems right around the web.

Hugs,

Katie x

Firefox should be okay for the most part. It doesn't yet support Flash Transparency which does cause a problem with our drop down menus but I'm hoping we can change them soon, for CSS based menus.

Otherwise, if you find any problems on our pages when using Firefox, please let me know specifically which page and what the problem is and I'll get it fixed.

Hugs,

Katie x

Hi Angela,

The blogs don't count towards your total. The number you see is the number of post you have posted in the forums only. The blogs are a separate entity.

Also, you should read this FAQ...

http://gendersociety.com/FAQ/[...]p?id=86

... I know it's supposed to be about photos but it applies to text and forum post number as well.

It's possible that you might be seeing old pages from the cache on your hard disk rather than up to date pages from our server. It's worth checking out anyway.

Hugs,

Katie x

Hi Angela,

I just tried to duplicate this error but I couldn't make it happen. If it happens to you again, could you let me know before you post in the forums and clear it?

Thanks and huggies,

Katie x