the Cower journal

I so want a scanner as large as the ones SCAD has.

( This sketchdump comes to you 100% digital free! )

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

1. In another effort to zap spam, comments containing links from domains LiveJournal deems untrustworthy are now automatically screened
2. 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
3. The issue causing random comments to vanish has been fixed!
4. 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)!
5. 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
6. 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!

1. We've updated our RTE (Rich Text Editor) to FCKeditor version 2.6.5
2. When switching from the RTE to HTML editor, links for syndicated feeds are no longer broken
3. RTE now functions properly in Safari 4.0
4. An extra line/space will not be auto-inserted whenever you switch from RTE to HTML editor
5. 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!

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.

All done! Mine's not colored because.. I had no colored ref. XD Haha, if you have one I'll see if I can find time to color it. <3
The rest of the desc is on my DA entry.

The Chaotician

Sorry for being a douche and making you wait.

( Eeriness unda' hereee )

Everyone who responded to my last poll may disregard this entry.

If you did not respond to the poll I created last week, you have probably found yourself bumped from my friends list.
I merely cleaned off my list of seemingly inactive accounts, if you wish to be added back (perhaps you missed the poll for whatever reason) just leave a comment. C:

Thanks!

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!
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This is just so I can get myself organized. Will be added to and updated later.

( Sketch/Idea List )

You were my chosen this month!


FantasyXchange: Benny n Benji by =ulario on deviantART

All the emails for the November exchange have been sent. If you're having trouble with your email, just tell me here.


I'm not 100% sure what we should do for the January and December round, so here's some polls for you guys to decide. Whatever combination comes in first will be our December round and the second place combination will be our January round (example. December = a normal round with a winter theme, January= an icon round with no theme or whatever it comes out to be).

( Click here to read about the poll options )

And no, you don't have to be entering into the round(s) to vote, but I would really prefer it if you were planning to.

Poll #1480485 Round Poll
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10

What do you want to do for the next round?

Should the next round have a special theme?

so nervous/excited to be taking commissions :c i can't sit still, i can't stop fidgeting... i haven't been this excited about anything in a long time xD

i hope they all turn out well and that i don't disappoint anyone! i'm so honored that people are willing to pay for my art, after such a short time of actually doing my own art vs. coloring other peoples linearts! i feel like i don't deserve it @.@

here's a quick WIP of my next portrait commish!

Unfortunately, the blacklist has been updated:
http://sites.google.com/site/faxblacklist/blacklist
but for the two of you, if you've read this journal you'll see that you have a week to complete your owed artwork if you want to get off the blacklist without having to complete the volunteer artwork. If you turn in your artwork within that week, then I'll remove your name entirely from the blacklist.

Now onto the your choice journal:

Remember this blurb from the sign up journal?
"Basically for this round, everyone will sign up as they do normally. Then once the sign-ups are closed, I'll make a new journal that will stay up for about 2-3 days. In the journal you can comment on who you'd like to draw for (or even list them out as 1.(person you'd most like to draw for) 2.(second person you'd most like to draw for) 3.(etc.)). The comments will be screened so I'll be the only one who can see your comments. If someone doesn't comment in time, I'll just pair them up with whoever is left."

Well.... this is that journal. Leave your comment as soon as possible. The emails will go out once I've recieved comments from all four of you.

Just in case my blurb was kind of confusing, here's an example for you guys.
Let's say the following people signed up:
dragon
wolf
gryphon
(assume those are people's usernames)

so my comment would go as follows:
1.gryphon
2.dragon
3.wolf
where gryphon would be the person I'd most like to draw for.
Since this is a tiny exchange, just list out your top three choices.

Also keep in mind that you cannot draw for someone if you've drawn for them in one of the last three rounds that you've entered into. For example, I have drawn for the following people: kiraxlee(most recent), merinotetrapoda, and the_black_wolf. I wouldn't be able to draw for any of them right now, but if I entered into a new round and drew for someone else, then I'd be able to draw for the_black_wolf again. It doesn't matter if you've drawn for someone outside of this exchange, only who you've drawn for here matters to me.
To see who you've drawn for in the past, check out your tag: http://community.livejournal.com/fantasy_xchange/tag
your tag should be "by (insert your username)"

Simple, no? :D All the comments on this journal are screened so you don't have to worry about hurting anyone's feelings.

Here's the list of everyone who is entering, if you aren't on here, then you can't enter:
ulariogryphon
kiraxlee
turbofanatic
groochi


If you don't care who you draw for, then just leave a comment like "Pair me up with anyone." You can also leave a comment like "Pair me up with anyone except (insert username[s])." Don't worry about hurting anyone's feelings. The comments are screened so only I can see them.

Please keep in mind that you only have to draw one of their characters if they've listed out more than one.