Everything Typepad

Release Notes: Bug Fixes, New Theme, and Category RSS in Beta

The last few months have been full of important-but-not-easy-to-blog-about infrastructure releases that keep TypePad running super fast. We also have some of the most requested features moving through the pipeline that will be headed to the Beta team in the next few weeks.

And we’re always working on improvements to the core functionality of TypePad. Here are some that were released this week:

New:

•  New TweetPad theme. Stay tuned for more information about this cool new theme.
• Your five most recently joined communities now display on your TypePad profile membership page. Looking for some cool communities to check out? Go visit Post the Love, AVATAR, Paris Hilton, or Zachary Quinto and see what’s happening.

Now in Beta:

• New styling for dashboard events to make it easier to scan the activity of people you are following
• Ability to enable Category RSS in your blog
• A fix that allows Category RSS to work with domain mapped URLs

Bug Fixes of Note:

• Fixed a bug that caused some blogs to show zero page views for February 1, 2010
• Fixed a bug that caused the inline audio player to break with mp3 files
• Improved the Follow Me module experience
• Developer fix: Fixed a bug that caused errors when editing details of an API key

Love is All Around: Valentine's Day Interview with Susie Bright

Susie Bright is an author, editor, blogger, podcaster, performer, and lecturer on all matters of sex, sexuality, and erotica. And she's been an extremely popular TypePad blogger since 2004. Out of personal and professional interest, we asked her a few questions as we scramble get ready for Valentine's Day.

What makes Valentine's Day special?
SB: It's a pre-Christian Holiday with such a dramatic history you can't help but throb and weep!

Here's a glimpse from one of my favorite books, Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things:

"In Rome in A.D. 270, Valentine had enraged the mad emperor Claudius II, who had issued an edict forbidding marriage. Claudius felt that married men made poor soldiers, because they were loath to leave their families for battle.

Valentine invited young lovers to come to him in secret, where he joined them in the sacrament of matrimony. Claudius learned of this "friend of lovers," and had the bishop brought to the palace.

The emperor attempted to convert him to the Roman gods. Valentine refused to renounce Christianity and imprudently attempted to convert the emperor. On February 24, 270, Valentine was clubbed, stoned, then beheaded.

But while Valentine was in prison awaiting execution, he fell in love with the blind daughter of the jailer. Through his unswerving faith, he miraculously restored her sight. He signed a farewell message to her "From Your Valentine," a phrase that would live long after its author died."

Now is that romantic or what!

How should people keep the sparks of Valentine's all year long?
SB: The traditional gifts of Valentine's tell you everything you need to know. Surprises that smell good, taste good, silky and sensual, declarations of affection, flirtations, and most of all, generosity of spirit.

I also think of Valentines as a family and children's holiday. There is nothing more fun that throwing a Valentine party for a bunch of scissor-and-glue-happy kids. —Of all ages! 


What would you change about Valentine’s Day?
SB:The "swan/consumer" role model of  romance. It's not a day for bitterness and comparisons. It's a hot pink 24 hours to embrace sensuality, let your freak flag fly, love for love's sake. 

I also miss my mother's valentines, now that she's passed. She was the first one to ever "send" me a Valentine card and her exuberance was contagious...Never missed a year.

What’s your favorite Valentine’s Day story?
SB: Erotic: Well you'll have to visit my blog for some of those stories.

Mommy/Baby: My daughter's mushy valentines to me, every year. She writes a poem, draws a picture of me, and I melt.

Parties: My friend Scottie throws a massive crafty Valentine Party each year, turning his whole house and garage into a Warholian Love Factory. It goes on all night; there are people welding outside and glue-gunning, water-coloring in the kitchen, glitter-spewing, collaging with old National Geographic's and National Enquirer's. You bring your own scissors and stuff to add to the 20-year supply closet. Love is All Around, baby!


OK, it’s last minute, and I don’t have anything for Valentine's. Help! What should I do!?
SB: Two ideas:

• My lover game,  Dare Cards, will give you so many fun ideas they will make your head spin. —Maybe other parts too.
• Print out the lyrics to one of your favorite songs. Come up to your sweetheart and just sing your heart out! It does NOT matter what your pipes sound like; just go for it... Guaranteed to make both of you fall madly in love all over again.

Editor's note:
Thanks, Susie, for answering our questions during a very busy time of year. Let us know your favorite Valentine's stories below.

Show Some Blogger Love <3

Valentine’s Day(!) is just around the corner. What better way to say thanks to your blogosphere than to leave feedback on your favorite blogs? Here are some ways to show the love:

1. Leave a comment: Even if all you have to say is "I love your post!" everyone loves to hear feedback from their readers.
2. Favorite a post: Let the blog owner -- and everyone in your network -- know you love their post by making it a Favorite.
3. Reblog a post: There’s no bigger compliment than sharing great posts with your network. Use the bookmarklet or Reblog button to
4. Follow someone new: Find a new blog to read this month.

That’s all it takes! Now get out there and dish out those compliments.

TypePad Motion on Google App Engine and Jumpbox

TypePad Motion now available on Google App Engine

TypePad Motion is an open source community micro-blogging application built on the TypePad Platform. We're delighted to announce that it's even easier for developers to launch a TypePad Motion community on Google's App Engine. App Engine lets you run your web apps on Google servers with easy to build, easy to maintain and easy to scale infrastructure. Best of all, it's free (for small sites and low bandwidth usage). App Engine is a quick way to get started on TypePad Motion. We are releasing a beta of our latest TypePad Motion software for Google App Engine - you can download the software and instructions from developer.typepad.com, and get started today (Here is a quick link to Download Motion-gae). In addition, we've ported an existing Motion site from Motion.TypePad.com to  Motion on Google App Engine so you can see a preview of Motion on App Engine for yourself.

TypePad Motion on Jumpbox

Jumpbox is a ready-to-deploy virtual computer that contains a pre-configured instance of an application. Self-contained, secure and optimized - it gives you the value of Open Source software without the headaches.  You can download (181 MB) the latest Jumpbox image for TypePad Motion 1.1.1.

Join the Community of TypePad Developers

Join the TypePad Developers Community and enjoy the benefits of TypePad's Developer Resources today!

Customize your blog with Typekit fonts

Looking for a way to give your blog a new look? A well-designed font can help give your blog personality, and help it stand out in the crowd.  We've partnered with Typekit, a great new company that's bringing professional fonts to the web, to help you integrate Typekit fonts into your TypePad Unlimited blog...and bring you a discount on their services!

  

Typekit is a subscription-based service that takes advantage of new capabilities in modern web browsers to bring high-quality, fully licensed fonts to your blog -- even if your readers don't have those fonts installed on their computers.  For example, check out what these great TypePad bloggers have done with Typekit...

  

Typekit offers hundreds fonts from world-renowned foundries like FontFont, ps.type.lab, Chank!, fonthead, Mark Simonson and more.  There's bound to be one there that will help you spruce up your blog.

To get started, create a Typekit account.  Their Trial plan is free, and gives you access to more than 100 popular Typekit fonts.  Their paid pricing plans start at $7 a month, give you many more fonts to choose from, let you embed more fonts on your site...and Typekit's offering an annual pricing discount for TypePad bloggers.

Once you have a Typekit account, we've made it easy for you to connect your TypePad blog to your Typekit account -- so that you don't have to worry about copy and pasting JavaScript or inserting code into your templates.  To configure Typekit on your blog, log in to TypePad, select your blog and click the "Settings" tab.  Select "Add-ons" from the left navigation menu, and you'll see "Typekit Fonts" and a place to add your Typekit Kit ID.  Then in Typekit's Kit editor, you can choose the CSS classes on your blog that will have custom fonts.

We're excited to see how you use it!