UMW Blogs will be upgraded to the latest version of WordPress Multi-User, version 2.8.6, Friday morning at 1:30 am. Please report any issues you may experience as a result through the contact form here.
Introducing Gravatar
The screencast below gives an overview of Gravatar, which are a quick and easy way to get a globally recognized avatar that will work with UMW Blogs and beyond.
UMW Blogs Escape Plan
If you are a UMW Blogs blogger and are getting ready to graduate or otherwise leave the University of Mary Washington there are a couple of things you should know about the options for taking your work with you.
1) The work you have done on UMW Blogs will not be deleted. It will remain up and online for as long as this service remains. If you want to keep your work on UMW Blogs that is fine, and as an added bonus you can even map your own domain so that you can truly personalize the site beyond the myblog.umwblogs.org URL. Read more about this option here.
2) If you want to export your work and upload it somewhere else (like your own hosted wordpress account, WordPress.com, Blogger, etc.) you can use these directions. Keep in mind you would need to export each of your blogs individually if you have more than one.
3) Finally, if you want to get rid of your work on UMW Blogs, you have full control over that. Just login to UMW Blogs and head to the Settings tab and click on the Delete Blog subtab and follow the directions. Keep in mind that if you had several different blogs you would need to do this for each blog.
If you have any questions about any of this please feel free to email us using the contact form.
Mapping Your Own Domain on UMW Blogs
Q: What is domain mapping?
A: This is where your blog and/or website is hosted here at umwblogs.org but it looks like it is somewhere else – on another domain.
Q. Why would I want to do this?
A. Well, what if you want to have your own, personalized space to capture the academic work you’re doing. A discoverable, online location to frame your online identity and showcase the work you are doing without umwblogs.org in the URL. Want an example? Take a look at Serena Epstein’s website that brings a series of her work from several of her course blogs into her own, customized domain: http://serenae.com
It’s simple to get up and running, for a quick how-to click here.
UMW Blogs Maintenece, Sunday 1-18-09
Update: The maintenance was successful and everything should now be back to normal. Blog on!
On Sunday, January 18th, UMW Blogs will be down for maintenance from 9:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. We will be traffic-proofing the system given it is so beautiful and popular. However, don’t be sad, it will be back up and faster than ever. Please let us know if you have any concerns: jimgroom_at_umw.edu.
Thanks for your patience!
Introducing Monotone: An Elegant Photoblogging Theme
UMW Blogs has just added the Monotone theme to its bag of tricks. This theme is designed specifically for people who want to feature images, and has quite an attractive layout with a background that automatically changes to suit the coloring of the photo. You can see what it looks like here. And if you want to try it out just go to your blog and click on the Design tab in the administrative backend and look for the theme called Monotone. Enjoy!
Spam Prevention now powered by Akismet
We now have a new and improved antispam software to protect UMW Blogs using the great Akismet spam protection system provided by Automattic (the folks that help develop the WordPress software that runs UMW Blogs).
What does that mean to you? It means you no longer have to install Spam Karma 2, which has been uninstalled from all blogs, and we will be removing this plugin shortly. It also means that you’ll have a new link on the Comments section of your blog’s admin interface. When Akismet isn’t 100% sure that a comment is spam, it keeps the comment but pushes it into a waiting area until you moderate it (approve it, or delete it). All pretty easy, and hopefully you won’t even need to worry about that. But every now and then, check out your Comments section to see if there is anything to deal with.
The one visible sign of using Akismet is that the licensing terms require a small “powered by Akismet” notice on each blog, so I wrote a simple plugin that automatically inserts that on all blogs hosted here. If that causes problems for anyone, please let me know (it’s possible that it may interact unpredictably with some themes? it shouldn’t, but there’s always a chance…)
If you think Akismet is acting up, or is flagging comments as spam when they shouldn’t be, or notice that comments are acting up in general, please let me know ASAP (either via email, or using the Support link on the UMW Blogs homepage.
Open Book Data Plugin
If you’re writing a blog post that references a book, we’ve got a plugin you can install that will automatically grab an image of the book cover, as well as publishing data (and links to library sources for the book). All you need to provide is the ISBN of the book, and include it in your post using a square brackets hunk of text like this:
Which will result in an automagically embedded book reference, like this:
It’ll wrap, so you can start blabbing about the book, and it will look all nice and perfessunal, without having to do any extra work or figuring out any of those wacky angle bracket html doowackies.If you’re into book learnin’, give this one a whirl.
Republished (stolen 
) from this post by D’Arcy Norman at UCalgary blogs
Barack Obama at UMW this Saturday, Sept. 27
The following message if from the UMW Office of News and Public Information:
The University has just confirmed that Barak Obama and Joe Biden will attend a rally sponsored by the UMW Young Democrats on Saturday, September 27 at 5:15 p.m. in Ball Circle. All members of the UMW community are welcome to attend the public event.
Below is a news release that was distributed today by the Obama campaign headquarters in Chicago.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 24, 2008
Barack Obama and Joe Biden to Hold “Change We Need” Rally in Fredericksburg Saturday
RICHMOND, Va. – U.S. Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will hold a “Change We Need” rally Saturday at University of Mary Washington. This will be the first time Obama and Biden have appeared together in the commonwealth.
The pair will lay out their plans to jump start the economy, provide affordable health care to Virginians and bring a responsible end to the Iraq war.
This event is free and open to the public, though an RSVP is encouraged. To RSVP please visit www.barackobama.com
Details of Events Below:
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27
Fredericksburg, VA
CHANGE WE NEED RALLY WITH BARACK OBAMA AND JOE BIDEN
Ball Circle
University of Mary Washington
1301 College Ave.
Fredericksburg, VA
**Enter from College Ave.**
Gates Open: 3:00 PM
Program Begins: 5:15 PM
Media Coverage: This event is open press. For credentials, please visit http://www.barackobama.com/mediarsvp
The event is free and open to the public. Tickets are NOT REQUIRED but an RSVP is encouraged. To RSVP, please visit http://www.va.barackobama.com. Space is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Further details to be announced as they become available.
***For security reasons, do not bring bags. Please limit personal items. NO SIGNS OR BANNERS ALLOWED***
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Domain mapping for UMW Blogs
Well, not only is UMW Blogs sporting a fancy redesign, but it also has some pretty impressive features to start the new year. One that I find pretty amazing is that everyone who has a blog at UMW Blogs has the option to associate it with their own domain.
What does this mean? Well, in short, if you were to purchase a domain name for $8.00 from an authorized Domain Registrar (see the list below), something like iruletheschool.com, and you wanted your UMW Blog at iruletheschool.umwblogs.org to have its own unique domain without the umwblogs.org, it can be done quite easily by mapping the domain you bought onto your UMW Blog.
Here’s how:
- Purchase your domain from a domain name registrar, go here for a list of the top providers
- Once you have purchased your domain name point your name servers to ns1.castironcoding.com and ns2.castironcoding.com (if you need an IP address our is 67.228.90.196)
- After that, go to your blog and go to the Manage–>Domain Mapping tab and add your new domain
- Finally, use the Contact form to let us know you added a new domain so that we can make sure everything works for you.
Enjoy!