All the news fit to post
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!
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.
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
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***
###
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:
Enjoy!
Below is a screencast providing an overview of the new administrative interface for UMW Blogs.
Click on the image above to view the screencast
You can also view the video here.
We recently put up some support material outlining the numerous ways faculty, students, and staff are using UMW Blogs. Take a look at some of the unexpected and innovative ways the UMW community is using this publishing platform here.
Did you know you can embed a Flickr Slideshow on your UMW Blog? Below is an example, along with a quick how-to:
It is a three step process assuming you already have a set on Flickr you want to embed.
1) Copy the full URL of the photo set on Flickr and then paste it into the flickrSLiDR application found here. After that, click on the create SlideShow button and copy the code generated (which will be an iframe).
2) Then go to your UMW Blog and activate the Google Maps plugin which will allow embedding iframes on your blog.
3) Finally, create a new post, and paste the code generated by flickrSLiDR into the Code tab of the text editor (not the Visual tab) and your slideshow should appear magically 
Enjoy!
Andy Rush keeps the themed hits coming, in addition to the 7 New Themes for UMW Blogs we just released for UMW Blogs, there are two more new themes you can demo below. And while these themes are certainly attractive, as of yet do not have the option for a customized header image. Rest assured, however, that we are currently working on that feature, for nothing says “great theme” more than putting your own image in the header.
Economics
Click on image above to view live demo.
Collaboration
Click on image above to view live demo.
Thanks to the hard work of the ever industrious Andy Rush, UMW Blogs has tested and released seven new, very attractive themes designed by the inimitable Sadish.
Many of these themes offer a more traditional “website” feel, which may come in handy if you are thinking of your UMW Blogs space as a site, portfolio, public resource, etc. Another huge bonus is that they all have the ability to load a customized header image, which really allows you to make the site your own. So, without further adieu, here they are…
Click on the image to see the theme in action.
Click on the image to see the theme in action.
Click on the image to see the theme in action.
Click on the image to see the theme in action.
Click on the image to see the theme in action.
Click on the image to see the theme in action.
Click on the image to see the theme in action.
