Sorry it took a few days to get back online. I thought that this would be the best time to do a software upgrade for the site since it had to be offline anyway, and that added on some extra time.

First, I need to thank Puddinhead, Science and Tennyoelf who beta-tested the site upgrade for me. They helped me immensely with their comments and suggestions, and the transition will be smoother than it would have been without their contribution.

Now, the changes...

--The shoutbox is now integrated into the site instead of using a 3rd party script. You can view the shoutbox as a guest, but you can't post until you're logged in. When you post, your name has a link to your profile, which means we can't put other links in our name anymore. After you type your message, hitting enter will not submit your post. You need to hit tab and then enter or click the shout button. If you hit refresh right after posting a message, it will probably end up reposting. If you want to refresh the page, use the refresh the shoutbox link or hit HOME in the top menu.

--All the skins have been redone a little because they had to be recreated to work with the new software. Also, there are 2 new skins, simple and mobile. Mobile is meant to be used on mobile devices (shocking, I know). Remember that changing your skin in one of the drop-down menus does not change your default skin. To make a certain skin always shows up when you log on, you need to change it in your account preferences.

--All stories added or updated in the last month have a New! or Updated! tag next to the title in the story listings.

--Stories now have a read count. Since it's new, it doesn't have a history of old views. The count for all stories is starting at 0.

-- There is a new Bookshelf feature that allows you to add stories  you're reading/want to read to a list. You don't get an email when a story on this list is updated, but it lists the date when you last read the story, and if it has been updated since that date, there will be an Updated! tag no matter when it was updated.

--When you click on a story, you have the option of being taken to a table of contents page for the story instead of the first chapter. You can turn this feature off or on with the table of contents setting in your account preferences.

--This has nothing to do with the upgrade, but while I was adding things, I remembered that there was talk of wanting a Holidays category, so I added one. I'm not going to go through old stories and reclassify them, but if you have a story that fits, please add it to the list.

--When you add a favorite author or story, you are taken to a second screen where you can choose to add comments to remind yourself why you added it to your favorites list. The notes are for you, and do not go under reviews. You do not have to add any comments, but you do have to click submit after being taken to the second screen to add the author/story to your favorites list. You can edit items already on your favorites list to add comments.

--There are a number of changes in the account info/preferences section:

----You can now view/edit reviews you've left for other authors. Your reviews are listed under the storyand are in order of when that story was first published (starting with the earliest).

----You can set a default story sort of either alphabetical or most recent and choose to be notified when an author responds to your review of their story.

----In your bio, there are new profile fields if you want to enter your LJ, DW, Tumblr, Twitter or Facebook accounts.

----The beta information was unfortunately wiped in the upgrade, but it was woefully out of date anyway. While you're checking out the new profile fields, be sure to mark if you're interested in being a beta reader or not.

--The text editor has been updated, with a few notable changes:

----The best way to add an image is now with the button that looks like a picture of a tree. Click the button, and enter the image URL/direct link into the top line of the pop-up window. After filling in any other information that you would like to enter about your image, click Insert. Make sure your image isn't wider than 920px, or it won't display correctly. If you need to make your image smaller, you can do so in the appearance tab of the pop-up window.

----The button with the checkmark/ABC is a spell check. It only works after you've clicked the button.

----The happy face button has some emoticons, which have no real purpose other than the fact that smileys make everything better (is it just me?).

-- At the end of the last chapter of a story, there are additional story notes that mention other stories in a series (if that title is part of a series), has a listing of how many other stories the author has written and links to a list of other stories that are favorites of people who also favorited that story.

--Stories can now have more than one author. When adding your story, there is a space for you to enter co-authors if there are any.

--When adding a new story, you can enter story notes. These notes appear on the table of contents page and at the top of every chapter page. This is a perfect place to put a banner or a disclaimer so you don't have to put them in every time you add a new chapter. There are still chapter notes and there are now end of chapter notes as well.

--From the chapter pages, you can now choose to save a chapter or story as a Word doc.

--You can now share a story to tumblr or Twitter. From the table of contents page, you can share the link to the story, or from a chapter page, you can share a link to the chapter.

--In the top navigation, there's a link to the Chatzy page. The link is only visible when you're logged in.

--The registration page now has a captcha on it. It won't stop spammers, but maybe it will slow them down a bit.

--Last, but not least, the site now has a favicon, which is the little image that shows at the top of your browser, in your bookmarks, etc... When I was trying to add a favicon initially, I just snagged an image that I had sitting on my desktop, which just happened to be Underdog (yes, I had an image of Underdog on my desktop). I'm well aware that Underdog doesn't really fit the site, but I'm not artistic enough to create a new favicon. That's where you come in. If you want to submit a favicon for the site, send me your 16px x 16px creation at susanelysianfields (at) gmail.com. It can be anything you think that would represent the site, and remember, it's small, so you don't have much room to work with. You have until March 10th to submit a contribution and then we'll have a site-wide vote to determine which image will be used.

I think that about covers it. There may be a few other things I forgot to mention. With upgrades, there's always glitches and growing pains, so if you notice that something isn't working properly or that something's missing, please let me know.