Blogware has now been upgraded to version 1.2. If you have a Blogware blog, you don't need to do anything to take advantage of this upgrade as it is automatic. If you don't have a Blogware blog, you should sign up for a free trial.

The main changes are to the administration web interface. The layout has been modified to make it easier to navigate the interface and some of the terminology has been changed to make it easier to understand or be consistent throughout. Also, the rich text editor has been enhanced to make choosing a photo or thumbnail from an existing photo album and inserting it into an article post quick and easy.

For your reading enjoyment, here's the full list of changes:

• Added "Post Web Page" function. Allows custom static HTML web pages to be inserted in the standard templates and managed within Blogware.
• Added function to automatically rename photographs when duplicate name is used. This is to facilitate the upload of images from phone-cams that recycle image file names.
• Added function to support secure file attachments to article entries.
• Added a tool that records a history of IP addresses of the individuals who are logging into a weblog via the Publisher Control Panel.
• Added support for article keywords.
• Added support to allow search of article keywords.
• Added "About Me" business card web page that includes image, contact information and social networking features (including FOAF, authenticated login, etc.) The About Me page is generated on the fly on located at a "personal permalink" in the form of "http://www.blogware.com/profiles/username/". Authenticated users will be provided with access to personal information as defined in the users "Address Book".
• Added FOAF support. FOAF is generated and located at a similar permalink in the form of "http://www.blogware.com/users/profiles/username/foaf.rdf". Authenticated users will be provided with access to FOAF information as defined in the FOAF owners's "Address Book". Users can authenticate themselves by passing their Reader username and password via HTTP in the form of "http://username:password@www.blogware.com/users/profiles/username/foaf.rdf".
• Added additional user interface cues and streamlined interface to make the transition between the Publisher Control Panel to the Reader Control panel interfaces easier.
• Added support to allow Review templates to be fully customized.
• Added ENT (Easy News Topics) support for RSS 2.0 (Details regarding the ENT specification can be found at http://matt.blogs.it/specs/ENT/1.0/).
• Added support to enhance switching between the Rich Text Editor and the Standard Text Editor. Line breaks are now preserved.
• Added "New User" cues to the Publisher Control Panel interface and streamlined navigation including the capability to show and hide less/more commonly used interface elements via a "roll-up" widget. This also includes signficant changes to the "Settings" tab which now breaks various settings into more logical and distinct groups of settings related functions.
• Added support for RSD, "Really Simple Discoverability", 1.0. RSD is a mechanism that helps client software find the services needed to read, edit, or "work with" Blogware. Full details concerning the RSD 1.0 specification can be found at http://archipelago.phrasewise.com/rsd
• Added support to make it easier to insert images in an Article entry within the Rich Text Editor.
• Added support to export "author" information within the Blogware export file.
• Added UTC support in blog xml-rpc interface and fixed various TIME formatting issues.
• Removed "article widgets".

Beginning September 8, 2004 newly registered .com and .net domains are active and available for use in minutes, compared to hours. The zone files will be updated throughout the day and new domains should become available in approximately 5 minutes after a new registration is processed. No more waiting up to 48 hours for your new domain to start working!

This change also affects DNS server changes made to a .com/.net domain. These changes will take affect in approximately five minutes. Please note that due to DNS caching, it may be up to 72 hours before they take effect at some locations.

If you are using Windows, BlogJet natively supports Blogware. It is very easy to configure and a nice client (I'm using it to post this message).

If you want to use a blogging client to post entries to your blog that doesn't offer Blogware support, you can use any client which supports the MovableType API. To do this, use the following settings (these were tested using ecto):

• API Type: MovableType
• Endpoint URL: http://www.blogware.com/xmlrpc.cgi
  This my be broken down into server name and URL. If so, use www.blogware.com as the server name and /xmlrpc.cgi as the URL.
• Username: Your Blogware username
• Password: Your Blogware password

As of 6:30 AM ET this morning, power was restored to the web servers at our office which were down and couldn't be powered on until now do to the curfew. Please note this only affected web sites provisioned through the hostorlando.com web site.

All hostorlando.com servers and services are running.  If you have any problems, please submit a High priority support request

The power outage noted in our last update has not been resolved.  I have shut down all servers at our office.  Due to a 6PM ET tonight to 6AM ET tomorrow curfew in our area, I won't be able to turn everything back on until about 6:15AM tomorrow.  If power comes back on before then, most servers will come on automatically but some may still be down until we can manually power them on. Please note this only affects services provisioned throught the hostorlando.com web site.

As I was typing this, power is now on at our office.  Mail servers and one DNS servers are all running at this time.  Web servers are down. These servers may not stay online if we lose power again.

At approximately 3:30 PM ET, the power in our office had stabilized and it was finally safe enough to travel.  I have powered back up all servers in our office and all hostorlando.com services are online and running as of approximately 4:00 PM ET. This outage only affected services provisioned through the hostorlando.com web site. 

We have lost power a few times at the office.  The worst part of the storm is rolling through our area now.

To reduce the possibility of data loss or corruption, we are shutting down all servers on our office.  Once power is restored/stable and we are able to go back to the office, we will power everything back up.  This will likely be later this afternoon or early evening at the soonest, assuming we have power.

The good news is that the Internet connectivity has been stable so far and we are hoping it remains that way so when power is restored, we will be back on line.