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Ministers and Rabbi,

We have spent many years on Typepad, but the time to move is here.  After much thought and deliberation, I made the jump this weekend and set us up on our own host, and upgraded the software to Movable Type, the smarter / taller version of Typepad.  Almost everything works the same, but there will be more opportunity for continued growth on this new setup.

The site is posted here for now: http://wdiem.com/ifs

I'm still ironing out a few things, making sure the site is a near perfect match of what we already have, and will then be able to UPGREYED.  When I flip the switch, probably this weekend, an email will go out to all members with the login information.  The url will be the same so those who don't post won't have to do anything.  I'll sync all the posts and comments the day of the switch so nothing should be lost.

Good Flapjack,
M+T

P.S. National Pancake Day is tomorrow so be sure to eat some flapjacks.

Hello Ministers,

Typepad has made an upgrade to their service that allows everyone to create pages, not too much difference from a post, but where posts have comments, and move around based on other posts / dates, pages would allow you to create something like this.

In the next week or so, I will look into adding a navigation bar to the top of the content section, which would allow us to quickly access these new permanent pages to make it more useful.  Right now all I can think of is an About IFS page, this could use some content, but I'm sure something else could be done as well, like a page that houses the information for the next meeting so that you don't have to search through posts and comments.  This would be Coordination and Athletics job to update.

Anyway, this will be pretty useful as we continue to get bigger and stronger, we could also make a new layout for these pages if we want to mix things up a bit.

Let me know if you have any ideas for permanent pages, and we can start using this new feature.

Good Flapjack,
M+T

As a founding father, there is a responsibility to instill the values of I.F.S. to all ministers that come later in membership.  The title of founding father is not as significant however, as the time spent as a minister.  As all founding fathers, have been a part of I.F.S. for two years now, we should know what to do to maintain our great society.  One of these duties includes posting, which goes along with wearing the brown + white shirts, and gold ties.  It isn't hard, but it gets harder the longer you go without doing it.  Every minister should be able to find the 5-10 mins. a month to make a post, or comment a couple times, and almost everyone does.

Without a post since August, or a Comment since September, you are seriously lagging behind MOF.  And oh my god, would you look at that, it's been exactly a year to the day since the last time I had to resort to calling you out in a post.

So for you Monkey of Finance, I thought I would make it easier on you by having Google translate the site for you.  And with this Bud Smack Talk thing, a post is just an uploaded picture and a sentence away.

See here I just did another one.

One only has to look at the Archives page to see how far we've come on this site.  With sixteen months of posts the site has become something far greater than me just hacking away on the old computer box - it is a forum for each minister to update everyone in our esteemed society with what they think is important, and for us to keep in touch. 

Some ministers don't post as often as others, they know who they are, and that's fine.  I'm sure those ministers bring plenty of other things to the table.  But every post counts, even if it doesn't get comments, you can say you tried to bring something to the table.

We will be coming up on our renewal period for Typepad, which is $150 a yr., and I have talked to other ministers and will not be moving the site over to a more open / cheaper solution because we would be risking what has taken so long to build.  I would be happy to pay for the site ahead of time, but like everything we do the costs should be shared - $8 a minister.

I've asked this question before, but I must ask again - Does anyone have anything they would like to see on the site?   I am open to suggestions.  I was thinking of moving off of the two sidebars on each side look onto a single larger sidebar on the right side.  What does everyone think?

- M+T

Putting off working on my yearly work review, I decided to look at the site and noticed that with this post we will be at 350 posts and almost 950 comments.  A year and almost a month old, this site as well as I.F.S. have come a long way, and none of it could be possible without everyone's ongoing contributions (except Dane and Jimmy cause they haven't posted). 

I will be purchasing three thirty packs of Adolphus in SB this weekend if anyone would like to join me at my new vacation home, the Mesa House.

Just as I gave you all Recent Comments when we hit 250 posts.  I am experimenting with new side content.  We now have "MOM's Posts from the last 60 Days" to highlight our current MOM, the Minister of Trade.  As well I have added the "Category Popularity", which shows the most popular Categories for Posts.  Let me know what you think.

Mmm...I'm hungry, hungry for some "African American Flavor"

Look at him, he loves it.

This meat is making me sleepy.

Maybe Dad could read me a bedtime story.

How can I stop those plagarizing bastards now?

That's right, I can use my special power.

No more clowning around, soccer is really really great!

And this month should be a lot of fun.  B-days, graduation, booze, french people, and most importantly pancakes. 

Slushfund dreams.

-U.P.

So our site can be like every MySpace page, ha, I've added a music player to the left sidebar.  Anyone who visits the site can add a track, you just need a working link to an mp3 and to title the track.  At this point I can't edit the track list willy nilly, and the latest song is the first song played when you get to the site, so be careful fellow ministers.

We'll see how it goes, but don't be surprised if it's gone in a week.  Comment if you love it or hate it.

In a roll-out style reminiscent of the greatest Baseball movie ever, Major League, a new feature has been added to the site, since this will be the 250th post, we now have Recent Comments.  This way everyone will have the power to see who is commenting and on what so if there are multiple posts in a day they don't get buried, and no one will miss out on Baumann's magical racial epithets.

Let's all have a great flapjack weekend!

In my quest to find everything relevant and irrelevant to life, and achieve ULTIMATE POWER, my brother pointed me to this video podcast vidcast video show animated lite brite three minute comedy show labelled 'theshow' with zefrank.  Trust me it's funny.  If you don't think it's funny Baez will give you a dollar.

As the Minister of Athletics has been posting video, this how-to should help out anyone else looking to post videos.

1. Go to YouTube, or another video serving site.

2. Find the video you want to showcase, for this time we will post this. Link.

3. Copy all the code in the text box next to 'Embedded Player' below the video.

4. Now write your post as you would normally.

5. When you are happy with the text and images in the post, decide where you want the video.

6. Now click on the 'Edit HTML' tab next to 'Compose Post'.

7. This will show you the code of the post, find the location you want the video player.

8. Paste the code from the 'Embedded Player' box into your post.

9. Now click 'Preview' and wait for the page to load.

10. If done correctly, you will see your post and the video as it will look on the site.

11. You can either click 'Re-Edit this Post' to make changes, or click 'Save this Post'.

12. You are now done, and your movie of a monkey dancing is ready to incite jealousy in the mind of the Minister of Monkey Business.

Oh and one more thing, don't forget to put a subject on your posts or they will only be accesible from the Archives once they are off the homepage.