September 12, 2013
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2.0 Help (With Pics)
Not that I'm crazy savvy, but I have been asked by more than one person for some help with Xanga 2.0. I will take a few screenshots and see what I can do as succinctly as possible.
#1. LINKING YOUR NAME
Many of you know this already (so skip this redundancy UNLESS YOU HAVE AN UNDERSCORE IN YOUR NAME because I've seen this over and over). When we leave comments, it's nice for our names to link back to our pages. Here's how:
Click Edit My Profile
Then scroll down until you see a place to enter your website. **IMPORTANT NOTE** If you have an underscore in your name, your new xanga site has a dash in place of the underscore. If you underscore your new link, IT WILL NOT WORK.
Type in your xanga site. OR if you have another site (if you aren't a paying 2.0 member yet) you can also enter it here and when you comment, people can still find you. NEAT!
Once you do that, don't forget to scroll down further and click the blue UPDATE PROFILE button (or the change won't save).
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#2. FOLLOWING/HOW TO FOLLOW
In order to have stuff to read, we must now "follow" our Xanga friends. Here is how to follow someone:
On their Xanga page, look below their big icon. There should be a Follow link. Click it.
Once you've done that, they are now here in your FOLLOWING tab:
From here, you can also manage who FOLLOWS YOU (your followers)!! Click the Followers link and you can see who reads your updates. Like this:
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#3. PRIVACY LOCKS!!!
This is the crux of many Xangan issues. Either you don't know how to do this or don't understand what the locks are. I will show you how to manage this, but I BEG YOU NOT TO USE FOLLOWERS LOCK!!!!! Please do NOT use it until there is a way to request becoming a follower from outside the approved list. Otherwise, there is no way in and no way of notifying the user that you're there. It's a brick wall and PREVENTS friends from finding you, reading you, messaging you, anything. This is not worked out yet with 2.0. PLEASE DON'T USE FOLLOWERS LOCK! But here's how to manage the privacy settings anyway.
1. On the left, with your mouse, HOVER over ADVANCED.
2. Click Privacy Settings on the drop box that appears.
From here, you have very basic choices. I have MY site set on sign in lock. Only Xangans can visit me. It doesn't matter what Xangan. Random people from the internet can't. It's my personal thought that this is the most secure option WHILE we try to REBUILD the COMMUNITY aspect of Xanga.
Because if you use FOLLOWERS lock, you will NOT be participating with the community. And BOO on you for that.
Use the drop down box to select the privacy setting you desire. And click Save Changes.
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My brain is dead. I have no idea what else to guide about.
Comments (22)
Intelligence is such a turn on.
Your icon pic is such a turn on.
This is . . . wait, how did you make your comment indent? I lost this feature somehow.
So. Extra points for successfully using an arty esoteric operating system like OS X.
Manage your comment thread (if that's what you mean by indent) like this:
STEP 1 LINK
STEP 2 LINK
yay - thanks!
Maybe I should add how to change the time on your site so it is your own. Because it defaults to UTC which I had to google WTF that was and how to convert it to EST (and then note daylight savings time in the calculation - pain in the ass).
Thanks. I already had five levels of indent WTF.
Welp, you see my comment settings. So. That's all I got. HAHA!
Beyond that, I have to wonder if it's settings or Xanga bugginess.
Hmm... you can learn a lot by studying someone's desktop. Like... you have Skype (though I'd venture to guess that username is a closely guarded secret), you have iWorks (I see the Pages icon at the bottom), and apparently your laptop's battery will soon be in need of recharging.
But I am curious about which program you used to take these screen shots. Is it the program with scissors on the icon? Do you like it? I've been using a program called "Voila".
It's called Grab and I assume it came pre-installed. I originally found it while editing for Momaroo by querying screenshot in the help tab of Firefox. I like it a lot primarily because it has a timer, so if you want, you can set it, get behind your screen, and demonstrate an action. It saves in TIFF format by default, which is pretty useless for my means, but I just change that before uploading.
That was boring.
I do have Skype. I got naughty on it before, too.
How do we find new users? Do we have to scour other people's comments? There is no front page any more. Once upon a time Xanga had a welcome wagon.
Yes, that's the best way I know of right now. It's inconvenient, but it will get better. It just takes time to find new people to follow. I think it would help for us to link to each other when we want to REC a great post by writing up a simple new post titled something like REC, and post a link. That way your readers can link to what you would like to REC.
This way, we interconnect users to each other.
Wow, thanks, that was great. The Xanga team ought to be paying you.
You're more help than they've ever been.
My husband says that, too. Once upon a time they did, so I'm chalking it up to a project to help an old boss out. PLUS I just want people to use Xanga so they don't all go away. CRY!!
Where's the like button for MyxlDove
His like button is always in the heart. Oops, I'm giving away secrets.
So, um, can I un-indent the comment thread on my site. I don't like the indents.
You do mean the indents on this page right?
I don't like that we can't reply to other commentors anymore.
That link thing really helps with increasing following. Much easier way to get to new sites.
I wish I could recommend this
This would be useful to a lot of people. I wish I could rec it to get the word out.
So useful you took your followers lock off??
I'm teasing. But I do think we should link others to posts we'd recommend until there is an official Xanga update for that. I do it by adding a short pulse type entry entitled "I recommend" and posting the link.
Comments are closed.