Well, March is all but over and it certainly has been a hectic month for us. Last night we released the new functionality that we’ve been working on for the past four weeks, and we hope you’ll log in and check it out when you get a moment. We’re still cleaning up a few bugs that have cropped up, so be sure to let us know if you see anything that seems amiss.
Here’s a list of new site updates:
1. Site Performance
We’ve put our pages on a diet and beefed up our servers to improve the speed of the site. We know how important it is to have a quick and responsive site and will be making on-going improvements in this area. Please bear with us as you may experience a few glitches on the site as we make changes behind the scenes.
2. Threaded News, Comments & Replies
It’s easier than ever to talk amongst yourselves now that we have threading for news and comments.
- Reply to news items
- Add titles to your posts so you can view threads at-a-glance
- Reply to comments on photos and stories
3. Photo Icons
Let your personality shine thru by choosing your own photo icon
- Select your photo icon on any single photo page by clicking on the ‘use as my photo icon’ link beneath the photo
- Change your photo icon as often as you like
- In another few weeks, you’ll also see your photo icon appear when you add news, replies or comments
4. Albums
Organize your photos into albums.
- Order prints or photo books of all photos in an album
- Share albums
- Comment on albums
- Sorting and editing will be added soon
5. Basic Events
Our first step towards helping you remember all those special occasions. Create events for:
- Birthdays
- Anniversaries
- Family Reunions
- Holidays and more
6. Richer Notification Emails
Get a preview of what’s new delivered to your inbox.
- In each notification email, you’ll see the latest photo, story and news item added to your site
- You’ll also see a list of the most recent members who’ve accepted invitations to the site
Other Improvements
We’ve also increased the number of digits in the PINs we use for Voice News to add extra security to your messages and improved the content we send in notification emails to make them more useful.
We also continue to make progress on developing the tools and processes we need to migrate information from the 1.0 site to the beta site. For more information on this please see our blog post about migration.
Coming Soon
There’s more in the works for April. Help shape the next batch of upcoming features by taking our survey and telling us which aspects of customization, file cabinet, and video sharing would be most useful to you.
Looking better everytime I log on. Trying all different features is an adventure. Need titles for our Audio News, and suddenly they are not in order by date. How many front page “previews” will show up when we see “Home”? Such as, how many news items in list, how many events, etc. I could handle a little smaller font in order to get more in screen w/o scrolling.
In Albums, we need to see the title of the album even in med and small thumbnails. A drop down list of Album titles would be enough.
Great work so far, I too am enjoying the new features. I try to work with each one as it come online to see how it works.
When are we going to have a sign on screen that remembers us as in ver 1.0. I’m lazy and get tired of signing in and out. I know I could stay loged in, but it seems to refresh better with logging out then in.
We have three involved in our beta site, the more actyive and computer literate. I think the other members are content to wait an see what transpires at the conversion.
Keep up the good job and we will be here.
What have you done? The little synopsis for each news item is not longer there. ALL the news items say NEW. You can’t just click on one particular news item without them all showing up on the screen. This is a terrible “improvement” When we click on a news item, that should be the only one on the screen and its replies. Plus, there should be the little synopsis on the home page, and before we couldn’t spot new items and now ALL are being declared new.
Cindi I did not even catch that little upgrade. I was messing with photo’s and Albums. You are right I don’t like that improvement at all.
In Photos I would like to chose which thumbnail size remains up. I chose the larger, because it lets you view the name and details.
We have so many and a lot are similar. It always defaults back to the middle size.
I guess we are just going to have to be calm as the work through things. I get fired up and ready to tackle this and it’s time for the next upgrade.
Ok, what is the security thing. Now when I am on the beta site I have to click a box every time I change a page. I get that box that says the page contains secure and unsecure items. Do you want to display the unsecure items too? Everytime I change pages this happens and I have to click Yes. I have not changed anything on my Norton. What is going on?
I like the new news section on the home page. It has a much cleaner look to it. We just have to be careful to make descriptive and enticing titles.
I made my titles in caps and they stand out nicely. After all, our old 1.0 front page doesn’t have details, just titles, and it is hard to persuade folks to make them descriptive with “key” words for searching. Don’t you get a lot of “I Was Just Thinking….” or “Surnames I am Searching”. I do think that if I click on one News article it should take me to that article rather than the whole News page. I’m so spoiled I want everything at once!! Patience, patience.
On the Beta site I have started Making my Title Bold and Indenting the body to get some separation it makes it a lot easier toread ad pick out the different post.
I’m like Daneille though, I have gotten spoiled to the one Article at a time rather than a whole page. It seems like you have opened up a thread.
I sure agree with the patience. So far the staff has been super about explaining and helping us along with the changes.
I’m sure when all is said and done we will have been glad to be involved.
This is the first time I have had time to test the new beta system. I do what I am supposed to do but I cannot get to the beta system. I can only create a new family site and it is exactly like the old system. I am an administrator on Boggess Site and would like to create a test site on the beta system but cannot.
Please help me.
Nice update.
My cousin lost some comments under the photos for a while but they are back again!
I wish I could know for sure if the 1 800 # for voice & stories is toll free for us in Canada….the other # looks like an International #& charges apply.
If it is Toll free maybe they should say Toll free for North America, or in the USA & Canada….
I like the ablums but how do we add more to them after we have created them?
Mitsy#9
if you have answers for these questions…email me
Marilyn.Bennett@Gmail.com
Mary Sicard..if no one has helped you yet…email me & I will try :0)
LOL, Danielle – about the patience thing! When this new release came up Thursday, I couldn’t see the threading. It just displayed in one big chunk, and the there was no spacing between the posts. I tried again yesterday and it was the same. Well, a little birdy told me this morning that, yes, it is a bug in the program with Macs. If you hit Refresh, you see what everyone else is seeing! I was reminded about the patience thing!
Mary, the beta sites are just like the originals: you have to be invited, or start your own site. You can’t just hop over to see it. There are several Administrator sites that are offering memberships for testing and figuring out things. Or you can start your own and invite a few (fairly Web-savvy) friends to join you for some play. You probably don’t want to invite your entire family until the beta sites have a little more functionality. And do warn people that the sites are not finished yet! (the whole patience thingy again!)
System seems awful slow today everybody must be playing.
I want to be able to add photos to albums too.
NICE UPDATES
Iwas disappointed when we lost most off our
comments if this could be restored would be
appreciated .
And concerning our toll free number for voice
and stories if you could give us a clear outlook
on this let us know if its for CANADA!!!!
IF YOU HAVE ANSWERS FOR THESE QUESTIONS
email at
nanny-and-papa@hotmail.com
The 800 number is only toll free in the US. It is a US toll free number. You have to pay the toll from Canada. This was answered quite a while back. I don’t know if you will be able to find that thread by scrolling back or not.
That’s the problem with blogs. I get lost sometimes trying to remember where I posted what. That’s why I like threaded news much better than blogs. If there were a search function in blogs that would be great. Hopefully, 2.0 will preserve the search function.
I have uploaded only two photos to my beta site and they both have disappeared????
The number is only toll free in the US. It is a US number, not Canadian. They stated that in another post somewhere a while back. You would have to pay whatever the charge is to call from Canada.
I cannot stand the news section. I tried it again today. I like the little synopsis that is currently in the 1.0 site. I don’t like the entire news section showing up when I click an item. I want to see only the news item I clicked on and its replies. Why is “new” showing up when there is no new news?
If this is going to be the format for the news, I will have to look elsewhere. I was beginning to like the new MyFamily site, but since the news is more important to us than the photos and the news is taking a back seat, I don’t know if I will continue.
I would like to hear from someone from MyFamily concerning this.
This is what I want to know:
Is the news going to be as it is? Will there be a little synopsis we can see from the home page?
Will we have to have all the news postings show up when we click on one news item? I, and others I have talked to who use this sight, would like to see only the article and its responses that we click on.
Is news taking the back seat to the photos? It sure seems like it.
Cindi, I just went to a couple of my MyFamily.com 1.0 sites. There are no news synopses (is that the plural?) in my News section on the front page of 1.0 ; I only see the list of titles of the News item and the person who posted or commented. Did I miss something?
Since 2.0 is still in the infant stage, I would hope that when “threading” is perfected we would only see the article we choose from front page. I think there has been a big improvement already taking Notes to News and the features we are seeing as they progress.
A potential solution to this problem would be to have bubble with a news synopsis appear when a person rolled over a news title/link. An example of this is actually on this blog. When you roll over the name of the person submitting an entry, a bubble appears showing the submitter’s website. For a news item though, a person would have to actually be able to read it.
This would keep the front page from getting too cluttered while providing valuable information to the user.
Mybe it isn’t exactly a synopsis, but you can see what the article is about or part of the first line. Right now we see nothing. In version 1.0 you see the beginning of the thread. That is what I am talking about. Synopsis was the wrong word, but it is better than what they have now.
I am pointing this out to them so they know that what they have now is not what we not. If we sit back and not point it out and let them know how important it is, they will not know. I know it is a beta in its infant stages, but I want them to know how I feel.
I am hoping they do not do the site as a blog.
If you haven’t titled the News items, try that. Click on Edit and add a Subject or title including keywords. (I capitalized mine to show up better). I think when you do that it will say NEW again, but click on it and that should go away.
From what I have gather from the staff the site will not be like a blog. And I agree with Cindi when i see some thing I don’t think we will not like I try to point it out also anthing I can think of to recomend I do also.
Hopefully with all the interaction it will turn out to be a site we all can be proud of.
My only concern right now is that over time people will lose interest in participating. I’m suprised that there only a few of us speaking up, maybe there is a lot that are just waiting to see what rolls out at the end.
So far I have enjoyed being involved.
Jesse, I have that same concern. With work, family, etc, most of us do not have the time nor desire to continue to beta test anything for any length of time. And apparently this is going to go on for quite a while. I can only hope that they will devote more time to getting the content down before continuing to add all the bells and whistles they seem to think will add to our “fun.”
From what I have seen from various post from the myfamily.com people, they seem to be toying with the idea of having a blog section on the site in addition to the news section. So they would be completely different and separate. This would benefit those who would like a blog and those who want threaded news. I’m open to the idea.
Blogs are extremely useful in documenting the progression of genealogical research. The mf 1.0 news format gives a more structured feel to the information. Either way, a blog and threaded news are essentially the same thing. They are just structured a tad bit different. A blog is more chronologically based, while threaded news is more like the message boards that we have become accustomed to on ancestry.com.
Linda, you are right though about myfamily.com’s priorities. They need to get the fundamentals down before they can move on to the more advanced items. So far, I think they have done an okay job at that. They are restructuring some things to be more visual, such as the albums. I would like to see the news and events items be completed. The avatars are cool, but truthfully, I don’t see the immediate need. Maybe they had to do that for coding reasons, I don’t really know. I’d also like to see the filing cabinet and the family tree completed. They are the only major elements missing from the original site.
Haha, are you out there myfamily.com people… i’m giving input.
In the meantime, I’ll be paitiently waiting for the next monthly update. I’ve been looking at the competition (i.e. other web 2.0 family social networking sites) out of curiosity of this whole web/genealogy 2.0 phenomenon. They have some cool functions, but they are not as easy to use as this new site. Maybe myfamily.com beta will eventually get those functions too. One can only hope.
The more I use the Blog section and get use to it the esier it gets.
I just wish there was a better way to see what and when thigs get posted. I still feel like I’m always missing something.
Hope our MyFamily crew gets some new and exciting feature up and running this week.
Would love to see some meat and potatoes working. Slang for real stuff. File cabinets,trees,etc.
Linda, blogs hosted by WordPress do have a search feature. The Beta Team just does not have that widget applied to their blog. I think all blogs have search actually they blog author just have to turn want to use it.
I mentioned in another thread on here you can follow everything posted to the blog by subscribing to the feeds.
Here it is again in case someone missed it:
To subscribe to the main posts
http://myfamilycom.wordpress.com/feeds/
To subcribe to the comments/replies
http://myfamilycom.wordpress.com/comments/feeds/
To subscribe to both you have to click both links and follow the directions.
In IE7 these are automatically collected. You access them by clicking on the star in your toolbar. Then click on feeds.
I agree with Jeff. Unless it is for coding reasons, leave the bells and whistles til last. Get the news the way it will be so we can let you know how it is, get the chat up and running, recipe, etc. Avatars are not necessary. The photo section has been tweaked enough for now. The news really needs fixing. I hope that is what is going to be improved on this month.
People are going to lose interest in trying the site if things that are used most are not improved. Nobody posts on my beta site anymore. They have the same problem with the news section. Just not clearly visible and a pain in the neck to check out with the blog and not individual news and replies being shown when clicked on. Plus, we love the chat feature. I am assuming that is going to be the most difficult and will be the last thing done. But I could be wrong.
I don’t like the way the events are immediately after the news. There is no defining break. It looks sloppy and cluttered. I am hoping this is just because it is beta and not what they are planning. Since I don’t know, I am mentioning it.
Maybe using less for the photo section at the top and giving more room for the other features would help.
Just remember, this has to be user friendly for ALL ages and many people get confused by blogs and just don’t understand when reading the news and running into a different thread. It is very confusing. Think beyond your age group. It looks like it is mostly young people planning this thing. Remember, you will age too. I would hate to see my mother stop using our family site when the 2.0 becomes official because it is just too confusing, not clearly visible, etc.
Again, I know it is a beta version, just providing my input and thoughts before it is a done deal and it is too late.
I was just looking at the news again. I have a feeling they not finished with this yet. It looks like there has been some improvement since last Thursday. And for some reason… I have one bolded subject title just a second ago, but now it is gone. If all of the news is going to stay on the same page, maybe it would be helpful to design it like the events page is designed currently. It might be easier to follow. Right now it looks like a mash between a message board and a blog. I really like how the events page is looking right now. It’s easy to follow and it looks nice.
As for the defining line between the news and events, it is there. However, it’s just not very noticeable because of the color. I suspect there will be improvement once we are able to change the color scheme (to a darker color that is).
On another note, it would be really cool if we could move categories around on the front page. This it would make everyone happy about the front page layout because they would get to choose their layout.
If they make the categories able to be moved around, that should also be an administrator’s tool. That way it isn’t constantly being moved around. I know, if they get the 2.0 so I am happy with it enough to pay for the site, I want to be able to control that. I don’t intend to be a member of a site with advertising, so as I am doing with the current site, I will pay for it. I don’t know how easy it would be to implement that, but it sounds neat.
I have seen the title page for the news. Nobody notices it. Before it would just take the first bit of your post and use that. That was much easier to do.
I agree the ability to select what order something appears would be great.
On the photo albums, in 1.0 when a photo is uploaded, we can currently assign that photo to several albums. I originally set up albums for each of my aunts and uncles and my grandparents. If a photo is posted that contains say several of my cousins, I may want to have that photo appear in their respective parent’s albums. Any hope that this functionality can be retained. Still need an answer on whether we will be able to add photos to albums as we can do in 1.0.
I created a 2.0 album with only one photo in it and I can’t seem to find anyway to add photos to it without deleting the album and starting over.
Linda, we have been told adding to albums will be included later. The team heard the calls for albums so got them out there.
Thanks Kyle, for the reassurance. I think we get worried that whatever feature has been added and is finished. NOT. Or we might worry that it has been added and we just can’t get it to work. We need all the assurance we can get. Aren’t we worry warts? Need to sit back and relax. And use the feedback form. Which does get answers sometimes! (Thanks Heidi and Joe and others.)
Great discussion & comments. It’s fair to say we’re not done with the news section yet, or the albums, or the events section! Our approach has been to get a basic version of something working, then refine and add more capabilities. This is what we did with the Photo section early on, and what you’ve seen in the news section over the last couple of months. We do plan to add more capabilities to albums and there are many things left to do on events. And we are gathering feedback from this blog, and from the beta site feedback emails about the news section. News is one of the most heavily used areas on the existing myfamily.com service and we will continue to refine this until we get it right. Thanks for continuing to use the beta site and providing us with your feedback.
Thanks Michael for the post. Danielle is probably right, we want everything done NOW! But, we also realize it takes time.
Danielle, I assure you that some of us use the feedback function often in addition to these blogs!
Thank you for the post, Michael. I know you realize we are not really complaining but just wanting you to know what your users would like before it is too late.
Thanks again.
I have just added a Welcome message in my Site.. Using some some HTML code for Bold Text and a Weblink. Both the Bold Text and the Weblink show up in the ‘Review Message’ at the Edit Site info stage.. But on the Home page all the HTML Code is viewable. and the and the
Don’t forget about POLLS. You can really learn things about members through them. The bad thing about the original myfamily is that YOU CAN’T DISCUSS THE OUTCOME OF THE POLL IN THE POLL. If you want to do that, you have to create a news post or something. Please keep the polls, and if we could comment in the polls that would be amazing!! Thanks! Great job so far!
I was just out on my 1.0 site and it reminded me of another function that I personally will miss if it is not included in 2.0. That is the ability to see who has viewed what. Some of our folks do not post often but we can see if they’ve viewed a photo, news item or any other post on the site. This is important to us.
I also like the way 1.0 handles who’s been on during the day by showing their name and last time they logged in that day or the date they last logged in. I think it shows only about the top 20 or so. Many of my family members say it makes them feel good just seeing those names there. They feel more connected even if that person didn’t post anything that day.
I agree with Mike, my family likes the Polls. We’ve learned a lot about each other this way and it’s fun! I think I read somewhere here on these blogs that the developers consider the Poll function one of the least used and therefore are considering doing away with it. We may not use it as much as we post photos and news but we do use it!
I have a problem with my site and I did submit feedback but haven’t heard anything. Is anyone else experiencing this problem?
News on our site is listing as ‘deleted’ even though nobody has deleted any postings.
Here’s what we see,,,,
When we click on All News,, this is what we see,,, (and nobody on the site deleted anything),,,
Patty 2 days ago
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When you click on the replies link to see the replies, they come up normal and you can read the replies but the original post still reads that it has been deleted. It happens in Firefox, IE for AOL, and Safari on a Mac, so I don’t think it’s a browser issue. Anyone know if others are having trouble or any suggestions?
Thank you in advance.
Bernice we have not had that problem on our site.
But be prepared for all sort of strange thing to happen when there is an update.
I haven’t noticed anything strange in the past couple of days, but we lose interest until we have something new to play with.
Thanks for your reply Jesse,,, I just hope that the rest of my family doesn’t get discouraged and say forget it. I know right now they’re frustrated that the posts are apparently in some sort of limbo or have been totally ‘eaten’ by myfamily.
Oh well,, here’s hoping they were tasty. : )
This site improves weekly. Thanks! I suppose I am the oldest person on here (77), and I don’t find it difficult at all. I’m looking forward to having the ability to add to preexisting albums. I would like to know how to get members to vote in the Polls (in the 1.0 site). Maybe it’s the placement at the bottom of the page? People just don’t participate in my poll at all–and I have more tnan 100 members on it.
E. G., when I or other members on my site post a poll, I always put a news item telling them that it is there. I’ve got a feeling that some of my family members do not always scroll to the bottom to see if anything is there.
E.G. & Linda, I have posted in bold large letters in the scrolling banner at the top. even provided links to the polls and still have problems getting folks to participate.
Some people are just not interested I guess.
The Beta site has made great improvements and I am looking forward to the next update.
I guess I haven’t followed all the new things happening like I should have. I’m pretty confused at this point! I went ahead and started a test site in the new Beta but decided I didn’t want to do that so I deleted everything but can’t figure out how to delete the Title I gave it. Anybody know how?
Meanwhile, my site on MyFamily is for my high school class and it’s used to keep a lot of us in touch. I started it back in 2000 before our 40th. class reunion. I’ve got over 400 pictures on the site from 2 class reunions (we have one every 5 years) including some odds and ends. I’m wondering if all those pictures will be moved over to the new Beta version.
As far as the new version vs the old one….there are only a few things that I’d hate to see disappear. I love the Scrolling Banner, the Calendar with the birthdays on the front page, the Members list with the logon information, the Photo’s, the News and that’s about it. I also love the Cover Photo. I think the new site has several pictures on the front page and really, really don’t like that. I also like that I can find out who has viewed a picture or a news item by checking “viewers”. I’d really hate to see all these things disappear.
My group has never used the Poll, the Chat and only 2 or 3 recipes have been put on the site. The “Who’s On Line” was great when it worked but mine hasn’t worked in 2 or 3 years.
I’ve just found that when a product comes up with a “new and improved” version it’s usually inferior to the original. I hope this is not the case here as I’ve had 3 sites with my family in the past 8 or 9 years and I’ve enjoyed them and would like to continue.
Diane, There is usually the greatest activity on the Blog when the new releases come out at the end of the month. If you go to the home page and scroll down you can see each release and all the comments. When you get to the bottom of the page if you do previous entries it will take you back to Nov. of last year when they started the beta site.
I check in from time to time just to see if there is any activity.
Diane, You can make one of your photos a cover photo. Click on one of your pictures to open it. Go down to the bottom right and you can Use as Homepage Picture. Just wait, there is more to come.
The new features are really bringing this closer to the functionality of 1.0, and I am glad to see the birthdays automatically showing — one thing though, there is an extra space between the name and the exclamation point (Happy Birthday Fulano !) that is a little disconcerting.
I can deal with an extra space as long as it doesn’t say “Happy Birthday, Fulano! Send a Gift.” We often use the Birthday list on 1.0 to commemorate an ancestor’s birth by saying “Remembering Charley’s Birth” and “Send a Gift” is just not appropriate.
It’s a small thing I know, but do you have to use all lower case to be “hip” (dating myself) these days?
Hi – Today I got an invite to try 2.0. After loging in, I was asked to create a new site. My expectation was that my old site photos, news etc … would be displayed with a new look and feel.
I guess my question is when should I expect the old site migrated to version 2.0? I have a lot of members who are sort off computer illiterated although they love MF. What should i tell them to expect in simple terms?
Hi, Peter! The migration process is better described in the previous (I think!) blog post. But basically, it is all being done in the background, and will continue to be copied up until they are ready to ‘dump’ 1.0 – a long way off, at this point.
So I would not bother my less-computer-literate members right now. Let them go on using the 1.0 sites (sorry, there was a glitch last night that took everybody on SuperSites to MF2.0!) while you, and maybe some of your younger members, play around with the 2.0 format either on a practice site of your own (this stuff will not be copied to your eventual 2.0 site) or join another one.
There’s a lot more info on this in the previous post – go back to the blog home page and open it from there.
James, I rhink it must be up to we mature folks to stick to proper writing! ALL CAPS is considered shouting on the web and using no capitlization at all just seems lazy to me! I think it must come from all those younger folks who text message a lot! Either way, all caps or no capitalization is hard to read!
Danielle, I agree wholeheartedly with you. We also use the calendar to commorate our relatives who’ve passed away and that “Send a Gift!” has always bothered me. The whole selling aspect of MyFamily.com bothers me. I know they are trying to make money but it is a nuisance in some cases. How about letting those of us who pay for our websites determine whether or not we want those sales functions. Give us the opportunity to turn them off or put them under the “shop” section not blatently beside our calendar entries!
I do not like the new beta version at all.. Period. It is not better- I closed my last family site because there was no room for photos- then when they increased the amount of storage space again, I re-opened it. If we have to go with this one, I’ll close it again— and that’s sad, I wanted someplace to post everything, so that the family can stay in touch, and see EVERYTHING “at a glance”.
ONE THING THAT STILL REALLY BOTHERS ME…. when the site is up for renewal, they send the notices to ALL FAMILY MEMBERS asking for money. Please do not ask my family members to renew the site! That is terrible.
Leave myfamily.com ALONE, make the ORIGINAL better, more storage space, tabs to click on more new areas, don’t change the whole thing. PLEEZZZZZZZZZZZ
I just heard from one of my 30-something relatives who has taken a look at the beta. She was not impressed…thought the site very bland and not very exciting. She wanted to know if we were going to be able to add color like we can in 1.0.
THANK YOU! finally! I finally find someone else on this site that HATES!!!! the beta site! I have 100 or so family signed up for my site and I know for a fact they are going to hate this site. Most are older and have a time with the original one! I have emailed in my thoughts and only get generated emails back. Sad to lose a site I have worked on for 8 years but I don’t think i will get family to come to this new one and learn all new things again!
VERY BORING new beta site is right!
To get round the ’send a gift’ problem on 1.0 (which I find very annoying too) all you need to do is NOT specify an event – ie, ignore the drop-down menu. Then if you put ‘So-and-so’s birthday’ (or ‘Anniversary of so-and-so’s death’) in the box, that’s all that will show up on the page – there won’t be a ‘Send a Gift’ link at all.
Joc, I went out to my 1.0 site and edited one of my deceased relatives calendar entry and changed the dropdown from “birthday” to “none.” The entry disappeared from the calendar completely! I had to re-enter it!
I hope the events function on 2.0 is in its infancy. I don’t think much of it as it is. On 1.0 we could click on “calendar” and see the events month by month if we wanted to. Those three little months displayed to the side on the events page are virtually meaningless!
Joc,
If we use the drop down for birthday or anniversary on 1.0, the date pops up every year. But if it has no category, it doesn’t repeat. I think that makes sense. I hope all the calendar features (except “Send a gift”) are included. I’m sure all these things are coming !!!!!
Hope those who are anxious will read all the articles in the blog.
I am new to My Family and have only used the Beta site, so I can’t comment on the changes. I have just spent a half hour reading all these posts–I glad I did.
I started when I received and email. We are building our retirement home, and none of my immediate family live close. My older daughter had told me I should start a blog. I had looked at several possibilities, tried one or two, and simply found them too difficult to use. My Family is the answer. I love it.
I love the home page because is is so clean, and except for the Album feature have had no problems. Now I know that my problem is not me. Thanks to all of you who commented about that.
I am a retired technical writer–award winning technical writer. For over 20 years I wrote technical manuals for all users from raw beginners to software developers. When I retired, I retired from having to keep up with mountains of changes, not only in the technology, but in the tools I used.
I could talk DOS with you easier than anything out there today. I do keep the software I use, such as Corel and Word and Acrobat current, but I ignore most everything else.
I refuse to use chat terms like LOL; I like English. Remember I’m a writer. I was particularly pleased with Linda Olson’s post about not using all caps and all lowercase. It seems some computer users who have vision problems think all caps is easier to read—-not true. That is not my opinion; it has been researched and tested. I never read E. E. Cummings unles a teacher said I had to. All lowercase is just as bad as all caps.
I would like to have the ability to change typeface size if someone reading my text has vision problems.
We are all pleased with what we have done. My older daughter just adopted two Shelties, and now we can all look at the pictures. And, my younger daughter sent a photo of the oldest pet in our family. We aren’t in to big earth-shaking news, but this is a blessing.
I do want to add a word of caution to you long-time users who want new features. It is dangerous to suggest to a software developer that such and such a feature would be very nice. He or she is likely to think, “Wow! That’s a great idea!” Do you know what happens then? The crew gets to work on the new idea, and the final release is delayed! Honest; I know. Be very careful what you suggest.
Thanks to you all. I will check back periodically. Meanwhile, I have to get busy on the house building thing. I am doing the general contracting, so retire I may be, but there is little rocking chair time just now.
Oh, yes. If you find typos in my posts, please don’t point them our. I am not awriter, not a typist. I blame it on illiterate keyboards.
See? At least two typos in my last paragraph. I type about 35 mistakes a minute.
Dorothy, welcome to the My Family family!! It’s great to hear form a total ‘newbie’!! We sometimes get all wrapped up in what we know and are used to. It really helps to hear a fresh (albeit ‘experienced’!) voice. I will be looking for your comments as the development team continues to add features which, for you, may be new, but for ‘us’ will make the beta format feel more like ‘home’.
Thanks for your feedback Dorothy. I’d smile, but I won’t use emoticons with you.
Dorothy, your caution about “new” functions is well-founded. However, most of us here on this blog are and have been using MyFamily 1.0 for quite a few years (some of us since its inception in 1998). All we are asking for is the same functionality in 2.0 that we have in 1.0 or similar function. Some of us have built very large family sites (mine has over 10,000 pages!). We just want to preserve what we have even if we have to go to a different format. Please bear with us!
Could someone remove the spam items. They contain dangerous links.