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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - When Tech Breaks

I've just enjoyed, and I use the term loosely, an Internet free weekend.  This was not my desire in the least.  The several-year-old network interface board for Verizon FiOS decided to die Friday afternoon.  The tech was able to replace it fairly quickly, thankfully.  Unfortunately, it wasn't until Monday morning that they got around to getting here to do it.  The only internet access I had over the weekend was through my phone.  That means that time I would normally have for taking care of stuf
Myr

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday: Forum Update 4.3.3

As we roll ever closer to Armeggedon... er.. the go date for GDPR, Invision, the software company for the forum software is releasing another update to specifically address the ongoing concerns of pretty much anyone running anything on the Internet.   We will be rolling the update ASAP.  It is set to release Tuesday (Today).  Some features in it: Downloading personal data.  One of the requirements of GDPR is to be able to provide what personal data is tracked.  They've added a featur
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News Archive

GA's Newest Promising Author: Aceinthehole

Please join the Author Promotion Team in congratulating Aceinthehole as GA's newest promoted author! Aceinthehole has been a member of GA for approximately two years and during that time, he has written five novels and over 800,000 words to share with the members here at GA! His current story Tales of the Underground: Blinded is over 175,000 words. If you want to read more from Aceinthehole, you can visit his author page (and check out his new banner while you're there).   Please join
Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Reading Away in 2018

A few weeks back, our tech guru extraordinaire, A.J., compiled the reading stats to date for me.  I poked them around to see what I could see and I made a little pie chart for everyone.   Now, any math person will tell you that you need context to understand what that means.  So here are the relevant details: Data is compiled based on "reads" from Jan-April 2018.  This is about one quarter of the year. The data shown here represents 2.89 million views, which comprom
Myr

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Privacy and Site Terms

There has been a lot of news lately about Privacy and information breaches all over the place.  Combine that with the new EU law, GDPR, going into effect on May 26th, and every internet company on Earth has been bombarding you with alerts, messages, and requests for re-agreements.  The amount of regulation that you have to deal with as a small business is frankly crushing.  As the laws were written by technical half-wits (and I'm being generous), the law is written in such a way as that everyone
Myr

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Critique

Improve & Encourage #11: TJ

I hope you all enjoyed the last Improve & Encourage feature, because it's time for another one. These features are meant to both provide feedback to authors and, similar to story reviews, point out stories that readers might not otherwise have found. It's similar to a review, in that the person doing the critique tells you what they liked about the story, but it differs in that they also provide constructive criticism. Each author signed up to participate, and sign up's are still open!  Thes
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in Critique

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Story Archive System Updates

We are actively developing a change to the story system that will go with our forum software upgrade.  There are a lot of things going on under the hood, but there is a fairly sizable visual change coming as well. Clicking on Newest Stories currently shows you this:   Our still-in-development software update shows you this: A couple of notes here on the image: This is a work in progress and subject to change This is in the default color scheme and ha
Myr

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Help Us Help You

This week is all about help.  We have a pretty extensive help system here on-site where we've taken the time to write up the answers to the most frequently asked questions.  We've also made videos for some of the features on site to make it that much easier.  So first things first, help your fellow members with a quick link to the appropriate help section.  Help is on the red menu on every single page of the site.  Don't be afraid to click the menu. Help -FAQ - Brings you to the list
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Renee's Writing Challenge #1

I was sitting here the other day, trying to come up with some new blog ideas when the idea for this blog popped into my head. There may be future challenges, but we'll start with this one.   Renee's Writing Challenge #1: Different Choices Have you ever wondered what would happen if your character made a different choice? Wondered how it would affect the overall story and whether or not your story would end the same?  Now is your chance to find out. The challenge is to write two sh
Renee Stevens

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Updates

I've started my new job and I'm getting settled in.  I'm hoping my schedule settles down soon as I've been going a bit bonkers. lol.   Anyway, we stealth upgraded the site a few days ago and since no one complained, things appear to be working well.  We also updated the rules on the site on Sunday which triggered a request that you agree to the rules again.  This rule updates and your agreement with them is now recorded so that we comply with the upcoming EU debacle, the GDPR. (General
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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Other Social Media

I've completed my move, but my life is in boxes and I'm actively digging out.  I am keeping it short this week and hoping to resume longer posts next week.   If you have not already signed up for our weekly newsletter, you should. Cia likes to sneak surprises in from time to time. You can find it here: http://eepurl.com/cqQPIz   We also have a YouTube Channel, which I have placed a number of "How To" videos.  Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/user/GayAuthors
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Critique

Improve & Encourage #10: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

I hope you all enjoyed the last Improve & Encourage feature, because it's time for another one. These features are meant to both provide feedback to authors and, similar to story reviews, point out stories that readers might not otherwise have found. It's similar to a review, in that the person doing the critique tells you what they liked about the story, but it differs in that they also provide constructive criticism. Each author signed up to participate, and sign up's are still open!  Thes
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in Critique

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday: Author Posting Rules Visibility

We are currently testing a bug fix update to Stories, 2.2.4, that also contains a minor, but important feature.  Site rules at the source when posting new Stories and new chapters and when editing them. This is just a sample of the test code in process:   One of the issues we have at Gay Authors is that we have a lot of rules and standards that authors are expected to follow, but they are not always easy to get to.  This update will place rule boxes right at the point of use
Myr

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Story Formatting Issues

This week's blog is going to be a little light.  I'm extremely busy with my move.  I will be relaxing this time in two weeks, I hope! Now, I think everyone has bumped into some weird spacing issues or weird formatting issues when reading stories on the site.  This is especially true of older stories that were brought in from the days when we hosted stories as webpages.  @A.J. has been working hard to clean up visually, by having the system fix the code on the fly.  We are working on a way f
Myr

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News Archive

Notification Settings

You can find "Notification Settings" under your name in the upper right menu. https://www.gayauthors.org/notifications/options/   The first batch of settings is about how things work:   "Send me news and information" - Everyone should keep this checked so that we can email you. "Automatically follow conent" - This allows you to automatically follow things so you get alerts to things that you involve yourself in. "Method to use for content I follow A
Myr

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Recent Updates and Coming Updates

We've recently had a couple of noticeable updates for authors and for everyone pasting a story link.  I wanted to make sure everyone saw the information. First, some changes to the software: Also, A.J. has been able to fix the Preview Chapter button so you can now see how your story will post into the system, with all of the filters applied:   As mentioned in the first topic, when you place a link to a story in a post or a blog, etc, it will now format with a story banner. 
Myr

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Critique

Improve & Encourage #9: Jager

The Improve & Encourage feature is back!!! These features are meant to both provide feedback to authors and, similar to story reviews, point out stories that readers might not otherwise have found. It's similar to a review, in that the person doing the critique tells you what they liked about the story, but it differs in that they also provide constructive criticism. Each author signed up to participate, and sign up's are still open!  These will post once a month until all listed authors hav
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in Critique

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Settings, Emails and Profiles

There are a lot of settings and options on the site.  It can be a real chore for people who don't make a habit of clicking on things.  I'll admit, I'm an engineer, and I tend to explore every option.  I realize most people aren't as shiny object driven, however. So... settings.  You can find the link in the pop-up menu under your Display Name on the upper right part of the site.  (Or in the hamburger menu if you are on a mobile device).  Choose "Account Settings". Today we are going to
Myr

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Fancy Links

I created an announcement a few weeks ago asking people for topics they wanted to be covered here in more detail.  You can find it here: One of those requests was how to we make the fancy links, like I use in my post signature to link to my story.  It's really, really simple.  Just copy the link in the url address bar and then paste the link to a story on the site into an editor, and it'll auto format for you.  For example, I could paste a link to my Sci-Fi Anthology story, A Bad Day to Be
Myr

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Activity and Activity Stream

When we upgraded to the new software, we picked up a very powerful tool called the Activity Stream.  The cool thing here is that it has not only built-in options, but you can create your own as well.  We'll start with the most important two, right up front.   First.  All Activity.  You can find it by going to the Activity option on the Main Menu and Selection the top option on the Sub-Menu, All Activity.   This immediately shows you all the latest new content on the site.  Yo
Myr

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Fluid Forum View

So, when Forum 4.2 was released, they added a new feature called "Fluid View".  This is a whole new way of looking at the forums.  It basically lists all new topics based on when they were posted and gives you a color-based tag on which forum it belongs to.  The forum company is recommending now that new forums start with it.  This ties into me taking the time to colorize the forum icons awhile back.  You can check out the different options here: The Standard forum view is the button t
Myr

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News Archive

Get Featured in the Blog!!!

So, normally today would be an Improve & Encourage feature, and while I do have one, I am extremely low on blog content, so that feature will continue next month so that I can get the word out about the various blog opportunities available to authors. I need at least one more "Favorite Self-Written Story" and then I'll have one of those features ready as well. I am also adding a story recommendation opportunity so that readers can send me their favorite stories without having to write a full
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in News Archive

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Quotes, Mentions and Etiquette

I thought I would talk this week about the use of quoting and mentions while you make posts and comments on the site.  There is a certain etiquette to this to keep topics flowing smoothly without making a nuisance of yourself.  So, first up, some definitions: Quoting is when you press the "Quote" button and it pulls in the entire comment Quote This is when you highlight a portion of text and a small "Quote This" box pops up that you then click.  It functions the same as Quoting, bu
Myr

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Tag, You're It!

This week is all about the tags.  Every part of the system uses them.  I bet most people kind of gloss over them if they notice them at all.  Buy why are tags important?  The honest truth is that the tags are there to help you group like material together.  For example, I tag all of these type of blogs posts with Tech Tuesday.  if you click on a tag, it pulls up the search engine and shows you everything that is tagged with that item: https://www.gayauthors.org/tags/tech tuesday/  
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News Archive

Think Before You Type

You know when I’m writing a blog it usually means that we need to discuss a direction the site is headed in or recent issues on-site.   First off, let me start by saying the site’s administrators and moderators are all personally very supportive of freedom of speech. The stories contained in our archive, for example, still run afoul of the laws in many countries where gay and erotic literature is deemed obscene and pornographic. But even a commitment on our part to free spe
wildone

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