PRblogs.org

PRblogs.org has been growing a great deal over the past few years. Thousands upon thousands of blogs are happily churning along.

So, with the increased usage and traffic, James Farmer of edublogs.org has kindly upgraded us to the full blown Edublogs Campus edition.

What does this mean for users? Several things, and I’d like to share those with you now.

The good news is, this platform offers us all a lot more stability, security and also some excellent new features in Site Admin.

We can still do podcasting using the Anarchy Media Player function. I’ve embedded a podcast below using the two different approaches. (1) Just use the upload function in your editor. (2) Just use a plain old href URL link pasted in using the yellow “A” button on your editor. Either way it will put an “Audio MP3″ image in the post that, when you click it, reveals a player.

Also, the themes have been upgraded. You have a wider variety (and “Widget” enabled) group of themes to choose from now.

Sample PRblogs podcast - audio mp3 | Download

By the way, in that podcast, when I say “PRblogs has moved to edublogs” what I really mean is - we’ve been upgraded to their Campus edition. We haven’t actually ‘moved’ anywhere. :o) You’re URL will still be PRblogs.org, too.

Finally, below all this, just to show you how video works now … I’ve placed an example of a video embed from a recent conference we attended.

Something We’re Considering

Always wishing to be upfront with you about our hosting and blog offerings, please consider this new idea for our blogs.

One new idea we’re considering is the inclusion of Adsense in the blogs. But, let me explain how it works. We are not going to just place ads on all the sites. The cookies used at PRblogs.org will keep you, your regular users and visitors from ever seeing the ads. The people that see the ads tend to be first time visitors that may land on your site from a Google (or other) search engine link. I just want you to know how infrequent ads might show up. Also, (repeating here, I know) you should know that you, your students, and regular readers may never actually see any ads yourself.

Also, this has not started yet. It is just being considered. So, here are the details for your consideration.

For clarification, please check out this post in the edublogs forums to see what it is all about - On ads « The Edublogs Forums. The basics (most important info) for you is as follows:

We’re considering trying out some adsense, in the same way that the folks at wp.com do it.

What this would mean would be that:

- You would never see any ads
- Your students would never see any ads
- Your regular readers would never see any ads
- There wouldn’t be any ads in feed readers
- Noone who has bookmarked you or types in your URL would see any ads
- No logged in Edublogs users would ever see any ads

In fact, very few people would see ads at all, but enough search engine visitors might in order to help us cover the bills and continue to grow and (help) develop Edublogs. (Our nice hosts.)

So, please comment below with your feelings about this. The rationale for starting to use Adsense is to help the good people that support our hosting of PRblogs.org. Hey, they are giving us a great free service. I’d like to help them. Also, so you’ll know, I will not be receiving any of the funds. They all go to the hosting and maintenance of all the edublogs.org sites, of which - PRblogs.org is one.

So, let me hear from you. Thanks.

PRblogs.org had to undergo an upgrade due to the strain on the server.

In some cases, this has caused some themes to be reset.  I apologize for any problems you may have encountered.  The upgrade was necessary to keep the site running.

If your theme has been reset to the default theme, please go to “Presentation” in your Admin area.  Choose the old theme you were using.  If that does not resolve the problem, please write to me at PRblogs Support.

The kind folks at Edublogs.org have been working on our server problems over the weekend.  I’ll update here if there will be any other changes coming soon.

Thank you for your patience, and I apologize for any inconvenience this upgrade may have caused.

- Robert

Just as we are using YouTube to embed video, we can now embed audio podcasts at PRblogs.org.

Go to Utterz.com and sign up for an account.

Then, record your podcast using your cellphone (or other phone) and embed it into your post, like this.  Well, the embed didn’t work.

So, here is the link to the Utterz podcast.

I’ll work on getting the embed to work.

In the past, Wordpress MU (WPMU) did sometimes pose obstacles with regard to posting video from YouTube and other sites in your blogs.

This has all changed with our recent upgrade. Now, in your blog’s editor, just look for the little yellow circle with an “A” in it. Click that and place the YouTube URL in the little pop-up window. That’s all. It works very well and is quite simple to do. Just enter the full HTTP address (url) to your YouTube, Google Video, iFilm, Revver, Metacafe, MySpace or GoEar web page. Check the Anarchy Media Player site for the full list of supported sites.

But, that has been solved with recent versions of WPMU. You may enable Viper’s Video Quicktags in your “plugins” area on your blog. Now, you only need to choose the proper button in that plugins tools to enter the appropriate URL for the video. It will paste / post the video into your post in your blog.

Here is one from Camp ASCCA, for instance. So, have fun with videos at PRblogs.org.

PRblogs.org has now been upgraded to the latest version of WPMU 1.3. Many thanks to James Farmer!

You’ll notice that there are some new themes to choose from, and the whole site has an improved process to combat s.p.a.m., too.

There is now an Avatar function. Just upload a photo of yourself, or any fun image. It may not incorporate with your chosen theme, but it will show up in the top blogs plugin and other areas where we identify all blogs.

Check out the Plugins section for new options, too. One of particular interest may be the “Manage Me” plugin. It allows you to easily manage large numbers of posts and comments. Great for deleting unwanted s.p.a.m. that the great unwashed seem to want to share with us all. Finally, you’ll see a new announcement section at the top of each Admin page. We’ll share notes with you along the way about the PRblogs.org site.

Look around, you’ll find a nice new site to use for your blogging pleasure.

Good news and many thanks to James Farmer of Edublogs.org.

In our most recent upgrade, there was a quirk causing some random characters to appear in some blogs. I believe this has now been fixed. Check your blogs. Please report back here with a comment if you find anything to the contrary.

Thanks.