So, yeah, I started posting in the forums recently. I know about some things, ask question about other things, and generally try to say hi to newcomers, keep posts light, and give support where I can.

It's just as addicting as squidoodling so expect to see me do a lot more of it.

I recommend everyone do more of it. It has allowed me to see more of other people's lenses through critiquing and such, and has raised my own exposure by sounding relatively competent.

Everyone is also tremendously friendly there, so it has given me a social outlet that I've only so far experienced whenever someone comes by to visit a lens. Now I'm crashing the party!

See you there!

There have been a lot of reactions to the new dashboard, with a lot of folks seeing problems, but wait for things to get tweaked before you panic.

Meanwhile, the functionality is awesome. Better organization and you can still use the old interface pretty much the same way.

Thanks, Squidoo, it's looking good and we're confident that any problems will be jumped on handled.

The title says it all - 500,000 lenses. Considering that Squidoo is probably growing geometrically (or will be soon), 1 million lenses doesn't seem out of reach.

Thanks for the great site, Squidoo, and we'll keep working to get you to a Million!

I loooooove Squidoo, but we can always make it better, right? (Well, maybe). They're coming out with Squidoo 2.0 pretty soon, and who KNOWS what awesome options that has, but until then, how about this?

A countdown timer module.

Combine a text module with a customizable timer that you can set to countdown to some time for upcoming events. You can write in details so people know what the timer is for, with more info than just a title. Countdown's generate interest and draw attention.

I know this solution could be implemented with HTML, but I'm lazy. Just a thought Squid Team.

"Burma!"

"Why'd you say Burma?"

"I panicked."

Right. Everyone is buzzing about the new Introduction section changes. Instead of clogging the bosses' phones and email, I thought I'd just weigh in here.

What's going on?

Recently, the mods have added the Contents at a Glance and Explore Related Pages feature to the Introduction section of each lens. The former creates a table of contents for the lens, and the latter shows other parallel pages that interested viewers might want to see.

Pros:

They changed the color. At first, the new section was orange, in line with Squidoo's color scheme. Unfortunately, it was something of a shock to the system. Now it is blue, looks much better, and does not attack you quite so much. It still stands out enough for people to use it to navigate as needed.

It gives lens owners an automatic table of contents. When you publish the page, all of the contents are now displayed in the blue banner. Easy. (See Cons)

We get more credit for helping people find other lenses. Supposedly we benefit by helping open up the Squidoo community. I'm all for that, both to promote fellow lensmakers and to increase income.

You don't HAVE to put it on your lens. You can choose to turn one or both features off in the Intro editing. So, it's almost a non-issue.

Cons:

Arrrrgh, its orange! Ok, that got fixed.

Suddenly there. Maybe I missed it, but there didn't seem to be much of a heads-up about it. I'm sure there's a copious forum discussion about it (if there wasn't then, there is now), but I missed it. I just woke up to it and went, gah.

Automatic Table of Contents. See, I always provide a table of contents because I thought it was a good way to show people what's here, what the order is, and promote easier navigation. But now the Table of Contents module is redundant. I'm keeping mine in, just in case changes remove the ToC feature of the new Intro insert. As long as it's supposed to help, I'm keeping the insert.

Setting the tone too early. Since similar ads for other lenses normally appear at the bottom, or in the banners outside of the lens content proper, its a bit intimidating to have a bunch of other pages right in the intro. I'm not worried about people leaving my lens, (that's what links are for), but I'd like people to be able to get past the intro before they get wanderlust.

That's about it. It really isn't affecting me that seriously. Naturally, Squidoo is always evolving, and their good about receiving input, so I'm sure things will continue to change, and other new features will appear. All things considered, it's a worthwhile change, and we'll just have to see if it undergoes any further modifications (thank you for changing the color).

I love Squidoo - you know this, man!

But, Squidoo loves me back. Sweet!

It says so right at the bottom of the page -

Squidoo loves Joe (that's me!)
It's true. That's all.

How cool is that? Now, I realize that it says that on your page too (except insert name there), and Squidoo definitely gets around.

I mean Squidoo has over 500,000 lenses, and that's a lot of lovers, and Squidoo has an Alexa Rank better than 1000. I guess I should be jealous, but you can't contain Squidoo.

If you squeeze too hard, Squidoo just slips through your fingers, like some tentacle-y cephalopod. You might even get inked. I can't keep Squidoo to myself, but I know Squidoo cares, and that's what matter.

Just be good to Squidoo, that's all I ask.

I can't imagine why you'd want to delete anything on Squidoo, but if you want to delete several modules, its easier to go into Reorder Modules and delete them all there, instead of deleting each one individually on the edit page.

Every time you delete a module on the edit page, the screen jumps to the top. Then you have to scroll back down to select the next module to delete. If you delete modules in the Reorder Modules screen, you can select them all right there, albeit one at a time.

I've only been on Squidoo a few months, but I'm so in love with this place. It's addicting and inspiring.

The server change went pretty smoothly, and although there have been some issues (I even had to chime in), they're so on top of it. They're like tigers ready to pounce on a deer, and shred it with its hind legs before devouring it like a...

..sorry. Anyway, they're getting it done, and their updates give me nothing but confidence.

Thanks for the great site you guys, and keep at it. Even if some people grouse, we aren't going anywhere.

We'd be too afraid to, what with the sharp fangs and high speed pursuit, and the snarling and whatnot.

Update: I put in a bug report after the server change to see what was up, and I got an email back the other day. I realized there was nothing to do but chill and that it was in good hands.

I got another email today discussing the problem and that it was in hand. How often do you get two emails from tech support on one ticket to reassure you that they've got it 5 by 5? How awesome is that?

We all know that Squidoo has gone through some behind-the-scenes changes, and the server change is being touted for a more stable, more squid-tacular Squidoo.

I'm thrilled that the Squidoo team keeps us so well educated on what they're doing and how things are going.

I just had to post the most recent update, to show how cool these guys are.

From the Squidoo Blog:

"The bad news: during the course of our recent server migration, our lensrank algorithm was thrown out of whack for a few days. It led to some very strange rankings, and unfortunately also led to some lost traffic for those whose lenses were knocked off the Top 100 lists.

The good news: We worked extra hard to trace down the problem, and lensrank is now running smoothly again. You can also look forward to new lenses which were stuck in WIP mode to now achieving Featured status.

Our search engine was down for about 30 minutes this afternoon while it caught up with the new lensrank results. If you ran into an Oops page, it should be gone now.

We're putting on overtime to solve the last few lingering problems with our server migration, and from now on you can look forward to a faster and more stable Squidoo. For all those affected by the problems we ran into during our migration, thanks for hanging in there. You guys rock."

Sincerely,
Gil
Chief Engineer

No, Sir. YOU guys rock.

They're burning the midnight oil, to quickly fix the problems, vaulting lenses that got caught in the maelstrom, and the end result will be a faster, more stable Squidoo.

*Sniff* I think I need a tissue.