Posted by NoleCC

Welcome to the new format of ScalpEm.com! Things have changed. ScalpEm.com is lighter, faster and better. So what’s a visitor to do? Well, let’s start with: What’s missing from this new site?

• Message Board
• Calendar
• Schedules
• Other Extraneous Junk

Why are they missing? First off, I’ve switched the webhost for ScalpEm.com. By doing so, I’ve increased the flexibility of what I can do with the site. For instance, I have full control over creating email accounts, so maybe, just maybe, if you’d like a ScalpEm.com email address, you can get one. The old site was running on a very old version of PostNuke and had become unruly. While it was nice to have one login for various things, it came down to the fact that I don’t want to manage all of it. There are ample places on the web to get the FSU Athletics schedule (I recommend Seminoles.com). Also the Message Boards are gone because I never generated enough traffic on them. Instead, we’ve implemented blog-style comments. Granted, this prevents any old user from starting a topic, but then again that’s not always a bad thing. Also, the blog format supports full emailing and printing of the articles, just click on the little icons after each story.

The whole idea behind this new version is that it’s lightweight and fast. The blog will be the source for anything the Authors feel like writing about, opinion or news. If you’d like to be an author on the site, send me an email (NoleCC@scalpem.com) and we’ll see how things go. The blog has RSS feeds for both the articles and comments, so feel free to subscribe to those! Printing and emailing articles is also easier than ever, just click on the appropriate icon following the article. And you can now rate the posts, just click the ratings area… the more stars you give, the higher the rating of the post.

Also included as a separate part of the site (and nearly it’s own site) is the new ScalpEm.com Photo Gallery (http://gallery.scalpem.com/). The FSU photos are free, as always, but now registered users can create their own Photo Albums. I think most will agree that the new interface is cleaner and simpler for most people to use. Bare with me as I get the entire archive of photos back online (Softball & Football are current), including better processed / cropped images than previously released. Also, as a NEW feature, we’re offering our stories in WAP format for your cell phone, just point your cell phone browser to http://mobile.scalpem.com/ for the mobile version of the site!

Speaking of mobile… Version 3 gives me the ability to submit a post from my mobile phone… so final scores at football games will no longer be delayed. You might even get my thoughts at halftime, or at the post-game tailgate.

So how does it work? If you want to comment on the blog, just click the comment link. You don’t even have to register anymore! If you’d like to register though, to have a username associated with your comments, then click the “Register” link on the right. If you’d like to have your own photo albums, register for the gallery. And frankly, if you’d like to just read both, minus a couple of perks, then don’t register for anything, simply enjoy the site! Just don’t forget that your old login was wiped out in the move. ;-)

Thanks for hanging in there during the hiatus! Enjoy the new site, and many more photos to come (thanks to my improved camera, a Sony DSC-H1 with a 12x optical zoom. Check out the 2006 Softball Photos to see the difference in quality).

-Bill