Welcome to Digital Home Thoughts

[Jason Dunn]

<img alt="" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//zt/auto/1198884815.usr1.png" /><br /><br />After much work, stress, and wringing-of-hands, I'd like to officially unveil Digital Home Thoughts, the new home, and new name, of the site formerly known as Digital Media Thoughts. When I launched Digital Media Thoughts a few years ago, the name and focus of the site made sense to me at the time. In truth, a bit more research would have told me what I later discovered: the term &quot;media&quot; in the site was confusing. &quot;Media&quot; means one of three things to almost everyone you ask: people involved in advertising and PR would say that &quot;media&quot; means the press (journalists). Some people would say that &quot;media&quot; means blank CDs and DVDs - as in, blank media. And others (definitely the minority) would say that &quot;media&quot; in the context of the word &quot;digital&quot; means different digital audio/video/photo formats.<br /><br />The team and I kicked around a variety of different names over the period of nearly a year, but I kept coming back to Digital Home Thoughts. It's immediately understandable that the site is about digital devices in the home - some people might think it's about home automation, but I'll gladly take that over someone thinking the site is about blank DVDs. ;-) So you're not going to see much of a change in content focus; we plan on covering pretty much everything we did before, focusing on all sorts of consumer electronics and software, focusing especially on things related to capturing/creating/sharing photos, audio, and video. We've got the same great team of Jeremy, Suhit, Chris, and myself serving up the editorial goodness (and we're looking for new editors, so start posting in the forums and I'll be watching).<br /><br />It was an extremely rough ride, because we decided to launch this new site at the same time as we were fighting with serious issues on both of our two servers (there's a story yet to be told there). A very big thanks to our lead developer/designer, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.creativepattern.com/">Fabrizio Fiandanese</a>, for working hard (and fast!) on getting the new template set up. And special thanks as well to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.jorj.org/">Jorj</a> and <a target="_blank" href="http://www.janak.net">Janak</a> for all their help with the server. I couldn't have done this without them.<br /><br />You'll notice a bunch of changes: the new logo, and re-designed set of forums, the unified login that is now shared with Smartphone Thoughts and Zune Thoughts, and many other smaller things. Our home page has bigger ads, but it's also wider (more big-screen monitor friendly) and our content column is bigger - which means larger images and screenshots from the editorial team. As I said, the transition to the new site was anything but smooth, so you'll have to excuse the rubble - not everything is working just yet, including our weekly newsletter.<br /><br />To make it up to you, I've arranged for a series of giveaway contests to take place over the next few weeks. With prizes from <a target="_blank" href="http://www.corel.com">Corel</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.microsoft.com">Microsoft</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.audioengineusa.com">Audioengine</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.fotofusion.com">FotoFusion</a>, and a $999 grand prize from <a target="_blank" href="http://www.orbaudio.com">Orb Audio</a> (the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.orbaudio.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&amp;ProdID=50">Mod1 Plus system</a>), you definitely want to stick around (make sure you're registered in our forums).<br /><br />If you have any problems, please report them here in this thread. You may need to reset your password with vBulletin if you can't log in, but beyond that everything should have transferred over OK.

[Janak Parekh]

Hooray for the launch! :D Too bad I'm not eligible for the contests. :(

--janak

[Suhit Gupta]

Ditto. Love the new site. :)

[EscapePod]

Well, the site looks very good, and my login still works :-)

Glad you're back.

EscapePod

[Chris Gohlke]

Looks great! I did enjoy the vacation from posting. :)

[Tim Williamson]

Cool! I like the updated layout and more fitting name change. Luckily I am eligible for the contests. :D

[markvan]

Is there going to be a mobile version of this site too?

[jeffd]

meh, the red and blue are horribly conflicting colors for the sight. You guys sellings used cars?

yea, I liked the old design much better. ;)

[timmy]

Aah, nice look and actually a better name (even though I am one of those in the last third of what "media" means :) )

I like the unified login at the top since I am also reading PPCT...

Some pictures missing on the front page:

-"Will Time Warner's...." main pic missing
-"DivX support..." same
all through "HD Photo...." all pics missing

but then there are pics again in "Toshiba A30..."

One thing I didn't like was that some strange ads have found there way in....
Like the banner ad "Congratulations you are the 1000.000 visitor"...

Good luck with the new design and name. I am looking forward to great review in 2008. Have a Happy new Year!

[Jason Dunn]

Is there going to be a mobile version of this site too?

Yes, absolutely - look for that to happen sometime in January. It will look a lot like the Smartphone Thoughts mobile site (which is our new mobile template). :)

[Jason Dunn]

meh, the red and blue are horribly conflicting colors for the sight.

Red? Time to buy a better monitor (or calibrate the one you have): it's exactly the same orange as before. We didn't change the colour of the logo, we just changed the text.

[Jason Dunn]

Some pictures missing on the front page

Hmm. They're all loading here for me. Try emptying your browser cache and forcing a refresh - or it might be a DNS issue. I heard from someone in the UK yesterday that they were still seeing Smartphone Thoughts on the IP of our old server that was switched over a week ago! :confused:

One thing I didn't like was that some strange ads have found there way in....

Our primary ad server is NetShelter, and if NetShelter has no ads to show, it rolls over to Tribal Fusion. If Tribal Fusion has no ads to show, a Google AdSense ad shows. So basically I have almost no control over what shows up...if you see something offensive, let me know, and I can go to the ad companies and figure out where it came from. Myself, I've been seeing NOTHING but Lenovo ads here for the past week. :D

[Tim Williamson]

meh, the red and blue are horribly conflicting colors for the sight. You guys sellings used cars?

I think orange and blue are good complimentary colors, but everyone sees the world differently... ;)

[yslee]

Congrats on the move! Nice to see the unified login. Also, I feel the unified Off-Topic forums to be a good move as well. No need for 4 different OT forums.

[Chris Gohlke]

I think orange and blue are good complimentary colors, but everyone sees the world differently... ;)

Not to mention they are Gator colors!

[timmy]

Hmm. They're all loading here for me. Try emptying your browser cache and forcing a refresh - or it might be a DNS issue.

OK, pictures are back again, I emptied my Temporary Internet Files...

Regarding the ads, I am not offended in any way but some ads are a little suspicious...(I know you can't control them). The one with "1000.000 visitor" pointed to a site where you would be "awarded" €1625 to go on a shopping spree..Sound to good to be true, and probably is. Then there was the pink side bar ad "Check your love compatibility". Both showed up in the forum view.
To me they just have nothing to do with things at DHT (new abbreviation!) and seems a little odd on this site.

[Jason Dunn]

OK, pictures are back again, I emptied my Temporary Internet Files...

Good to hear that's fixed!

Regarding the ads, I am not offended in any way but some ads are a little suspicious...

Well, the ads you're describing aren't so much "suspicious" as "crappy and lame". :o Those are filler ads because you're not in a geographically targeted area where NetShelter or Tribal Fusion have any good ads. Are you outside the USA? What I can try doing is asking Tribal Fusion to block ads under a certain CPM value (probably $2) because those cheap filler ads are usually 50 cent CPMs...ultimately I'd prefer you see AdSense than something lame. ;)

[ptyork]

Not to mention they are Gator colors!

Yeah, horrendous, aren't they?!? Go Dawgs!

Seriously, though, nice changes overall. Primary font is slightly small at high resolutions, at least for my old eyes, but that is a common issue and one that is easily fixed by zooming.

[jeffd]

Red? Time to buy a better monitor (or calibrate the one you have): it's exactly the same orange as before. We didn't change the colour of the logo, we just changed the text.

Ahh, actually I had my laptop in battery mode so the screen was darker then usual. I dunno..i know its the same orange we allways had in the logo, but the way the solid orange bar is at the top dosnt look good to me.

As for the name..I think digital media thoughts rolls off the tongue better, but the new name isnt bad.

[michael]

Cheers for the new brand! I was never confused by the "Media" title, but I think the change makes a lot of sense. It is a natural for your coverage of Windows Home Server. :D

[Jason Dunn]

It is a natural for your coverage of Windows Home Server.

Yes, it makes sense when you consider our focus on Windows Vista, Xbox 360, Windows Home Server, Media Center Extenders, etc.

[timmy]

Those are filler ads because you're not in a geographically targeted area where NetShelter or Tribal Fusion have any good ads. Are you outside the USA?

That's right, I am in Sweden so that explains why I see those odd ones! I would also prefer AdSense to the other alternatives, but if you make more money out of keeping them, I can live with having them there ;).

***long quote trimmed by mod JD***

[Rocco Augusto]

Nice! Looking slick on the design side. :)

[timmy]

Some new hick-ups Jason....

Today's newletter was really messed up since all references were to DMT instead of DHT, so no pictures and no articles made it in this newsletter.

[Jason Dunn]

Today's newletter was really messed up since all references were to DMT instead of DHT, so no pictures and no articles made it in this newsletter.

Yes, I saw that too late to stop it - my apologies for that, I had thought our old newsletter would have been stopped while we prepared the new one, but that wasn't the case. :o We'll fix it for next week, though I'm not 100% sure our new newsletter will be ready to go out.

[David Tucker]

I love the new name. I think it sounds much clearer as to what this site is doing!

[Godsongz]

I have to admit, when I saw "DIGITALHOMETHOUGHTS", my 1st thought was "home automation". :o I understand your rationale though, and I wish you great luck with the new site. Excellent, clean design btw, many kudos to Fabrizio! :cool:

[Jason Dunn]

I have to admit, when I saw "DIGITALHOMETHOUGHTS", my 1st thought was "home automation"

Yeah, I understand - that's one interpretation of the name (and we discussed that as a team early on), but when faced between "Media" and "Home", I think "Home" is more intuitive to understand, hands down.

[timmy]

Anyone else who's got PM spam from user "Jeannette"? I got a PM today with some spam about religious stuff....

[Jason Dunn]

Anyone else who's got PM spam from user "Jeannette"? I got a PM today with some spam about religious stuff....

Yes, that user has been permanently banned. Sorry for the hassle. We have a good system in place for stopping users who register and try to spam our forums, but I'll have to investigate how to stop someone from doing PM spam. I might increase the repeat PM threshold.