keeping the community informed...

Wow! What a month we've had here at DaniWeb Towers. Not only have we successfully upgraded the entire site, for which Dani deserves not only a medal but a week off to catch up with all that missed sleep, but we've also well and truly eclipsed the 600,000 members mark. Indeed, as I write this introductory paragraph and glance up at the system statistics I can see that as a DaniWeb member you are now in the very good company of more than 616,000 other like-minded IT enthusiasts and developers. No wonder the word is spreading and people are increasingly turning to DaniWeb when they have an urgent problem with a code project, they need advice on cleaning a computer of malware infection or just want somewhere to chat with their peers.

making and breaking the IT news

DaniWeb is not just one of the fastest growing and highly respected IT communities for developers and technology enthusiasts on the Web today, it is also home to some of the world's top technology news reporters. Did you know, for example, that a news story which broke on DaniWeb regarding the discovery of a Trojan on a TomTom satnav device picked up a prestigious 'Best Information Security News Story' award last year. That same story helped DaniWeb news reporter Davey Winder (happygeek) go on to win the 'Information Security Technology Journalist of the Year' award in 2008, the second time in three years that he won that prestigious title.

Indeed, our Staff Writer list reads like a who's who of technology and business journalism, including writers that contribute to newspapers and magazines across the globe.

And now you can join them.

If you have something which you consider is worthy of being given 'news story' status, and picked up by the likes of Google News and others, then you can post it to the Upcoming News Stories forum. The News Editor will review your story and, assuming it meets the high journalistic standards demanded by DaniWeb, move it to the most appropriate forum where it will be officially flagged as a news story and exposed to news syndication services.

You might want to take the time to read a few of the existing news stories that cover similar topics, in the forums that you frequent most often, before writing one of your own. That way you can get a feel of the type of thing we are looking for, and the type of writing standard that we expect from something that is carries the reputation of DaniWeb around the world as it spreads.

DaniWeb breaks into social networking market

One of the great new features introduced with the site upgrade has been the addition of Social Groups which brings social networking functionality right into the heart of DaniWeb. Members can browse groups of like-minded users which they would like to join, such as DaniWeb Lovers or .NET Developers for example, or create their own social group if something suitable does not already exist.

Once you are a member of a social group on DaniWeb you can join in group only discussions and make new friends and business contacts courtesy of the group forum which is only open to other members of the same group. So what are you waiting for, let's get social.

Oh, and don't forget you can still quickly build a DaniWeb buddy list using the Contacts & Friends feature from your ever useful User Control Panel.

report bad posts and help DaniWeb run smoothly

Alongside every posting on DaniWeb there is a link which says 'Flag Bad Post' that enables any user to report a posting which breaks the rules at DaniWeb. So if you see an offensive posting, let us know. If you see a spammer, let us know. Even if it is just a harmless message but which has been posted in the wrong forum, let us know. When you click that link you are asked to add a comment telling us why you are reporting the post as bad. Please be as concise but informative as you can, so that our volunteer moderators which review all reported posts can deal with them efficiently.

You can also now flag Private Messages as bad as well, just click on the red triangle with an exclamation mark inside which will flag the message as bad.

introducing another deserving 'member of the month'

Please welcome our newest member of the DaniWeb hall of fame, VernonDozier. A member of DaniWeb for nearly two years now, with some 3500 high quality posts leading to 465 solved threads and 1975 reputation points under the belt, no wonder we were inundated with requests for VernonDozier to feature in our Member of the Month slot.

Want to know where to find this hard working member of the DaniWeb community? That's easy, just hang around the Java or C++ forums and you will soon get acquainted! Let's get to know the latest DaniWeb member to be awarded a Featured Poster badge a little better...

Where are you from originally, and where do you live now?

I was born in Santa Rosa, California and that's where I am now. I occasionally escape to other parts of California like San Luis Obispo or Sacramento or San Francisco, but for some reason every time I try to leave, I keep ending up back here again. It's like the Godfather. Every time I think I'm out, it pulls me back in. It's a nice enough town.

How old are you?

Just turned 39, so I have one year left till my mid-life crisis. I think I'm not going to bother waiting and just buy the motorcycle and the Corvette now. Maybe a jet ski too.

What is your current occupation, ever done anything unusual in the past?

Just started a new job in a small start-up company. It's basically my first real programming job and I'll be doing stuff like programming micro controllers for Home Automation applications, as well as designing the GUI interface for them. Tasks like turning your sprinklers and lights on and off at certain times. Should be pretty cool and possibly even lucrative. It better be since I'll be needing that Corvette soon.

I've done a variety of service jobs like waiting tables and being a mover and a delivery person. Those jobs aren't unusual, but they can bring you into contact with a lot of interesting and unusual people. If you're a sympathetic listener, you get bigger tips, plus I'm often genuinely interested in peoples' lives, so you get to know a lot of people and sometimes they're not 9 to 5 types and you get other jobs from those contacts. One of those gigs was working for a repossession company. It could be exciting, but it was depressing too. You're carting off people's stuff and they aren't very happy about it. True, they stopped paying for it, so it's no longer their stuff, but it's still not the easiest thing in the world to do. I have a thin skin and I'm a complete sucker for a hard luck story, so I didn't last long in that job. I was also a security guard for a while, so I have some good stories from that job.

Windows or Linux?

I bag on Microsoft, like all good Computer Scientists, but truth be told, I think they make some damn good products. So I'm a Windows XP guy and a Microsoft Office guy. Can they revoke your Computer Science degree for admitting that? Basically I'm a streaming audio junkie, particularly of the Phil Hendrie Show (hence the name Vernon Dozier, one of the characters from that show). I need to have music or some other sound in the background when I'm working on something. Most of the streaming audio seems to be geared towards Windows and often seems to break down in Linux. So that's the God's honest truth. I need my streaming audio and tailored my choice of OS around that. Pathetic, isn't it?

What first brought you to DaniWeb?

I can't remember. I think I had a simple question and went to Programming Forums, which was affiliated with DaniWeb, so I ended up here. I got good advice, so I figured I should try to give back a little too, so I answered a few questions, found that I liked doing it, and that's where it all started. I hadn't been too involved with forums or any kind before that.

What makes you stay here?

I like the philosophy of forums like these. Spread the knowledge. Ten heads are better than one. There are billions of people in the world. Chances are that someone knows the answer to just about any question. The trick is getting the person with the question and the people with the answers together. I also like the fact that it's done all out in the open instead of by PM. That way you don't have to answer the same question over and over a million times and can just post a link. That said, I'm constantly compiling a list of links, then I lose the list, so I end up writing it up all over again anyway.

What is your favorite forum and why?

I stick mainly to C++ and Java because, one, that's what I know best, and two, that's where a lot of the action is. More people seem to hang out there and there are a lot of threads to respond to and read. I occasionally go into the Geek's Lounge, but I'm weaning myself off from political conversations, both here and in life in general. Talking about politics gets too frustrating and I'm not sure anyone ever changes their mind, no matter how compelling the argument is. But I have a lot of opinions on a lot of things, so if there's an interesting topic, I'll throw in my two cents.

What are your interests outside of IT and outside of DaniWeb?

I have a bunch of hobbies. I like to work with my hands. I'm an avid woodworker and hope soon to expand that into metalworking. I like anything mechanical. When I was a kid, my parents had to put all of the clocks, blenders, electric shavers, anything I could take apart (which is just about everything) out of my reach because I was one of those kids who took everything apart so he could see how the gears and levers worked, but then couldn't put things back together.

Not much has changed except now I'm as tall as my parents are, so when they put things on the top shelf, I can reach them, plus I own a ladder. But I still take things apart just to see how they work, but then can't fix them. If you open the paper one day and it says "Santa Rosa Man Electrocutes Himself Climbing PG & E Towers While Investigating How The Power Grid Works", then you see that there are no more Vernon Dozier posts on DaniWeb, that was probably me.

Name the best thing about DaniWeb, and one thing you would change if it were in your power?

The best thing is the positive vibe of the posters. People here really want to help. What would I change? More tutorials, some way for non-moderators to pin important threads (I imagine that would be an absolute NIGHTMARE to administer, so it probably wouldn't be feasible), and while we have a pinned thread explaining code tags and BB-Code and how to use them and why, it's so important and comes up so often that it would be worth the time to make it a little more in-depth. Plus there are some issues that aren't touched, like tabs versus spaces, the ability to highlight in different colors, etc. A pinned thread explaining how to format code would be useful too, as well as a good online cut and paste code beautifier. It could save a lot of time.

Any fascinating facts about yourself that you would like to share with the DaniWeb community?

I'm seriously considering writing a novel. We haven't caught Osama bin Laden in real life and I've been meaning to write a crime or espionage thriller, so I'm planning on having a team of Computer Scientists parachute in and assassinate him Ninja-style.