Chatbox

So in the recent spirit of making things “new and improved” around here, I’ve enabled a chat-like interface for barnson.org. It’s called the “Chatbox”.

So in the recent spirit of making things “new and improved” around here, I’ve enabled a chat-like interface for barnson.org. It’s called the “Chatbox”.

It’s sort of like Instant Messaging, but I’ve found that, where I work, IM mostly doesn’t work, while viewing web pages does.

So now we have three ways to communicate here:

  • Blog postings (the traditional format). One-to-many communication method.
  • Private Messages (available via the “view inbox” link when you are logged in). This is one-to-one communication.
  • Chatbox: This is many-to-many communication. However, if memory serves for other web sites, real-time chat tends to be slightly under-used.

Anyway, for now I’m allowing anonymous users, as well as those who are registered, to use the chatbox. So if you have important information to relay, don’t use chatbox, but instead send a private message so that only you and the recipient can see it. However, it might be useful for just dropping in and saying Hi if someone else is online. Let me know if you like it, or use it.

4 thoughts on “Chatbox”

  1. Here’s what I want to know….

    How is it that this post has had 27 reads in 7 minutes. Your traffic astounds me. In a blatant effort to cross-promote I’m posting my URL 🙂

    Murphy Maphia

    1. Suspicions…

      I suspect that my stats module is actually borked. I posted one the other day, and the view count bounced up to 9 views by the time I refreshed the front page. Either that, or I really am getting that many people stopping by, which I really can’t imagine is what actually is happening.

      I’m thinking of wiping my statistics table… except then, the shoe-tying blog would no longer be the all-time most popular posting here, and would be quickly usurped by Justin’s Star Wars Trailer post 🙂

      Oh, and I changed the permissions. It totally weirded me out that anonymous users could just surf to my page and see current chat stuff without registering or us having any idea they were there. So I think I’ll lock it down to authenticated users, because at least I can see that they are online (though I don’t know many of them personally).

      So you have to be logged on to see chat. The price we pay for a modicum of privacy 🙂

      —
      Matthew P. Barnson

    2. 25

      –I know when I posted my blog there was an instant 25 reads. That amazed me too. Keep it that way. I like to think that people are reading. Plus it gives me a chance to catch up. Teresa the Flautist and fire dancer

Comments are closed.