The Amish Cook from Oasis Newsfeatures

We released the My bookmarks feature tonight. You'll find it under "My account" in the left column when logged in. Using the "Bookmark this" link at the bottom of each post (again, only for registered, logged-in users), one can flag that page with a bookmark and come back to it again later by using the My bookmarks link. Think of it however you wish: recipe file, amish culture notes, etc. But it's yours - all yours - to do with as you wish. Enjoy!

Part of the site upgrade was a transition to the spam captcha service Mollom. You may have noticed far fewer of the CAPTCHAs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA) floating around the site. The new service we're employing actually analyzes the text from its point of origin, validates it (more automagic!), and *decides* whether to ask for a captcha 80% of the time. The rest of the time - like for account setups and passwords retrieval - we require it. In the past day alone, the service stopped hundreds of spam attempts. Not a single one got through!

Part of that excellence is how they run the show: people. Spefically: You. If you see something that's inappropriate (swearing in some new, creative way) or outright spamming (oh, i dunno... "LINKS OF LONDON"... ummm... "AMISH FIREPLACES! BUYBUYBUY!") - - well, use the "report to Mollom" link on that comment to let the Mollom computer know they missed one, and we're all cruising at 30,000ft again.

There's a handy (some say dandy) Text Site block to the right of most every page now. I've configured it to set the text size to 80% of "full" as the default - it's what you see at most news sites online - with the option to increase/decrease in increments of 10 (percentage of "full") to get as huge or teeny as you want. Previously, I had it set to bump up to 90% or down to 70%... but that seemed to not be a hit. Anyway, let me know whaqt you think of this feature - I'm trying to keep the posts (and hopefully comments!) focused on each feature as it's improved/released/re-released/un-messed-up.

We've been talking for a while about some new/exciting features coming up. Part of that is the site's redesign into a cleaner format. What do y'all think of that? A little less noisy, some better lines, etc.

Also new is the Twitter integration; every time Kevin posts something, it's put out to Twitter automagically. Any interest from readers to post *their* blog posts at this site to their twitter accounts? If so, shout out - we can set that up for you. We put some more "post this to..." links at the bottom of each entry, so you can use StumbleUpon or other such sites to your hearts' contents.

Anyway, keep the suggestion box stuffed - we may not do it right away, but everything gets considered.

The Amish Cook is now on Twitter! Sort of... Obviously, this is a tool for Kevin (and not Lovina directly) and takes a little time to get up to speed on how to write something great in 140 characters or less. :)

Nothing's really posted yet, but I did install some of the "plumbing" so that whatever Kevin posts here gets pushed out to Twitter, too. Not necessarily that useful for you guys, but kind of cool for Twitter users who aren't necessarily coming here every day. Additionally, when his time gets a little freed up he'll probably be doing a bit more out in Twitterville, which is where the fun begins. Anyway, you can follow @theamishcook on twitter and see the adventure unfold!

What is Twitter

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? (Technically speaking, things like this are called "microblogging", which is a helpful term.) For online communities, it can be a great resource for promoting things like articles and blog posts. But Twitter excels at sharing "status updates" (Twitter users call them "tweets") with whoever wants to read or receive them.