This is in response to Kristen's competition about Minti Love. I thought I'd share with you all why I love Minti.

Although my role here on Minti is purely a work role particularly as I do not have children, I love Minti because of the people. Minti is a real online community. Even though we do have our fair shares of driving each other up the wall, we are a real community - we generally respect each other, share love, and most importantly help each other out when we have burning questions whether it be ranging from something as boring as cleaning tips to something as intriguing as our love lives.

I have enjoyed getting to know the members here on Minti - some of which I would love to get to know in real life. (And I might even cook for them too! ) You make my work life really interesting and fun.

I should thank all of my bosses for employing me to work for Minti, it has been a real pleasure. I would also like to thank Kristen for running this competition, it's a great idea and a joy to read what people like about Minti.

I was tagged by Marglr and Ravenheart. Thanks ladies. Now I actually have to think about stuff.

Here are the rules for this tag.

1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

6 non-important things/habits/quirks about myself..... o_O

1) I take ages to pick items off a menu. I think my record was about an hour. Just too many dishes to choose from!

2) I'm boring. I used to collect stamps, but all I do is collect currency!

3) I have really weird dreams - from abstract ones to prophecies. My friends say I should write a book about my dreams but add a little more content to it.

4) I admit it - I'm anal about spelling and grammar.

5) My favourite show on tv is Will and Grace.

6) I hate shopping.

Tagged: SavvyMummy, marilynharrison, tmc, linus, marie88, brittanybusk

As I've been going around Minti today, I've noticed a few questions on Minti about voting. This has been already put into IFZ and the Voting Vault, but I thought it was worth a re-visit. I hope Clay doesn't mind me copying and pasting his words!

In regards to a question he received about someone concerned that he/she was being targeted and voted down. This is a common query, and often the people who think they are being targeted are wrong, even if they think they are... and also we discourage people trying to track down who is voting because more often than not they are wrong because it actually hasn't been targeted at all:

"To me it looks like the article has mainly 5 votes and probably a couple of 4 votes. This is not really "voting down", it is just voting reality, not everyone is should vote the same stars as everyone else (unless we all have had the same lives and experiences, and exactly the same opinions). If people were voting 1's and 2's against great advice, then there would maybe be cause for concern."

There are always cases where people may disagree with the advice, or perhaps think it would be better off in a group or a blog. I'm sure all of you have seen at least one advice that you either think is rubbish, would be better off as a comment in the Q&A, or is more appropriate in a blog.

We all think differently and thus vote differently.. it's like if we all thought the same, 100% would have voted for John Howard instead of Kevin Rudd; or Al Gore instead of George Bush.

I do regularly check the activity list to see whether people have been targeting others or trying to game the system. There hasn't been any thing like that lately, and I have emailed members previously about this matter who I thought perhaps may have either been targeting or trying to game the system with voting.

In regards to non-members voting, non-members have always been allowed to vote. People may only think that this is only a recent phenomenon. (ie, they think there has been a rise in non-members voting). Previously we didn't show that non-members were voting. We have a lot of visitors to our site who prefer to lurk around at the advice and don't become a member. So for those who think there is some kind of conspiracy and that the non-member votes are real members trying to game the system you are probably wrong. If you have proof, let us know.

As for former members, they are obviously allowed to vote in any way they choose. They may have left Minti due to conspiracies or they just didn't have enough time to participate on Minti any more due to their hectic schedules.

Just to let those who are interested in what a cache is, it's an area of temporary storage area where frequently accesed data can be stored for faster access. It's faster to access than having the computer having to get the same information all over and over again.

So basically my thoughts are that if the cache is cleared, it means that the computer has to start a-fresh and get the new data (in this case, the new text editor).

For example, when the upgrade occurred I couldn't type any thing into my work computer. When I went home, I was able to - but probably because I don't really go on Minti at home. When I came back to work, I still had that problem. I was told to be patient while the editor downloaded, and I waited for a while but it didn't seem to download at all. Eventually I just cleared my temporary files, and the editor finally downloaded - really quickly.

Oops - I forgot to mention how to clear it for those who don't know how to! I have put links to instructions (depending on your browser) in here.

I am currently going through all the bugs and adding them onto the list. Most of the bugs seem to stem from the text editor (ie not being able to leave comments, etc).

Please be patient while I get back to you on what you have reported or asked about; and while the Tech Developer Team fixes these bugs. =)

Also, I received a question from a member about whether Minti-Admin in the reported section is me. It isn't me - I would appear under angieh, as there are several admins on Minti such as Clay, Rachel and Matt. This is probably just the Minti system.

Hi all

Thank you for your patience throughout the upgrade that we implemented yesterday. I know that there are still some bugs there, but they should be fixed soon. The emoticons will also be put back into the text editor, so we'll just have to go :-) ;-) =p =( for now :-o

I'm sure some of you now have noticed the upgrades - even if one of the main upgrades did trouble most of you (including me!) for a little while.

Some of the more noticeable upgrades include the new text editor, activity list, and fixing the problem with the HTML from external blogs... and you can also now get your Youtube videos that you've embedded in your external blog embedded into your Minti blog!

Hi

As it was posted on Matt's blog, Minti will be down for a little bit due to an upgrade we will be putting up onto the Minti website.

It was due to be started at 10am (30 minutes ago), but due to some delays that we have experienced, the down time is now scheduled at approximately 11am ( about 30 minutes from now).

Thank you in advance for your patience.

I have chosen janicepovey to be our next Minti Featured Member! Congratulations!!

I have chosen Janice because she is undoubtedly one of our outstanding members and whom I find a warm and positive person.

Pleaes visit Janice's acceptance blog entry to congratulate her!

People who have already been a featured member:

1. Izzy
2. hrs2004
3. TheMentorMom
4. cheleinkal
5. wildrose
6. lindterbean
7. Tracey
8. pfallerj
9. mcm
10. MumKim
11. jenlemen
12. Kristen
13. Missed - unlucky no. 13!
14. breannababy
15. cookclan
16. Jessgore
17. Frontier
18. Hermy
19. lightbee
20. blackwidowkate
21. Marglr
22. llmunchkin
23. janicepovey

Last night I went to my first Baby Shower, which was at The Mandalay Restaurant in South Fremantle. It turned out my friends had booked out the entire restaurant for a private function. It was interesting though - there were several people who just wanted to drop by the restaurant to have a meal, and then they realised there weren't any tables in there like a normal eatery!

It was fun though. We played a few baby games and they had prizes for the winners. I used some of the knowledge that I learned from Minti, but I felt one of my friends and I had a disadvantage because everyone else there was a Nurse or their partner was a Nurse!

I failed miserably in one of the games though - it was where you had to fill in the blanks for nursery rhymes. I only got the obvious ones like, "Baa baa black sheep, have you any ___?" I hadn't heard of half of the nursery rhymes! Appalling isn't it?

My friend who isn't a Nurse faired better than me though. Then after all the games were done she said, "I think this is an indication we should never have children". lol Maybe I'll just settle for dogs instead

What an exciting week, with two member re-incarnations! Unfortunately for them, they have been removed from Minti for two separate reasons. The first is one that the community voted on as being a repeat offender in flaming someone/some people.

The second person is 'brand new' on Minti, but has probably had more incarnations than I can count on my fingers. I realise that some people have befriended this person, but due to to this member's previous re-incarnations (and was reported then deleted previously), I have had to delete this person.

For a good laugh at people's stupidity, read this.

Hi everyone, hope you're having a smashing and happy new year this 2008!