Things have been busy behind the scenes in recent months. Here are a couple big changes we can now disclose...

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1. CHANGING OF THE GUARD

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I am very happy to announce that Rachel is taking on the baton of Minti CEO. This change has already started to commence behind the scenes, but it will now also become more apparent on the Minti website once Rachel starts to have a greater influence.

I have loved being heavily involved in Minti, and will continue to play my part (largely behind the scenes and at a Board level), however for the last 9 months I have struggled to devote the required time due to increasing commitments at ineedhits. This change of guard also signals that Matthew's time will soon be largely required elsewhere also, as of the start of 2010 Matthew will be taking on a new role at a new company. I will leave it to Matthew to announce that in good time.

Obviously Rachel is a perfect fit for the Minti CEO role, she was the original Founder of Minti, she is a mother, she is female (possibly not the most politically correct comment, but what in blazers were two boys doing trying to run Minti!), has vast experience with start-ups in the Internet space, and most of all is extremely passionate about mums helping other mums regarding parenting.

I am sure Rachel will post an announcement on her blog soon, and also maybe share some of her vision.

Here are some other details if interested...

1. We will likely to have a few months handover, so Matthew and I will still be involved in most things over the next couple/few months.
2. Matthew and I will still remain as Co-founders
3. Matthew, Rachel, and I will still remain on the Board (of Minti and Vibe Capital).
4. This change of CEO also applies to the Vibe Capital CEO.

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2. In Google Australia for "Australia Only" Searches

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One of my pet projects for the past couple of months has been trying to fix the fact that Minti was not coming up in Google Australia results for "Australia Only" searches.

Happy to announce that this has finally been fixed! yeah!

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3. MORE Articles NOW being REWARDED!!!

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One of my last changes I can claim before handing on the baton to Rachel is that in the last few days we have amended the Minti Moolah reward algorithm/rules for "good article" to be more favourable to the author.

Not only have we made it more lenient, but we also decided to apply it to ALL 8,500+ existing Minti articles... which means a LOT (and I mean a LOT!) of articles were just rewarded with Minti Moolah. So make sure you check your Minti Moolah balance, and also start to sharpen your pencils again and get writing! 

Minti is again flush with Moolah!

Ciao for now,
Clay

1. It started of with Rachel's favourite uncle passing away unexpectantly (heart attack)
2. We then ordered emergency passports for Rachel and Joshua, and had a few hiccups trying to get them within the required 24 hrs.
3. We then quickly flew to the Philippines for the funeral, with the kids and their grandmother.
4. The day we flew back to Perth we find out that my mother has been emitted to hospital (emergency ward).
5. One week later (Thu 11th June 2009) my mum passes away (clearly the lowest point of the past 6 weeks, if not my entire life).
6. Organise and attend my mother's funeral and wake.
7. Start to get sick (flu).
8. Fly to Sydney to do business, and get mind off past few weeks... faint on the plane and go into cunvulsions (Rachel suspects fevoral convulsion). Shake with shivers for rest of flight, and nearly faint again on decent.
9. Ambulanced from airplane to emergency ward, suspected swine flu, cleared and discharged from hospital 9 hours later.
10. Re-emitted to hospital emergency ward 24 hrs later... struggling to breath, massively dehydrated, shivering uncontrollably, vomitting/diahria etc. 3 days later, lots of saline from IV drip, plenty of tests, etc, stablised enough to leave hospital and fly home with Rachel and Codi who flew over to save me (so happy they did).
11. 1 week later good enough to get out of bed and be a little active again.

So like I said, a tough past 6 weeks, but by far the lowest point was my mum's passing. She had been fighting cancer for the past 14-15 yrs, however her death was still sudden and unexpected. For example, she had played 4 rounds of Golf leading up to the day she was rushed to hospital.... played golf Friday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, emitted to hospital Wednesday morning as she was struggling to breath in bed and couldn't fall asleep. Died 8 days later in hospital.

Her deterioration was rapid in hospital and it suddenly became clear that the end was fast approaching, I kept my brother and sister informed a few times a day and fortunately convinced them it was very serious and they jumped on a plane and arrived to spend the last few days with her.

I loved my mum, and was always so proud to be her youngest son. It is still surreal to think that she is no longer with us, and we will never be able to see her again.

Below are some of my favourite photos of mum and also my sisters eulogy from her funeral.

Mum when she was young.

Apparently she used to spend all day long playing along this riverside and on that wooden boat.

Mum was a champion swimmer.

Mum and dad in their early days. She was so beautiful.

At some function, they are just so well dressed and it looks like a magazine photo.

Mum and I at Rachel's and my engagement party.

Mum and dad at our wedding.

Mum relaxing with her first grandchild (Lilly) at Rottnest Island.

Mum doing what she loved most in the last 7 or so years... playing golf.

Mum relaxing on the boat at Rottnest.

Mum and dad went on cruise around the mediterranean earlier this year. Mum was still quite sick and had just been informed she needed to start chemo again. They didn't want to go, but had already booked and paid... fortunately they loved it, and I am so happy they went.

Mum in hospitl a few days before she passed. This is actually the last energetic action I saw her take... a high 5 to Joshua, her youngest grandchild.

And here is my Sister's eulogy at mum's funeral...
 

Gay was born in Guildford on 1st Feb 1940.  She was one of 6 children – the 4th.  

The O’Malley family lived on the banks of the river in Belmont and her father was a horse trainer.  She had a passion for swimming and riding.   Her horse was called Silver, an old race horse, and they used to ride as far and wide as the airport and the hills, with short stirrups, mainly at the gallop.  She also helped exercise the horses in the rowboat.  And during the depression Gay and her father used to string a net across the river to catch brim for the family tea.  She also whiled away the hours rowing up and down the river to the reed beds with Buster her brother.  The old house is no longer there but the tree still stands where the rowboat was tied.  The Rowe highway bridge sits over the original sight.

Swimming was a passion and Gay was very good at it, something she got from her beloved mum.  She swam in the river and trained under the guidance of Percy Oliver.  Gay had success – winning most races she entered for many years.  She swam for WA in the National titles and came 5th – by a fraction – against Dawn Fraser.  She missed out on being a member of the winning Australian world record Olympic relay team – by that much.  

Stepping back – Gay went to Belmont Primary School – she used to eat lunch on a bench between two trees.  It is still there on the corner of the highway.  High school was split between Girdleston and Governor Stirling.  This was when Lorne first set eyes on Gay – The amazing Gay O’Malley he had read about in the newspapers.  – AT A swimming carninval between his school and hers.  She was HOT.

A year later Gay and Lorne found themselves at teachers college in Claremont together.  At the first social dance they danced together – all night long.  They didn’t date until the end of teacher’s college though.  Gay always laughed about Lorne’s rendition of the Punch and Judy puppet show.

Gay and Lorne married in 1963 in Dalkeith and moved into a brand new home in City Beach together.   Lorne played football and Gay was always in the stands watching.  The party venue after the game was always their City Beach house.  Their first child Amanda was born in 1965, some say a result of the 64 grand final…  On the night of the arrival Lorne had played football the day before and when the phone rang to say it was time, Lorne said -- ‘that is great’ -- and rolled over for a bit more sleep.   Gay always talked about bringing home the baby and not having a clue...   They had stopped at the pharmacy on the way home and grabbed some supplies.  Needless to say I survived.

Damon was next – 2 years later in June 1967.

The City Beach house was the scene of many happy O’Malley and Cook Christmas parties with a big pool and trampoline.  The pool had been paid for over 2 summers by Gay teaching swimming lessons to all the kids in the area.  People still stop and tell you that Gay taught them to swim.

Through the 70s Gay taught sport and health classes at City Beach high school, Balcatta and Swanbourne.  She ran daycare centres, the first with Bernadette Giambazzi in Nedlands.  This was when the 3rd child arrived – Clay was born in 1975, a happy surprise.  She also owned Woodlands daycare and set up and ran Subiaco childcare centre.  Between these centres Gay and Lorne owned bakeries in Vic Park and Bentley, where Lorne baked the bread and Gay worked the counter.

Other passions in the 70s, 80s and 90s were watching the kids sailing – usually from Birdwood Parade with binoculars.  She could pick out sail numbers from miles away.

Subicare is where the first battle with breast cancer was fought – Christmas 1995.  She worked throughout this battle and remained at Subi for many years later – retiring after 17 years.  The centre recently dedicated a plaque to Gay in honour of her work.  Many of the original staff are still there.

Retirement brought the time for her to find her final passion – GOLF…..

She was a very proud member of the Cottesloe golf club, playing pennants and a Tuesday Leader – her aim was always to get her handicap under 20.  Gay practiced, took lessons, played and tutored most days with the girls and Lorne.  She loved every minute.  

Whenever Gay and Lorne visited any family the golf clubs went too.  They played – amongst others – Royal Pines, Bonville, Coffs Harbour, Royal NSW in a roaring 35 knot gale, Cromer, Killara, Commonwealth and Huntingdale – I did say amongst others.

Gay also squeezed in water aerobics, book reading – nearly one a night- Seinfeld, CSI Miami and the Sopranos and loved nothing more than going to Rottnest on the boat to watch Lorne catch his crayfish.

Mostly she loved being surrounded by her 3 children and 5 grandchildren Lillian, Reuben, Josephine, Codi, and the youngest Joshua.

Gay fought for the last 5 years to beat her cancer – with humour, determination and good spirit.  She never let it stop her from what she wanted to do but it finally wore her down.  On Thursday morning Gay had had enough – in her words – ‘that’s it’ – she stopped.  She was never a victim.  She was a fighter and a prime example of strength.

it used to takes between 6-8 seconds, but now it takes about 1 second.

About 2-3 months ago Minti was really struggling with it's speed (ie: page load times were realllly slow).

Then in mid April (around the 15th) we moved to a new host and the speed wen SUPER QUICK... for about 5 days.

We get the feeling it started to slow again... but was still considerably faster than previously.

My question.... what do you think of the speed of Minti right now? plus any other info you want to communicate regarding this issue...?

NOTE: We do not think that the new Walt Disney banners are causing any load time issues. But if you think differently please let us know.

We are currently redesigning the Q&A page. People will be able to ask a question straight from the page, rather than clicking a link to another input form/page.

On the page we also want to link to a list of common questions to save people asking the same questions over and over.

We need suggestions from you!

What types of questions do you think we should highlight?

Feel free to suggest as many as you would like...

for example...

1. toilet training
2. teething
3. am i pregnant
4. miscarriage
5. bleeding during pregnancy

Please help 

If you haven't completed it yet you are missing out on m$200

Just click on the "surveys" link in your side navigation bar when you are on your member homepage. 

Sorry for any inconvenience caused. Thanks much to Izzy and Matthew for being on top of this, and the team at Market United.

We have already reacted, and have made our signup process far less computer friendly with a new "captcha" graphic. Unfortunately this means it is also a "little" less human friendly  

And from the feedback we have received it seems that Mint is now officially FAST! 

We will be implementing a few solutions over the next few weeks.

The first solution should be implemented over the next few days (fingers crossed) - i will let you know. 

Here's hoping we will have a faster Minti soon(ish).

Thank you Nell18-3 for reporting the blog post (instantly removing it from the site) and also Minti mailing me.

I can assure you all that I did not upload the image, and did not intend for that image to be displayed.

What I did was link to a "happy birthday" image on someone elses website/server, and the "sneaky little so and so's" changed the image to a pornographic one, which then appeared in my blog post.

That will teach me for not saving images and uploading them to my Minti account so no one can play with them!!!

Apologies to all who saw the image.

Kindest
Clay

It's Minti's 3rd Birthday (well yesterday the 8th March to be precise)!!!

Here's our first press release announcing Minti to the world.

We hope you continue to enjoy Minti for a long time to come.

Don't you just hate it when someone adds an important comment on one of your articles or blog posts (or questions, or photos), and you don't find it until months later when you are just randomly surfing around Minti? Well... you needn't get frustrated with that anymore.

  Here is a VERY quick summary of "Notifications"...  

1. You can add almost any item (ie: an advice article, a question, a photo, a blog post, a member blog, and a group)  to your notification list.
2. Whenever someone adds a comment to an item which is on your notification list you will be immediately notified by email about the comment.
3. Whenever you seed content (ie: a new article, a new blog post, a new photo, a new question) the "notify  me" check box will be default ticked. You can un-tick it of course.
4. Whenever you comment on an item the "notify me" box will not be default ticked. You will need to tick it if you wish to add that item to your notification list.
5. You can find a link to your notification list on the left hand navigation column on your member page. 
6. You can easily remove items from your notification list, either through the notification list itself or by going to the specific item and clicking "remove from notifications". 
7. You can mass remove all items from your notifications list by clicking on the "unsubscribe from all content" text link on your notifications list page.
8. We have automatically added a number of items to your notifications list already (ie: your articles, your questions, your photos, and your blog posts). UPDATE (25th Feb): Our script (computer program) that is doing this job is still running and has only currently completed the first 6,000 members of our 40,000 member base, so it probably isn't up to your account yet. Please be patient it will get to your account over the next couple of days)
9. You can also add any item to your notifications list by just going to the item (ie: an article, blog post, q&a) and click the "add to notifications" link on the top right of the item.
10. You can even add groups, and member blogs to your notifications and you will be alerted when a new blog post is created.
11. Privacy = only you can see what is in your notifications list. No one else can see what you have in your list, and you can't see what is in their list.

We hope you enjoy the new feature and are able to keep up to date on Minti easier. 

If I have forgotten something feel free to add it in the comments below and I will update this post.

If you have any questions - comment below and I will be notified as I have this blog post on my notification list! ;)

PS: It may be a good idea to go and add your favourite member's blogs to your notification list, and even your favourite groups. That way you will be alerted when new blog posts in those respective blogs are created.

Australia = winja
The rest of the world = mom2jedd

REMINDER: the tike competition has now closed, however you can still get 10% off buying a tike - all you need do is enter the coupon code MINTI as you go through the checkout.

Stay tuned...

We intend to have it fixed ASAP, and apologise for any inconvenience.

It is a square/rectangular ad that opens at the top of Minti pages and blocks a lot of the top navigation bar links.

so great to see happy winners :)