First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!
The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.
A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.
Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.
On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.
And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!
~ daisy
As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.
The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.
When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.
It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.
Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.
As always, thanks for your patience.
Go forth and fill your libraries with media.
Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.
I was just told that the Amazon Conduit will be fixed by tomorrow. I will post here as soon as I get word that it's back up and running.
I know this has been frustrating and I am sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it less so. I really appreciate your patience though.
Cheers,
Bad news. As many of you have probably noticed, the Amazon Conduit was not fixed in the last week's release. Unfortunately, there was an undetected bug that is preventing the conduit from working.
We are working on this bug fix and hope to have the Conduit back up and running this week.
I will keep you posted.
Thank you for being so patient.
Blog Action Day is every October 15th, when blogger are asked to post something about a single issue to show our strength and conviction as an online community. It's a great way to feel connected to the greater good, and the participation of so many bloggers to support the world's leading non-profit organizations is something you can do to help, right now. By blogging today, you're supporting some of the world's leading non-profits and sharing your voice for change.
This year's topic is climate change, and we'd love to read your thoughts on the topic. If you participate, leave us a link to your post in the comments, so we know to check out your post!
Go to www.blogactionday.org to learn more, get a badge for your blog showing your participation, and see some ideas for your post on climate change.
Can't wait to read your posts!
~ daisy
Let’s face it. The year 2009 is one that the travel industry really wants to forget. Most people have canceled their travel plans altogether, or scaled their trip plans way back due to the economy. That all makes sense, but I get the feeling that most of those people don’t realize that if they went to Asia they could have an excellent and even slightly luxurious trip, assuming they went to one of the right places.
Flights are very cheap this year too
For people living on the West Coast of the US, and especially for people living on the East Coast, it’s natural to assume that flying to Asia is incredibly expensive. But it’s really not. You can always find cheap flights to Asia, though perhaps not to every destination in the continent.
If you want to have the cheapest possible vacation having the highest possible standards, just keep your eyes peeled for cheap tickets to India. It’s best to fly to either Mumbai or Delhi, though occasionally there are great deals to other cities as well. Once there just spend a couple days in the big city to get acclimated, and then head out to somewhere less hectic. You can find spas and retreats and historic towns and nearly any kind of accommodation imaginable, and it’ll cost about 75% less than it would back home.
Planning the cheapest possible trip
Even if you don’t go to India you can still find great bargains. Think about Southeast Asia, and especially Thailand. There are plenty of cheap Bangkok hotels if you look around. It’s possible to get a decent hotel there for around US$10 per night, though if you go during the peak wet and humid season (April and May) you’ll want a place with air conditioning, and that will cost a bit more. Still, for around US$30 you can get a place that looks like it should cost at least $100 if it were anywhere else.
Once in Thailand you can take a cheap bus to Cambodia or Laos or Vietnam, and those countries are a bit cheaper than Thailand, though they also don’t have quite the tourism infrastructure that Thailand has so it’s not quite as easy to visit.
If you circle up to Hanoi, where you can get hotel rooms for around US$10 and you don’t need air conditioning, you are a short flight from Hong Kong and Macau. You can find plenty of cheap hotels in Hong Kong, though not quite as cheap as in Bangkok. You’ll spend at least US$25 per night there, and quite a bit more if you want something really nice. The trick about Hong Kong is you want to stay on the Kowloon Peninsula instead of on Hong Kong Island. There is way more to do on Kowloon and prices are much more reasonable.
I’m one of those with plenty of German relatives, so I’ve been there more times than I can count, and in fact, my brother has lived there for more than a decade now. So for me, Germany is an easy place to visit and it feels like I’ve got the tricks figured out, but sometimes I forget that most of the best advice for first-time visitors is not obvious at all, so I thought I’d share some with you.
Finding the best deal on flights
When you start looking into flights to Germany you might not realize that this almost always means flights to Frankfurt. Lufthansa, one of the world’s largest airlines, is based in Frankfurt and it’s by far the largest airport in the country. In fact, Frankfurt serves more international destinations than any other airport in the world, just to give you some scope of the thing.
So you’ve probably heard how great Berlin is and you might be tempted to look into a flight directly there, but if you are coming from more than one or two countries away, you’ll probably have to switch planes in Frankfurt anyway. Depending on your connections this might actually be slower than taking the train from Frankfurt to Berlin, and it might cost more as well. If your flight in is late in the day you’ll be happy to know that hotels in Frankfurt are actually quite affordable, especially the ones near the airport itself or near the train station in the center of town.
Fly directly to Berlin or not?
If your main goal is spending time in Berlin, you are a wise traveler, as for my money it’s one of the coolest cities on the planet and very easy to visit. But should you book a flight to Berlin or just to Frankfurt and then take the train the rest of the way? This isn’t always an easy question to answer. Flights all the way to Berlin usually cost around US$100 more than flights only to Frankfurt, but sometimes you can get them for around the same price.
If the Berlin flights are more then you’ll have to consider your options. The train journey between the cities is around 4 hours, and normal one-way fares are around €111 per person, but you can sometimes get the promotional fare that is only €29 per person on the slower trains. If your layover is more than 2 hours then this could get you to the center of Berlin faster than the flight, plus you get to see some nice countryside on your way.
Where to stay in Berlin
More great news comes from the fact that there are plenty of cheap hotels in Berlin. In case you aren’t familiar with the geography and history of the place, Berlin used to be divided into a West Berlin and East Berlin, from 1961 until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. The West was slightly bigger than the East, and it’s also much more expensive, and less fun as well. Unless you prefer a 4-star hotel, check for places in the former East, hopefully in the Mitte or Prenzlauer Berg neighborhoods. There are also loads of hostels in Berlin, mostly in those neighborhoods, and they tend to be high quality and affordably priced. Many Berlin hostels also have private rooms so you can save money while getting many of the benefits of staying in a place with a large communal area full of other travelers.
The Amazon Conduit will be working again on October 15, 2009. Thank you to everyone for your patience.
Have a great weekend,
daisy, Team Vox
Sometimes travel planning is all about a destination. You know where you want to go, and you start looking up information about what to do there, where you should stay, and what kinds of deals you can get on a plane ticket. But sometimes you just need a vacation - somewhere, anywhere, it doesn't matter where, just get me on a plane ASAP. If that's the kind of mood you're in, you're going to benefit from the kinds of travel deals that those of us who are destination-driven can only dream of.
See, the travel industry knows which places are popular, and they understandably charge us more to get there and stay there. It might be annoying, but each one of us would do the very same thing if we were in their shoes. And really, the number of places around the world where they're routinely charging more to fly there and sleep in a hotel is a pretty short list when you think about it, given all the possible destinations around the world. So think of it this way - by making less popular destinations less expensive, the travel industry is helping you get off the regular tourist trail a little bit. (You can thank them later.)
Okay, so you're desperate for a vacation and you're not really particular about where. The first thing to do is consult your favorite online booking engine for its last-minute deals. Even if you're not necessarily planning a trip this weekend, seeing the list of destinations which have deals running right now may help give you an idea of some of the places where you're more likely to find deals in general. And hey, if you happen to find really cheap tickets and you're free this weekend, all the better.
Assuming you really can't get away on a moment's notice like that, the next thing to do is set up email alerts in your aforementioned favorite online booking engines for a few of the destinations you found on the last-minute deals lists - plus a few more you might be interested in. These alerts will send you notices when the prices on flights to your chosen destinations go down by whatever amount you set. That way, you're ready to pounce on a great deal, even if it's only available for a really short amount of time.
Once you've bought airline tickets to whatever place you've decided to go, again assuming it's not a last-minute deal, you can now go back to those online booking engines and do a hotel search for a place to stay. Some of them will let you set up an email alert for hotel rooms, too, so if you've got a little while before your trip you might try that approach. Otherwise, you'll need to search a few places to find out what the array of options and prices is for the kinds of hotels you're hoping to stay in.
If you're really a bargain hunter, you don't want to overlook using Priceline to book your airline ticket, hotel, or both. The research you've done in the steps listed above will serve you well when you visit Priceline, because you'll know what the going rate is on the things you want to buy and will therefore have a better shot at offering a good bid price. But even beyond that, there are often promotional codes available that can knock even more off of an already-low Priceline rate - so be sure to see if there's a Priceline coupon you can use before you hit the "book" button.
