PPT in November, December and the Start of January 2006

Written by: Shoyru_Lover

So Pipety Pete has been given life, and the labor was very painful. Just kidding, I am male, and I don't have babies, that is, I don't fall pregnant. Or do I? My sister Jessie has given me an idea for a new character, Princess Holly, and I'm going to introduce her, somehow. Maybe I should draw Rune, Hunter and Jim for the next episode. Maybe I could dress Jim up in a frilly, pink dress, give him cute pig-tails, and then show everyone over at PPT. That would be hilarious. That is, until Jim finds out. He is, after all, very scary. Actually, intelligence tells me that Jim pretends he's a badass, but deep down inside, he likes to wear fluffy yellow slippers. (I hope Jim doesn't read this.)

The writing competition at PPT has finished with the results posted here. Great entries all round, with quite a number of stand-outs. One of my favorites, was the article called "Surviving Newbinators" by someone from Germany, dlebel.

Speaking of Germany, a German PPT section will be opening up soon. I was contacted by a person called Paul, who was interested in running a German PPT section so he'll be translating a few articles on PPT to see how it will work. It will be an interesting project, but it will be great if it works out. PPT international, here we come.

Back on topic, for anyone interested in entering the next PPT writing contest, entries are currently open, so put on those writing hats people, because it's very easy to whip up an article in a short amount of time. Heck, I did it recently with "How to Make a lot of Neopoints from Neopets Malls", although to tell you the truth, the article rating is currently sitting at 2 out of 5 stars. I sense sabotage. Damn those rabid squirrels and those helper monkeys who insist on stealing and eating all the staff donuts. We want our donuts guuurahahahwaaahh.

Anyway, just a heads up. The avatar section at PPT will undergo a drastic change very soon. It is being revamped into something special. And to use it, you have to be special, like me! Just kidding. But seriously. Just kidding!

So I announced on PPT today plans for an end of year 2005 celebration video. I've short listed about 10 songs for the final cut, pending suggestions from the PPT members.

Myself, Runevalkyrie and MyleneFarmer worked on the Avatar Catalog this morning and we've added all the avatars to it. Thank god I had those guys helping me out with the data entry otherwise my hand would have fallen off, and considering tomorrow is the day of the big exam, it's probably a good thing that I have my hand functioning.

Alas, I've fumbled the ball, metaphorically speaking. We went through the entire avatar collection, naming things according to their file names forgetting that Neopets has tagged each avatar with the official name. I guess this means I've got some major updating to do.

So I released eight new invitations to PPT blogs today, and they were all gone within the first 15 minutes because people love blogs, apparently. If only I wasn't the only person blogging at PPT. On this topic, I've been having a look at ways to integrate this entire website into one large community, and took a look at some content management systems. I even went so far as to install one, and my oh my, is it confusing as heck! I actually like the look of it. Despite its obvious complexity, it could really drive the community aspect of the site. However, I worry about having to transfer the thousands of pages on PPT. It seems my hand is cursed to fall off at some point or other.

I've completely stripped down the front page at PPT, removed many images and loading times have halved. The site is getting better people, so hang ten while I find something else to strip. *strips*

The Avatar Catalog is going great. Runevalkyrie, MaleneFarmer, and Alex have all come on board to become permanent fixtures at the Avatar Catalog, and we've been spending the past two days fixing up all the avatar names. Membership has grown pretty fast as well, with over 400 members already! Now, we just need to find out how to convert these members into our minions to do our evil bidding.

Pipety Pete's new misAdventure has been drawn, and there's a new character! Princess Holly makes her triumphant debut, we discover that Pipety Pete and Princess Holly both have amazing powers, and Pipety Pete's artistry has been upgraded. How exciting.

PPT had a guestbook at Bravenet when it first began. It broke because too many people signed it. Four years later, it has finally opened again! Show us some love by signing it today, people.

Apart from adding lots and lots of content today, I've been suggesting some solutions for the staff of Pink Ink on how to beef up the magazine a bit. They've been looking for ways, and the guys over there may have just stumbled onto their solution. We shall see. I tell you what though, I'm looking forward to the upcoming issue of Pink Ink.

Podcasting-wise, Caesara is organizing the next recording date, but I've had someone called Wade contact me, who was one of the first people online to start broadcasting a Neopets related talk show. We started discussing the possibility of having each other guest appear on each other's shows, so we'll see how that goes.

Results for the 100,000 Neopoints Competition #2 are now in, and I'm already falling behind with entries. There's enough entries to fill up four rounds now, and I still haven't processed round three entries yet.

I created the PPT Toolbar today. If you visit the main PPT site, you'll see a horizontal icon bar that appears on every page woohoo! It looks so - ohhhh shiny things! *is distracted*

I've also always been a fan of Apple's sleek look, and I've attempted to mirror that on PPT today. If you have a close look at the boxes on PPT, they should appear 3D-ish. Pretty cool huh.

Speaking of which, did you know I nearly, accidentally deleted all the images off the PPT server today? It was an accident, I swear. Luckily I noticed something was weird with the FTP program, so I closed it, and recovered what was deleted.

Ok I'm up to date, kinda. I've cleared my inbox on the forum, added up a new button for Pink Ink that Nessa sent in, and started scheduling the PPT Podcast Episode #4 amongst the PPT Podcast guys.

I also hear mod applications are just around the corner.

So PPT has been trucking like no tomorrow this past month. So trucking in fact, that I think we should invest in a trucking horn for it, so it can truck its trucking horn in trucky goodness.

Firstly, Christmas spirit is all the rage at PPT, with everyone talking about gifts, what they got, what Santa should've brought them, and what they gave to everyone else. People are making their New Years resolutions (I still need to make mine), and some form of normalness has come back to PPT with everything moving like clockwork.

More recently, I've brought back the unreleased Neopets news to PPT with a great team heading it including noa, Macus (from the PPT Podcasts), and the_dog_god heading up the news team at this time of writing. I'm now focusing PPT on your all-in-one Neopets resource so this should be a push in the right direction.

The Faerie Crossword answers are also now posted on the front page, which is awsome! Quick neopoints for anyone who needs it.

The newest edition of the Pink Ink is now online with a major change in leadership. Yoshi, who has worked on the Pink Ink from who knows when is now taking a more backseat role, with Alex (I swear this girl is hell-bent on taking over PPT) assuming the leadership role. I particularly enjoyed articles such as "PPT in the First Half of November" (which happens to be taken from this blog grrr!) and "Inner Workings of PPT Podcasts" written by Nessa. You know, these podcasts are awesome to listen to, but a lot of work does go into them, and sometimes I think a lot of people don't realize it. So I just want to say that I really appreciate all the effort and work people put into them, especially Cae for hosting so many of them and tirelessly coordinating them. Thanks Caesara, you rock my socks!

Mod applications should be open again soon so brush up on your posts people. I'm sure a lot of people are keeping a keen eye on people they would like to see apply, and I can already identify a number of members who would make most excellent mods. We want fresh slaves to fetch us iced tea and cola!

That said, keeping PPT updated with up-to-date unreleased Neopets news is quite difficult! Not in terms of finding them (as they're posted in the forum anyway) but in terms of posting them in time on the front page for them to be considered news. Thus, I should concentrate on recruiting more people interested so if anyone is, check out this page for more information.

Speaking of news, the comments at PPT have been picking up quite a bit lately with the posting of Neopets news. I guess people really are interested in the images. The avatar catalog has been running great, and apart from a little glitch in terms of PPT's security this month, the host has patched things up wonderfully and PPT is marching onwards into 2006.

The new news crew is going great, with up-to-date Neopets news posted very fast. The comments system has now picked up significantly given that we've customized the news to become more visual. Now I just want the comments to become a little more active.

I've added a lot of new content today and yesterday, and OH MY GOD, I refuse to stay up late to do that ever again. I feel like I'm dying now! It will be a strict 10:30PM curfew for me. If you see me online late, hack my computer please I promise I won't ban you when I get back. (I will get Jim, Hunter or Rune to do it!)

There's a really big backlog of competition entries for the Win 100,000 Neopoints! competition. Enough I would say, for about 9 competition rounds. I am going to be broke as I award around 150,000 neopoints for each round all up. Donations welcome people! Just kidding, I would never ask that I have my secrets to making neopoints of course, but then again, I no longer play Neopets, or do I?

Has anyone noticed that Jim has an obscene amount of posts lately (8008135 posts)? It is, obscene! Let us cleanse him with an anti-obscene brush! And you thought I was a spammer. (Just a note, it also says a lot more than 8008135 if you look carefully.) OBSCENE!!! Blast his immaturity. I will scrub his obsceneness into oblivion! *throws rubber ducks at him*