grubby

Site Changes

Feb 272012

As you’ve probably noticed we’ve changed our URL to http://tnhvietnam.xemzi.com. We’ve also added a regional sub-site for Central Vietnam. At the same time we’ve changed our front page layout so that you can get a better overview of what’s happening on the site.

Apart from the cosmetic changes we’ve rewritten a large part of the site code that handles URLs, so if you see any problems with missing pages (or any other technical problems related to these changes) please let us know at tech@tnhvietnam.com

 

 

Changes to login

Jan 032012

We’ve recently made some changes to what happens behind the scenes when you login to TNH. You might have noticed you’ve been logged out and had to re-login after the Christmas break. When you re-logged-in your password was re-stored in a much more secure manner (using bcrypt for the techies among you).

We’ve had some reports of error messages on login or logout. Some of them might have caused alarm, saying your session had been hijacked. This is likely our fault, but we’d like to hear about it at tech@tnhvietnam.com when you run into problems.

Please also continue to send us reports of any problems you encounter, being sure to tell us what browser you are using.

Thanks,

 

TNH

Notifications Backlog

Dec 202011

Due to a logic error not everyone has been receiving all the notifications they should have. Thanks to the lovely people of FQA I’ve finally fixed this problem.

Site members who are involved with a lot of things on the site may see a backlog of notifications from the past 7 days. These can be dismissed as they arrive, and will not appear again.

From now on you should be correctly notified when anyone or anything you follow has activity.

 

Following Spam

Nov 302011

We’re annoyed to have to report that one of the new features we introduced recently has been targeted by Senegalese spammers. We have taken steps to prevent this from happening any more, but some of you may have already received this kind of spam through the messages that can accompany a new following.

I urge you not to make contact with anybody who has sent you a following message like this:

 

HELLODear how are you today? hope fine and you are in good health.My
nameis Miss Victoria, I am looking for a very nice and loving Friend
thati can share discussion with,then after going through your profile
nowon this site and i pick interest in you, so i will like you to
writeme via my email address(victoria_johnson153@yahoo.co.uk)for my
pictureand further discussion of friendship.New Friend Victoria.

As I mentioned, we have made some changes so that you should no longer receive messages from these annoying people.

Remember also, you can always block somebody from following you. Simply visit your profile (linked from your user name in the header) and select the “followers” tab. From there you can block a follower by clicking the ‘x’ in the corner of their box.

Following Changes

Nov 132011

We’re just about to push some big changes to the way you interact with each other and with other elements of the site (spots, events, groups, jobs and classifieds).

Basically we’ve just made it possible to “follow” most anything on the site, and this is the one standard conduit for indicating your on-going interest in something.

Simply put, stuff that you follow will result in notifications (the number next to the number of pm’s you have) on the site.

If you follow

  • a person – you’ll be notified of most anything they do, like review a spot, post a classified, attend an event, join a group
  • a spot – you’ll be notified when they have a new event, or when they have a new bizlog post
  • an event – you’ll be notified when someone else decides to attend or watch, or when the event is edited
  • a question – you’ll be notified when a new answer is posted
  • a group – you’ll be notified about new discussions and new members joining

For groups and events the following is implicit – when you join a group or indicate attendance status on an event you’ll automatically be following it. For the others there are buttons to click to follow them, or you can follow spots when reviewing them, and questions when answering.

The accompanying big change with this code push is that notifications are now in a drop down from the header (click the number of new notifications and you’ll see notifications). We’ve also aggregated some types of notification so you won’t see 100 of the same “x answered the question y” notification.

With any change this big we expect there to be some teething problems so, as always, please send your bug reports (with as much detail as possible) to tech@newhanoian.com.

 

Coming Changes to Grouplogs

Sep 132011

It’s about time the groups section felt some love. To that end we’re ramping up to revamp the grouplogs (group discussion areas).

We’re going to make it more like Ask ANH, with:

  • optional title for first post
  • optional image attached to post
  • most recent activity listed first
  • no threading
  • searchability

If you’ve got something to say about this, now’s the time to do it, while we’re still hot and heavy with grouplogs.

All City Links Now in Header

Sep 132011

There has been a (to us) surprising amount of confusion about the relationship between The New Hanoian and So Saigon. Many people have no idea that they are part of the same organization. From time to time we get questions like “is there a site like TNH for Saigon?” Well yes, yes there is. It’s linked from the little drop down to the left of the logo.

Not surprisingly, given how small the indicator is (think Flash “escape the room” game), most people were unable to locate it.

We just made it easier for you to locate good local info on many cities in Vietnam. Simply mouse over  the city name in the page header and you’ll see a menu of our two Vietnam sites with their associated cities. Basically, from Hoi An North it’s The New Hanoian. Points South are So Saigon. Same great taste in a different color.

Some cities are better-served than others. Hanoi, Saigon, Sapa and Danang have quite a bit of content. We’re relying on you as you move about the country to add new Spots that you think others should know about.

For those of you with iPhones, adding Spots just got easier with our new iPhone apps Hanoi City Companion and Saigon City Companion. See the about section for more details, or visit the iTunes App Store / Android Marketplace.

Xemzi Ads / Bullseye Banners

Sep 032011

While you were sunning yourself on some divine beach over the holiday weekend we spent the weekend sitting pale beside our computers pushing out a few major changes to the way the site looks.

  • We’ve made some changes to the way our web addresses work to help search engines find our content more effectively, but that shouldn’t affect your daily browsing. As always if you do run into a glitch please let us know at tech@newhanoian.com
  • We’ve added a city chooser to the nav of every page, and made some site features city-specific. If you’re in Da Nang or Sapa you can choose that city and filter your view to the Spots of that city. Housing is also city-specific.
  • We’ve added Xemzi Bullseye Banners to pages that show a list of Spots like search results and category pages. These are a new way for upgraded businesses to get the attention of site users in a very targeted way.
  • We’ve added Xemzi Ads at the top of said list views. These, like Bullseye Banners, are a contextual way to bring more attention to our upgraded businesses. They are clearly marked as advertising so they shouldn’t confuse you when you’re searching or browsing categories.
  • Search result rankings are still based on the relevance of a given spot to your search criteria
  • Category rankings are still based on our “special sauce” system of ranking spots by user reviews. Upgraded businesses do not get preferential treatment.

If you have comments on these changes we’d love to hear – please leave them below. If something is obviously broken please let us know by sending email to tech@newhanoian.com and we’ll get right on it.

 

 

The Xemzi Blog

Sep 032011

Hello and welcome to the inaugural post on the Xemzi blog. “Xemzi” is the name of the parent company of the sites The New Hanoian, So Saigon and Inside Nairobi. See, all those sites have the “xemzi” in their addresses.

All three of these sites are built on the same platform, and thus while they display relevant local content, they usually do so in the same way.

While alpha has been busy building our relationships with the community and I’ve been building site features (and fixing broken ones) we’re aware that we haven’t always done a great job of communicating where we are or where we are heading, either technologically or from a community point of view.

For that reason we have started this blog where you can expect to hear in advance about major changes we intend to make to the site, and where we can take your feedback on what / how we’re doing.