Challengers Blog.
Team Managers will want to make sure your communicate with your teams. While email is easy some of us get so much email that it might be a poor way to figure out where the game is when there is just an hour till game time and you have 300 messages from the team manager. (I know I have been there and almost missed the game). This where haveing a couple team blog pages comes in handy. This way you can post essential information your self and keep it up to date. Also players who will miss a game or practice can repsond with a post. Some archived examples of team blog entries you can use as templates or examples are: Typhoons Who what when where why and Typhoons Games [Read Article]
Authors
Your team is listed in the team’s grid on www.ChallengersSoccer.com/teams.htm There is a link from your team page to the blog category for your team. Your author login is . name login: password
You can change that when you are logged in if you want.
If you create a new entry on the blog please be sure to use an excerpt and select any appropriate categories. Categories and excerpts are key so that the website links will work. Make a category for you team name and use it for every team entry. Use an excerpt on every entry or the entire text of your post will fill our blog home page.
You only need your author login to create or edit "entries". Anybody can add a "comment" to any blog entry without using a login. So for example: you can post your game schedule as an entry and as a comment a parent may list the games her child will miss due to baseball or family vacation. When you look at your schedule you then can quickly see who is missing for a game. The blog in general and each entry offers the option of a 'subscription' A "subscription to an entry" emails you when there is a new relevant comment to that particular entry. A "subscription to the blog" emails you when there is a new entry on the blog but not when comments are entered. You can subscribe how ever you want and cancel at any time. You are in control of everything. Unlike an old email, you can even edit entries or comments when things change so that wrong information is replaced by the current update. This is why I generally send out emails with just basic topics and list all details in links like the links below. I also invite people to comment on that blog link so that I am not flooded with 45 emails of individual votes and out of order responses from 45 people who choose to "reply to all". (those drive me nuts)
Blog Authors login dashboard: app.onlinequickblog.com/Login.aspx?ReturnUrl=/Dashboard.aspx or just go to
http://blog.challengersSoccer.com/ and click Author Logins
You will find some useful direction on how to use our technology at the following links:
tech tips on our blog: blog.challengerssoccer.com/categories/Tips%20and%20technical.aspx
blog help products.secureserver.net/products/blog/help/index.htm?webhelp/start.htm
Please take a few minutes to catch up on the topics posted on the blog. There are several questions that require decisions very soon. Posting your input is essential to your satisfaction with club wide decisions.
To Subscribe or not to Subscibe? Separate from being an author you may also choose to "subscribe." Subscribers can get email notifications of new posts and or replies. Subscriptions are optional and of course free but may generate too much email. You can easily "unsubscribe" from any of those emails. (Email alerts currently have issues being reviewed by GoDaddy our Hosting support vendor). Look for subscribe on the side bar of the blog.
If you subscribe to the blog you get emails when there is a new entry. That allows you to then forward it on to your Google group and it has the entire message and links worked out for you. If you subscribe to an entry then you get emails when there is a comment. Please consider blogging some of these announcements items before you send the Google blast. Then you can send a link for with instructions on how to reply.
Categories: Authors should choose a few Categories that describe each new message. This is a courteous way to help people find the most relevent messages because they can just click a category on the blog sidebar. Our initial categories include: Rules and Refs Tournaments Substitutions Baseball Clinics Trainers Family Leaders Girls Team Tips and tricks Humor Equipment Admin Photos Cobras U10 White Schedules Policy Meetings League Regular Conflicts. Swimming Clubwide Facilities and Directions Red football Positive Coaching Awards Drills Social Wrestling NPD and Web site
When authors login or click the links in the Blog Roll at you will find more specific help buttons.
As you use the blog more you will realize that it is a time saver and often easier to find information there than just using email. However you will get out of it what you put into it. It is a very flexible tool.
Other Tech Tips for team managers:
"Rules" and "Folders" If you use MS Outlook I suggest that you set up "Rules" and "Folders" to manage your time more efficiently. Go to Tools - Rules and Alerts - New Rule and use your imagination from there. Outlook rules are a great feature. I have a rule that filters all challengers emails by email address and send them to my challengers folder.
Airset: In the near future it may be a good idea to join Airset NPD may be using this soon so some of you can see what fields are open BEFORE you request them. Brock and I are working towrds this as a solutuon and time saver. At the team level consider Airset: It includes a free online outlook group calendar that syncs with others outlook calendars and contacts. Click to watch air set demo video . This may be perfect for anybody involved in multiple groups but also has private personal appointments, Outlook and a cell phone. Airset includes allows for free solutuions for file sharing, blogging, shared contacts, photo anbd video albums, shared lists, play lists, calnedar text page reminders and is password portected.
Photo and Streaming Video Sharing
SnapFish is great for printing photos at about $0.15 per 4x6 at your local Walgreens. I have a SnapFish account for sending photos to anybody’s local Walgreens but use www.costcophotocenter.com for my own printing. I like the SnapFish feature called "Group Room" that allows several people with different passwords to upload to the same place. For example: http://prairiesaints.snapfish.com. If you get another user to join with your invite you get another 20 prints free (so please use my link above). There is no space limit so you do not have to compress or reduce photos before you upload them. As I said it is great for printing photos but if you want to share the photo files they charge $0.50 per photo! So if you want to download then browse 200 original photos files Ouch!
Other services are more cost effective for file sharing. I have had good results from Photo Gallery Web Sites like FotoPic.net which has more functions but is therefore more complicated. At FotoPic.net the 1st 250 MB per email address is free. For a few bucks you can increase space. See example galleries: http://nnhsgt.fotopic.net http://nngcc.fotopics.net http://challengers.fotopic.net There are other reputable "free" photo gallery websites including: http://photos.msn.com, http://www.kodakgallery.com/ and http://www.photoaccess.com. Finally don't forget that a blog author can probably upload a few photos for free on your blog. Sometimes less is more when you have a couple of really good photos"
For a small budget I see impressive things done with a ".Mac web gallery" Just $100 bucks a year includes 10 GB of storage, advanced web hosting functions like automatic web back ups and a lot of cool features. A great example is: Saints football photos by Alex Metzen Also several people can share an account (with your permission) so that brings the cost down. DHYPERLINK "http://www.apple.com/dotmac/webgallery.html"ot mac also offers lower cost options and free trials.
One of the most surprising values is the free streaming video services offered through OurMedia.org to post free streaming videos Click for Samples. They have features for photos too.
Software to manage edit or slideshow your Photos. Some such software probably came with your camera and some came with your CD/DVD burner or computer. For burning Music photo slideshows to DVD I prefer PhotoDex Pro Show with Nero Vision Express in second place but some friends use Roxio.
For photo editing we like ArcSoft PhotoStudio 5.5 because it comes free with most Canon optical products and it has a simple one page under help that tells you how to use all the tools. Or you can also use one or more of the following:
· Nikon View: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/win/19659
· Picasa: http://picasa.google.com/index.html
