Well, after a rough and tumble debut yesterday, we've managed to get most of the issues and problems with the new comment system sorted out. Just so everyone is in the loop, here's the changes that were made today:

• Accurate Votes: When you leave a positive vote on a comment, the stars actually increase instead of going down, and vice versa.
• New Comments start with 2.5 stars: To keep brand new comments from being hidden because they had a zero star rating, all new comments will begin with two and a half stars.
• Sort Chronologically: The default setting for comments is to view them in order of when they were posted - oldest first, newest last. If you want the comments to rank in order of rating, change the Sort By option to "highest rated".
  
• 2 Star Filter: The default threshold for hiding comments is now 2 stars. This will automatically hide comments with a rating below that of a new post. This can be adjusted or turned off by choosing an option from the drop down menu.
  
• Readable Text: Many of you complained that the comment text was hard to read - it has been sharpened and darkened to hopefully correct that problem.

It's advised that you clear your cache and QJ related cookies in order for these changes and corrections to take full effect. Additionally, a few more tweaks and requests will roll out next week, such as:

• Leaving fields unfilled will NOT make you lose everything you've typed - until then, be sure to enter a name, topic title, and comment.
• The color palette will be darkened and adjust to make things not as bright and to match the rest of the site better.
• The ability to vote for your own comment will be disabled

Thanks for all your input and patience with our new comment system. We can already tell that it's had a positive impact on the quality of comments being made and we hope you enjoy it as well. If you have more comments or suggestions on how to improve the system, let us know below!

Here at QJ we've always wanted to make sure everyone has the chance to speak their mind and share their opinion - that's what a community is all about! But if you're a regular here, undoubtedly you've been a bit frustrated with out comments (or our commenters) from time to time. That's natural, but it's even more unbearable when you can't do anything about it. But times are a changin'!

Today we've unveiled a whole new comment system designed to give the community control of how comments are displayed! So how's it work? Check out the image below and I'll walk you through it!

Aside from the slick look, you'll notice that comments are threaded now. You can add a "parent level" comment just by adding a comment the old fashioned way, nothing has changed there. But in the bottom corner of each parent comment you'll see a "Reply" link. Clicking that will open up a comment entry box, and your reply will show up below the parent comment. This will make it much easier to keep related discussions grouped together. You can also choose to "Hide Replies" for any parent comment.

See the little smiley faces? They are your new best friends! See a post you like? Click the smiling face! Want to give a "1st!" commenter the boot? Click the frowning face! But what's the point? If you've chosen to have comments sorted by "highest rated" than the parent comments with the most stars will be at the top of the comment list, and the lowest rated comments will be bumped to the bottom. Take that, annoying commenters!

If you want the comments to sort like you're used to, just choose "Sort by last added" and they'll display chronologically. But you can still get rid of annoying commenters by setting your filter! By choosing a star ranking from the drop down box, it will "hide" all comments that don't have a high enough rating for your tastes. But you can still view any hidden comments by clicking the yellow arrow on the left side of the status bar.

So there you have it - power to the people! We hope that this new comment system will not only let everyone out there to take control of what they want to see, but will also encourage a positive posting atmosphere. We love hearing your thoughts, but sometimes its best to think before you type! There are bound to be a few bugs or issues, so if you see anything misbehaving or have an idea on how to improve the new comment system even further, drop us a line.

Also, for those of you who have signed up for our free Newsletter / Alert System, you'll find that you now have the ability to change your email address for your account. You can find that option in the Newsletter Settings screen!

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Update: If you are having problems using the comments, try clearing you browser's cache and clearing out any QJ-related cookies. This should fix things up.

Also, there appears to be a glitch with the star ranking - so the number of stars showing may not be accurate and may go up or down when they shouldn't. This will be fixed as quickly as possible - but the sorting of the comments is accurate based on positive/negative votes, it's the graphical display of the stars that is incorrect.

And a few criticisms have already arisen, and we agree. You can expect the following fixes soon:

• Not allowed to vote for your own comment
• Text will be sharpened and darkened for easier reading
• Sorting chronologically will put oldest messages first, newest messages last
• If you have not filled all fields, you won't lose all the text you've typed
• Comments will start at a 2.5 or 3 star rating

Thanks for you patience as we work out the kinks - consider it a beta!

Update: We're thrilled to tell you that everything is back to normal here at QJ Headquarters! Our thanks to all of you for your patience during the last few days, and even more thanks to all our remote bloggers who helped keep things afloat! We now return you to your regularly scheduled (and frequent) updates! :)

Hello QJ Readers! Some of you may have noticed that the QJ Blogs haven't been being updated as frequently as you're probably used to in the past few days. We pride ourselves on having the most updated and current Blog Network on the web, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Due to circumstances far outside of our control involving power in our main offices, much of our blogging force has been incapacitated for the last 36 hours.

But even though we're temporarily crippled, we will still be posting the hottest news of the day as a few of our faithful bloggers still have access. (A big thanks to them for holding down the fort!) Rest assured that this situation will resolve itself before long and we'll be back in full force before you know it. It could be in a few hours, it could be later this weekend.

And for our PSP Community, this would be a good opportunity to check out MyPSPUpdates where users are submitting their own PSP news and articles - and you can too! We would definitely appreciate the help!

Thank you for your patience!

Heads up, QJ readers! We've rolled out a couple new features today that should thrill and delight many of you... okay, so maybe that's pushing it a bit, but they're still cool! We know there's a few of you who just can't get enough of QJ.NET and visit us several times a day just waiting for new updates. Well now the updates are coming to you!

PSP Friendly Version!

The first thing on the list is something that has been LONG overdue and one of the features you folks have been asking for the most. How can a site that features the PSP and Mobile gadgets not have a version that supports these devices? How indeed! So we're thrilled to (finally) announce that we have a PSP friendly version of the site available! This "56k Friendly" version of the site should display just fine on your PSP, PDA, or other mobile device. It's been scaled down so it loads quickly, and even has the option of turning on/off the images.

You can access the mobile version of the site several ways! In the "QJ Blog Network" panel, just click on "PDA" next to the blog you want to view and that's it! There is also a "PDA Version" link in the Navigation panel. And since entering URL's into the PSP Browser isn't always the easiest thing to do, we've taken that into account. All you have to do is add "/pda" to the end of the sub-domain of your favorite blog - so if you want to visit PSP Updates, the URL would be: pspupdates.qj.net/pda - it's that simple!

And guess what - we haven't forgotten about the Forums either, so you can take the community with you wherever you go! At the bottom left hand corner of the forums pages, you'll find a Style drop down menu - just select "WAP Beta" or "VB Lite" and you should have no trouble viewing the forums on the go, no matter what device you're using! Both of these settings are a little different, so see which works best for you. You can also change this setting in your User Control Panel Options.

Email This!

If you're reading this, you already know about QJ, but your friends might not. At the bottom of each article, you'll find an "Email This" link - if you want to share a story with a friend, co-worker, or family member just click the link and fill out the form. The recipient will receive a version of the article via email - complete with images and links, the whole caboodle!

QJ.NET Newsletter

So your friends are getting QJ in their inbox, but what about you? Don't worry, you're not left out either! QJ.NET can now send out email newsletters to let you know when a new article has been posted. How's it work? Well first, you have to be Registered here on the front page, and then you'll find the Newsletter Settings link at the top of the far right sidebar. From there, you can select whether you want a daily update of what's been posted on our blogs, or you can choose to be notified every time there's a new update. Now you'll never be out of the loop!

Shhhhhhh... it's a secret...

My, my, my, QJ.NET has changed a lot this year, but our biggest changes are right around the corner! In a week or two, we should be tackling an aspect of the site that has been a source of complaints and grief for far too long. Most of you probably know what we're talking about. But even better than that, there's a ground breaking part of QJ.NET that we've been working on for quite a while now. And guess what? It's right under your noses and ready for wear - but you'll have to find it first! If you're not the sleuthing type, you'll have to wait until the official announcement to find out what's up. Both of these projects are part of our ultimate goal to give our readers more control and influence over what happens here at QJ! After all, in the grand scheme of things, this is your site - and we need your help to make it the best it can be!

As always, we're counting on your feedback on these new features to make them as useful and enjoyable as possible. There's bound to be some kinks and problems, so let us know what you find and what you want!

Today we're celebrating a bit of a milestone here at QJ.NET - our incredibly active forum community has managed to accumulate over one million posts! That's right, a million! Hard to believe, that is unless you've actually taken the time to visit or come looking for help. You'll be hard pressed to find a more active forum, and no where else will you get fast and helpful advice for all your PSP troubleshooting needs.

But what started out as merely a PSP forum over a year ago has blossomed into a whole gaming community. Regardless of which QJ Blogs you frequent, you'll find a whole host of people just waiting to lend a hand or discuss your favorite game, console, gadget or cellphone.

A whole lot has been shaking over at the QJ.NET Forums lately, a heap of new features, activities, games, and groups have been added since the forums first opened for business. And our busy Forum Administrator, Mysticales, is constantly hard at work making our forums a fun place to hangout and participate in our community. If you've been hiding under a rock, make sure to check out the Forum Update thread to see all the new bells and whistles that have been added!

Feel intimidated by the forums? Don't be! Our hard working staff of moderators are always on the prowl trying to ensure that our forums are as friendly and welcoming as possible - which is no small task when you're watching over a million posts a year! In fact, a new initiative has been put into effect to make sure that our forums are as flame-free as possible. With the Quick Justice Policy in effect, everyone should be able to have a grand 'ol time while visiting our forums.

And we also offer a Premium Membership option for our forums as well, for all you die hard QJ Fans! As part of our Premium package, you'll have the following perks attached to your forum account:

• No Ads on QJ.NET Blogs and Forums!
• Free Giveaways and Games!
  
• Access to the Premium Forums!
• Built in RSS Viewer to make catching up on QJ news easier!
• Ability to buy extra unlockables in the forum store!
• Unlimited cost free use of the Arcade system!
• Ability to spend Points accumulated through being active on the forums!
• Have your own forum webpage and guestbook
• Expanded Avatar and Signature options
• Discount Coupons for various online merchants, including Lik-Sang
• Coming Soon: Inferno RPG v3!
  

And there's more, too! For all the details, follow the link to see the latest and find out how to sign up for Premium Membership!

Of course, we'd like to thank our entire forum community for all they contribute every day! Whether they be old-time regulars, homebrew developers, troubleshooters, or newbies in need of help - you guys make the forums what they are. Congratulations on 1 million posts!

Hundreds of thousands of visitors flock to QJ.NET every day in search of the latest gaming news for your favorite consoles! No where else will you find a website more frequently updated with the latest PSP Updates, Xbox 360 screenshots, Nintendo DS news, MMORPG musings, breaking PS3 ponderings, and the latest word about the Wii. But let's face it - there's more to life than just video games!

Our goal here at QJ.NET is to provide you with up to the minute news and information on a variety of topics that might interest or entertain our readers - so here's your chance to get introduced to some of our newest blogs that you might not know about yet. So branch out with us and let us show you what you've been missing! Who knows, you might even learn something!

They're quirky, they're handy, they're revolutionary - and sometimes you just have no idea what they are. Everyone loves Gadgets, so everyone should love the new QJ.NET Gadget Blog!

[RSS Feed]

Aside from taking the world by storm, what has Steve and Co. been up to lately? Check out our Apple Blog to get the latest on the iPod, MacBook, and the latest love affair between Apple and Intel!

[RSS Feed]

  The line between Laptops, Cellphones, and PDA's is quickly dissolving. You can keep up on all the latest technology to keep you on the go at our brand new Mobile Blog!

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Shutterbugs unite! The Photography Blog is THE place to not only find out about the latest cameras, but to learn how to take the best pictures you can! Or, you can just enjoy the fantastic work of other photographers!

[RSS Feed]

We've saved the best for last - I love our new Science Blog! Check out the latest scientific discoveries here on Earth and beyond. You can't branch out any further than the final frontier!

[RSS Feed]

We hope you will take a moment to explore all that QJ.NET has to offer, I'm almost positive you'll find something that'll keep you coming back - if so, remember to bookmark it, or you can always find the list of QJ.NET Blogs in the middle sidebar to the right. You can also take a look at our Blog of Blogs which contains every piece of news covered in all our blogs - there's guaranteed to be something new to read every time you visit! And we aren't stopping here - keep your eyes peeled for even more blogs that are in the works and on the way - not to mention our constant efforts to improve your experience here at QJ.NET!

Got a suggestion for a new blog? Be sure to let us know about it!

When it comes to new discoveries and scientific breakthroughs, there's a bit of geek in all of us. That's why we're thrilled to announce that our Space Blog has expanded to encompass all things science-y. You'll still find out about all the latest happenings in the great unknown, but now you'll also learn about what's been going on a little closer to home.

From medical science to mathematics, we'll be covering every aspect of the science community and updating you around the clock with every interesting bit of information we can dig up - and we're dirty already! If you head on over to the Science Blog you'll see that our team of writers have been eager to expand their horizons and are already offering lots of great scientific things to read about.

Those of you who are green at heart will also be glad to know that environmental issues will also be covered in the Earth Sciences section, and we've got several writers who are very passionate about our environment and ecology. If you're wanting to see how to join in the fight to save our planet there will be plenty of things to learn about there!

We hope everyone enjoys this expansion of coverage, and it is the first step (of many) in our plans to cover everything under the Sun, and not just our Sun either!

Visit: [QJ.NET's Science Blog]

It's been a busy weekend here at QJ.NET! As I'm sure many of you have noticed, we've been trying to upgrade our image viewer for thumbnails and pics. Needless to say, it wasn't the smoothest transition, but we think we've got it all worked out for the most part. Thanks to everyone for being patient while we got the bugs worked out!

After our last attempt at a Image Gallery viewer, we heard your complaints that it was just getting in the way and obnoxious - we wholeheartedly agreed, which is why we've now got an entirely new system for you guys, and we think you're going to love it! You won't have to deal with new windows popping up, or the image view taking you away from the article you're trying to read, now images will just be overlaid on top of your current page!

Once you're looking at your picture, you can move forward or backwards through the images for that post just by clicking the left or right side of the image pop-up. If you want to see the full sized image, just click "Full Size Image" underneath the picture and a new overlay will drop down for your viewing pleasure! Once you're done, just click the large image and it'll disappear - it's as easy as that! Unfortunately, the new image gallery features only apply to posts made from this point on and older posts will retain the "old" style of image viewing.

Aside from the pretty bells and whistles, we've got another new feature that has rolled out this weekend! On the bottom of each article, you'll find a drop down menu listing all your favorite Social Bookmarking sites, so you can find a QJ article there, or submit one yourself to let people know about a fun or interesting story you spotted at QJ. And since we can't ignore the popularity of Digg, you'll also find a "Digg it!" link at the bottom of each article as well!

And finally, you may have noticed that activity across all our blogs has increased dramatically in the last week and we're thrilled to announce that the QJ Network is seeing over 100 updates every day, making us one of the most updated blog networks on the web! There's guaranteed to be something new to check out every time you visit!

And that's just the beginning - new blogs ARE on the way and soon, but we're not going to let the cat out of the bag yet, you'll just have to wait and see what we've got up our sleeves! But have no doubt about it, we're on our way to becoming the largest content network website in the world, bringing you the latest and greatest content 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! And we're not talking about rounding up the best of what the web has to offer, but we'll be bringing you more original content that can only be found here at QJ.NET. Insider previews and interviews like this one are just the beginning of what we've got planned!

As always, our best ideas and features come from YOUR feedback, so please take a moment to let us know what you'd like to see here at QJ.NET... or to tell us we broke something, we can't fix it if we don't know about it! We hope you enjoy the site as much as we enjoy bringing it to you!

See! That wasn't so painful, was it? Just an hour or so and the hard part of the job is done and the QJ.NET Forums are back online! A big thanks to Mysticales, our Forum Admin, who works tirelessly on making our forums a fun and eventful place everyday and who tackled the task of upgrading our massive forums! And boy does she have her work cut out for her! Now that we've upgraded our forums, there's a whole lot more features and functionality we can add, which is not only good news for our Premium Members, but our regular users will have lots of new stuff to toy with as well! Everybody wins!

At the moment, the forums are back up and running and everything is where we left it. The Point System and uStore are in place and it seems as though everyone should have their points in tact. Some forum functionality may still be missing, but all should be restored in the next day or two. After that, on to the new surprises!

If you are having problems with things on the forums or think something may be a miss, please drop by our thread about the forum upgrade and let us know about any bugs you're seeing! If you haven't ever been to our forums before, now's a good time to get involved in the community because it's about to be even more fun than it was before!

Thanks for your patience and we hope you enjoy what we plan on doing with the place!

Everybody has their good days and bad days, right? Well, yesterday was a bad day - especially for our faithful forum family. Due to a series of unfortunate events that were enough to make us pull our hair out (yes, we're all bald now, even the ladies), the QJ.NET Forums have been down for the last 24 hours.  After a year of uninterrupted  service on our forums, it was bound to happen eventually. Despite the rumors, this was nothing more than miscommunication with our server hosts - nothing malicious or diabolical about it at all. Just a Grade-A snafu.

Nevertheless, the forums are now back online and everything is as it was. Just in case you've forgotten how to get there (a common withdrawal symptom), here's a direct link back to the QJ.NET Forums Directory where you'll find forum categories for each and every one of the QJ Blogs. And in case some of you have never visited the Forums, here's some highlights that you should check out - especially if you're a new 1.50 PSP user looking to get into homebrew!

PSP:

• FAQ's, Guides, and Tutorials - Your one stop shop for details on how to do just about anything with (or to) your PSP!
• PSP Homebrew and Hacks Help - If the Tutorial section doesn't answer your question, one of our many helpful and knowledgeable PSP experts will!
• PSP Development Forum - Find out what homebrew developers are up to - they're cranking out new stuff everyday!
• Official eLoader Forum - If you're sticking with 2.0 - 2.60 Firmware, this is the place to be!

Next-Gen:

• Xbox 360 Forums - Talk about all the latest that Microsoft is offering!
• PS3 Forums / Wii Forums - Plenty of rumors and excitement going on waiting for these two systems to be released!

Nintendo DS:

• NDS Homebrew - No reason the PSP should have all the fun!
• NDS WFC & Games - Join up with our community and play with your friends online! A great place to exchange friend codes!

Consumer:

• Apple Forums - One of our newer and fast growing forums, take a bite out of the Apple!
• Gadgets and Electronic Forums - Another new community here at QJ.NET but quickly on the rise! Get in on the fun!

QJ.NET:

• QJ.NET News and Help - This is where you'll find out about what's new with the QJ.NET Forums! If you've got a question, comment, problem, or suggestion about the site, this is where to go!

Plus so many more forums! Again, we sincerely apologize for the unscheduled downtime - if it happens again, we'll eat our hats... which we now need to keep our hairless heads warm!