About.com?

I'm lucky that I have found some diagrams and videos on A.D.A.M. that will work perfectly for the site, even in Prep stages.

BTW, finally looked at the Cruises site and I must say I love what you've done with it. Fabulous job!

t

Thanks, Tina for the kind words. I've had over 7 years of practice at About Cruises and thousands of pages of content and photos to feature and fall back on. Good luck with your prep next week.

What pixel resolution does About.com ask guides to use for photos? 640 x 480? 800 x 600? Other?

Just wondering how to resize my shots ahead of time!

Kari

It depends on the tool you're using to write your documents. The blog is 170x170, most of the templates are around 200x200, and the largest is about 600x600 I think (I rarely use that template, so it might be smaller).

The largest photo we can currently use is 500 x 500. I use a lot of photos, and try to keep them below 100 KB so they will load faster. All of the About tools will resize a 500 x 500 photo to the correct size except for the blog software. You have to save and upload a separate photo no larger than 170 x 170 for blogs.

I have a folder structure with all the blog photos filed separate from the larger ones. This is probably way too much info for you at this stage. Just remember that photos can't be wider or higher than 500 or 170 (for blogs). (most of my photos come out as 500 x 375 or vice versa and 170 x 117 (or vice versa).

The reasons we keep the photos small is that you don't want someone to leave your site because a photo takes too long to load. Granted, it's not as much of a problem as it was a few years ago before so many users got DSL or cable, but it makes sense.

Thanks, guys! I'm just itching to get my hands on the templates; it's a good idea to store the blog photos separately!

Kari

I would like to quietly announce that I GOT ACCEPTED INTO PREP for leukemia! My prep starts on 2/8/08.

WOOHOO! It's not a guarantee, but it sure is a start! Yippee!

congrats Lyrael. SEE? I give you a good natured jest about writing you back and you hear from someone who really matters next!
Its the first time I've to say "Hope you get leukemia!"

BTW...a health topic. Be prepared for a vicious prep I've heard. (From someone that starts her own health topic prep on friday )

Lyrael,
That is wonderful news!
Congrats, congrats, congrats!

Congrats, Lyrael!

Christy

Hurrah, Lyrael! Good luck!

Kari

'K. Very silly question, but I know you'll be gentle!

Most of the advice I've seen here--and certainly the instructions given in the introductory email--say that in Prep one needs to stick fairly closely to the suggested outline. To be honest, their outline is a lot shorter than everything I feel needs to be covered! But Prep only lasts 2 weeks, and there's only so much one can do.

So ... if one does graduate, can you go back and add topics to one's site? Or even transition the "Essentials" into topics or vice versa for variety? It looks like the long-established food writers go for around 15 topics per site, but the initial outline provided to me suggests far fewer categories. If, then, I initially used the suggested "Meat Dishes" topic/category, could I later divide it into three categories? ("Meat and Game Dishes," "Fish and Seafood," "Poultry Dishes")?

Also, is it o.k. to ignore a suggested category? The outline suggests "Vegetarian Dishes" as a topic. WHAT? In Scandinavia? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ... yeah, right.

Thanks for any input you can provide!

Off to make pancakes for dinner ...

Kari

Kari - The prep process has changed a lot since I "auditioned" for About.com in 2000, but I'm sure the editors don't expect you to cover everything in just two weeks. They are anxious to see how well you write, understand the tools, organize a Web site, and follow instructions. If you meet their expectations better than your competition, then you will have PLENTY of time to change your organization, add categories, sub-categories, etc. In fact, you will want to make changes as you see what is popular (and what is not).

The cuisine guides have 15 categories because that's all we are allowed now. When I joined, we had 30, so we have re-shuffled the deck a few times to get down to 15. Now, with the re-design the emphasis is on other tools. So, even if I thought I had everything organized the way I liked it, About is continually changing the format to keep up with the times, so we are continually changing the way our sites look.

On another note, you might mention to the editor that vegetarian food is not popular in Scandinavia. He/she might want you to discuss and find a few recipes anyway since all the other "food" sites have vegetarian categories. Maybe an article on why vegetarian food is NOT typically Scandinavian would be interesting.

*gurgle, snort, sigh*

I have angered the About.com gods...

Kari,

I just passed prep for Web Logs and here's my advice. Give them everything they ask for in the outline (or at least as much as you can). They're telling you what they want, so give them exactly that along with some of your own stuff to give them an idea of where you're going to take the site in the future. You'll have plenty of time to add a lot more material after prep. It's certainly okay if you don't cover one or two things asked for in the outline (I didn't cover a few things), but even if you just put one article or one internal or external link to just about everything on the outline, that's better than nothing.

Good luck!

Tina,
I posted a comment on your blog...actually it took me three times before I could get it to accept my comments! I am a little computer challenged this morning. Rest up and take care of yourself. Your body may just be telling you to slow down. Hopefully, you will be feeling better soon. I have read stories on this thread about people moving in the middle of prep and those on vacation right during prep or those with kids who got sick right in the middle. Honestly, you can still do well. I personally thought preparing for prep was worse than prep itself!

Kari,
I second what Tripletsmom is saying. During prep I would follow to a tee what they are asking for. You can still add your own flair with additional topics that you think are pertinent. Once you are live with the site, you will have more freedom.
Good luck!

Keath
Oops! Just noticed I spelled flair incorrectly the first time, so had to edit...

When I started Prep, my suggested outline was scarily different than what I thought could/should be provided by my site. That scared me to death! But the very first step is to submit an outline, and in my outline I changed the categories that I thought were really "out there," and it wasn't a problem.

My advice would be to stick to the outline, if possible, and if not, to discuss it with your editor and make any changes that are absolutely necessary.

If vegetarian foods aren't popular in Scandinavia, then I'd come up with something with some flair to substitute. But before making that decision, I'd think about whether there is some fun or creative way to keep it.

By the way, if anyone is looking for topics to apply to, College Life and Jacksonville have recently opened up.

Also, they say they are looking in particular for prep applicants for these hard-to-fill topics: Dutch Food, the five cancer-related topics (Leukemia, Bladder Cancer, Testicular Cancer, Lung Cancer, and Uterine Cancer, Labor Issues, and Sikhism.

The topics in your prep outline are not necessarily categories. Make an outline of what you want to see on your site. Use your headings to create categories. Go back to your prep outline and make sure that all of the things they've listed have a "home" in the categories you've created. Some of their topics might be covered in an article or two, while others might take several categories to cover.

The language About uses for categories, essentials, etc., can be confusing. But I'll say this, you do NOT want to change categories later. You can add one later if you have space, but you're not going to be changing them around and breaking them out too much. Try to lay your site out well from the beginning.

Good luck!

Christy

Hi everyone -

I wanted to say a quick thanks for the help figuring out the A/B stuff - just when I thought I had it all settled I updated my meta homepage information which messed up my landing page - again. But it's all back to normal thank goodness! I have been reading up each day here but haven't signed in or posted so I really appreciate the extra help and BIG congratulations for everyone that got into prep!!

I have a question that I'm too chicken to post on the new guide listserv - but I am having trouble figuring out how to label things in scuttle - I printed out the information in the lounge and was able to get the pop-up into my bookmarks, but now I'm not sure how to use it or what to do with it - I don't really understand the purpose and I feel like I should at this point - but the longer I go the more content pieces I will have to go back and catch up on We don't have to do it on blogs do we? If so I'm screwed!

I can't believe it has only been a week and a half since I went live because I feel so far behind already! I look forward to the summer when Oprah is running repeats!! The daily recaps are kicking my butt - I got so far behind with the break to go live and I still haven't caught up yet - one day at a time I guess!

Kim - are you up and running now? I would love to check out your site

Hope you guys are all having a good week!
Elizabeth

Elizabeth,
I know what you mean about feeling embarrassed to post a question on the new guide listserv. I felt that way at first, too...but really most people have the same kinds of basic questions, so don't let that stop you. You’ll notice sometimes people will headline their email, “stupid question of the day.” We all have these kinds of questions and we all feel silly asking.

When I first started I posted several very, very basic questions on the New Guide Board and I always received very helpful responses. Go to the Lounge Forums and scroll down to the bottom. There is a section just for new guides there. Somehow this was easier to use at first because the question didn’t go out to the whole bunch of new guides!

I am not great at explaining this, but I'll give it a try. Once you have the scuttle opened and the top says “add a bookmark,” you fill in the boxes. The first box is for the url address of the particular piece of content you are labeling. The second is for the title of the content or article. Leave the next box “description” blank. In the next box identify relevant labels. For example, for my article on Moms with ADHD, I identified several relevant topics to this article…topics like parenting, support, strategies for coping, women and ADHD. Each of these were the labels for this particular article. I typed in the words and separated each label with a comma. After that just click the “add bookmark” box.

My understanding is that labels help readers navigate to similar topics of interest.

Elizabeth,
I don't think you do label your blogs...at least I haven't been.

It's actually not a bad idea to label blog entries (the permalink page) if they are evergreen. The labels are navigational, sort of like tags, so if you have a blog about a topic related to other articles, you should certainly label it.

And, really, don't be afraid to ask things on the new guide list. My experience is that most of the instructions for doing things were written for people who were around before these new things arrived. They assume you've been around for conversations and tests and things and just don't have any context. Some of the template instructions are infuriating that way... like that ad/no ad thing in the list template. =}

Christy

NOW I come and see what people think about the short outlines in the prep email, lol. I had to submit my category list today and didn't incorporate much of the suggested material into mine. I came up with a great list for my topic and believe I covered everything. I sent it to my editor for approval and he said it was good and to upload it. So I guess that was okay in my case. I'm finding that the hardest part of prep is understanding what they really want from us. I don't want to feel stupid and keep asking my editor questions, but I don't want to be way off base and submit things that they aren't looking for.

I just heard from my editor that my background check and paperwork went through (less than two weeks from when I graduated prep). I'm really excited. I have a few things left to finish up then I'll let them know I'm ready to go live. I guess that means Web Logs will be up and running fairly soon. Thank you to everyone here for all of the tips and advice included in these 82 pages that certainly helped me land this gig. I can't wait to get started!