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It's been there all along but I just moved it back up to the top of the right column. Why? Because we get to pay for another year of hosting in April. Is NL making money? No and it was not intended to.

But, it would be nice if it only cost time, not time and money to keep the site running. Contribute now, avoid the rush.

I want to post a Private Message. The instructions say go "My Inbox" on the right side after you log in. I logged in but I don't see My Inbox. So how do I post a private message?

On 12 November 1990, Tim Berners-Lee proposed what we know today as the World Wide Web. While that proposal had nothing to do with Nicaragua or, well, anywhere specific, it is what created a Cyberspace that makes sites such as NicaLiving possible.

The original proposal can be read on the W3.org web site. If anything stands out it is that it was a small project. The result, of course, has been huge.

I am talking about the advertising block in the right sidebar (column). We don't pick them -- they are automatically supplied by Google based on the page content. They are pretty much the only thing that pays for the site hosting.

Revenue is less than exciting but I have also seen a change in the ads that appear there. While we used to have more small (primarily text) ads, recently it has been more like one big ad from some relatively big company. At the same time, revenue has dropped.

In one of the thread there was mention that "comments were displayed in the wrong order". Let me clarify how comment ordering works.

You can select how comments are displayed. First, there is an option that just sets the way posts are related. Options include:

• Thread list - expanded -- (I believe that is the default.) What you see are the complete comments with replies to a specific comment indented below it.
• Threaded list - collapsed -- Like the above but you only see the comment titles and need to click on them to see the actual comment.

We appear to be alive and well on the new hosting. I have opened up comments here so you can post about any problem you see with the site. I am not looking for enhancements or just changes as this point but want to make sure we address things that are currently broken.

If it is a real issue, it will be added to a list on http://www.monosmedia.com and addressed.

After our meltdown of a week ago, I have decided to get cracking on a better NicaLiving. We started talking about this a couple of years ago but there was never the perfect answer. Well, there still isn't but, at this point, it is clear we need to just pick something close and move forward.

The US Congress is currently debating a new Internet censorship bill.This bill would effectively move copyright enforcement from the courts to the Congress. Some of you may remember that NicaLiving was a victim of an over-zealous enforcement of the DMCA a few years ago. We have since moved to a hosting company who doesn't treat its customers as criminals who only have 24 hours to prove they are innocent but this bill would move that decision from the company to the government.

As many of you are aware, I am working on a new http://NicaPlaza.com. Exactly what it will have is still evolving. It is being built with new software, ocPortal. As part of the process I am evaluating this software as the platform to be used for the redesigned version of NicaLiving.

One thing is for sure. NP will be more if a reference site rather than a discussion site. What is not for sure yet is whether business promotion belongs here or there. Nor do we even know what form that promotion will ultimately take.

I recently added some statistics gathering to the site in order to better understand our audience. Here is a bit of information on the audience demographics.

• A bit over 50% of our visitors (total people coming to the site) and page views (pages read by site visitors) comes from the US.
• Next comes Nicaragua with around 20%.
• The next three, in order, are Canada, Costa Rica and the UK
• The next is India which, based on our moderation experience, is the source of most of our SPAM.

It’s that time of year again when things are starting to get cold up north and people will be making vacation plans – hopefully to Nicaragua. A long time ago, I mentioned that we would document our advertising policy, the informal advertising. Along the way we decided to change it and we would like to hear what you think - I know everyone can hardly wait! LOL

Confused? Can't find the Search feature? Want other clues to effectively use NL? This page should help.

For some time I have been playing with some Question and Answer software. It is clearly not a replacement for the functionality of more general-purpose web sites such as NicaLiving but it is interesting. Today, I finally got a test site up and running. You can find it at http://qa.a-zliving.com.

Yes, the title/post is intended to be sarcastic. Most of you will get it.

All too often, someone asks a question as to how to do something—here, on another site, in a bar, whatever. They may get one or more answers. Some answers may be useful, other answers not with an assorted third set that will have virtually nothing to do with the question. Your problem is to take the answers you receive and sort them out.

Let me offer an example. Let's say someone asked "What is the exchange rate between US dollars and Nicaraguan córdobas?" Here are some possible answers:

I think most of us would like NicaLiving to be more useful. What I specifically mean is that it could offer a shorter route to answers to questions posed by our target audience—English speakers who are considering moving to Nicaragua or who live there. Susan (sball) and I regularly talk about ideas to do this and, well, regularly disagree.