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Author Archives: Xatworld
CONTEST: Come up with Xat’s next game!
Details of this contest can be found within the Xatblogs contests group so I’ll make this short and sweet. 
The basic contest idea is to come up with some fresh ideas for Xat’s next snakebanned, spacebanned, matchbanned type game. Something that will tie in with that concept.
You have just over two weeks to ask questions, to rough out an idea, and to submit it. Hopefully they (Xat) get some good ideas and lots of participation from everyone.
Good luck to everyone! I’m closing comments on this post so as not to confuse anyone about where to submit their idea.
Login to your Xat chat to prevent group transfers
Nothing new here, just a commentary on the importance of logging into your chat groups occasionally if you want to keep them.
As Xat.com chat names become more and more scarce, great chat names are becoming harder and harder to come by. Some may not know this but Xat allows users to purchase chats that have been abandoned by their owners. Xat clearly states on their chat group transfer page that,
“…your group has to be ownerless for more than 3 months to be transferred…”
So, by Xat definition, any chat that hasn’t had owner involvement for more than 3 months is considered abandoned and can freely be purchased by someone else.
My suggestion to all is that if you have a great chat name, calculate your 3-month expiration date, then be sure to either set up an alarm on your mobile phone or have it written down in your organizer. Do what you have to but be sure to minimally sign into your chat, ownered of course, before month 3 rolls around. You’ll be happy you did
Looking for more great information? Go register on Xatblogs.com right now! We’re actively writing their as well.
Familiar Xat world graphic
I’m including this because I’ve seen this graphic floating all around the internet; sometimes as a Xat avatar, a Xat logo or header, a Facebook fan page avatar, etc… I thought it was time to share its source.
The backstory here is that while writing a Xatworld blog post titled “Xatworld Global Sites – More coming!” I needed a graphic; something that captured the essence of that article. The obvious choice for me was the planet earth. I did a bit of Googling and came across the following image.
I brought that image into Photoshop and added a Xat planet blue overlay to get this.
Looking at the PSD it looks like I then used Xat’s own logo to create the lettering.
After removing the navy blue background and blowing up the font, this was the end result; the same graphic that I’ve seen used countless times around the internet.
Xat comics
Twitter / Xat over capacity
Planet Xat with (ss) rocket
Xat fan art group
I’m looking for Fan Art blog staff (editors, and authors) interested in sharing Xat “fan art“. If that sounds like you, and you have a knack for that sort of thing, leave me a private comment below.
Thanks!
XatBlogs.com relaunch details
I’ve been working on getting xatblogs.com back online for a couple of months now. The holdup, apart from ”life”, has primarily been trying to find a solution to a horrendous splog problem that affects this particular bit of software. Ziggy did what he could to keep everything running smoothly, but even so, they occasionally found their way in. With each new splog instance the database just became bigger and bigger and grossly unmanageable. There were also costly bandwidth issues that Ziggy tried to take on but occasionally, as those limits were exceeded, the site got knocked offline. That was then, and a few things have changed to remedy those problems.
During these past months I’ve been bumping the site around from host to host trying to find a balance between cost and efficiency. I finally have all of that sorted out and I’m confident that things will run much more smoothly this time around (*crossing fingers*). The “automated” splog problem will be tackled using either an “invite code”, passphrase or a simple Q&A (something simple).
A version of the above will hopefully be available this weekend when xatBlogs.com finally gets relaunched. Until then, I’ve setup a NEW xatblogs Facebook page for anyone wanting to pre-like the site.
Note: Anyone who had a blog on xatblogs.com will find it on xatblogs.net; a temporary site created specifically to store a backup of your content. Everyone will easily be able to import their existing blog(s) (or any blog for that matter) into the new site.
That’s about it… Stay tuned and thanks for being so patient! 
Changes coming to Xat.com
Today, Xat announced several changes that may ultimately affect how each of us currently use their service. If you routinely make changes to or add content to your Xatspace and/or chat group page, read on…this will affect you.
Xat’s key objectives, and the primary reason for the changes, are directly related to an increase in the abuse that has been occurring within Xat; specifically as it relates to the use of inappropriate images and site redirections to questionable third-party websites.
Allowed Image hosts:
Xat plans on creating a whitelist of sorts to only allow images from certain, high profile, image hosting websites. Although it hasn’t been decided, Tinypic, Imageshack, and Photobucket may all make the list.
Disallowing Flash:
Flash has always been a big problem for Xat. Should end users be allowed to use it or not? Until now they have turned a blind eye to the problem. Now however, due to constant abuse, Xat plans on limiting the use of most third-party flash content. This alone would block the use of flash based redirects, flash widgets, and flash based images. The good news here is that Xat, aware of the collateral impact, has vowed to find workarounds for certain flash specific products (i.e. radio players, games, etc…).
Xat is currently setting up a test area on an unknown Xatspace and will eventually roll out the changes to the chat group pages.