Site upgrades on the way

Hey Newschoolers,

Hope you guys have been having an exciting summer so far, maybe some of you even got to stay in close proximity to the snow. Well, not NoPoles or I. We've been working hard getting the site ready for another season and there are a few changes we wanted to give you a heads up about.

First off, as of tonight (August 1st) we'll be changing our Banner Ad serving system to support industry standard (gasp!) banners sizes and get on board with the system the good people over at Studio411 are running. Here's what you'll notice tonight:

- The site has been widened to 955px. Real estate was added to the right-hand sidebar to allow for a new vertical 160x600 banner size which will be placed below the quick links of each page.

- Our old 468x60 banners, the ones you see in the forums and throughout the rest of the site, are being replaced by now-standard 728x90. The banners will be moved from below the navigation in the content area, to the header. Which brings us to...

- The header, which has been heightened to allow for this new banner space. Banners will show up on all but the portal and login pages. It's our hope that we've been able to implement these larger banners in a way that still puts the focus on the content of each page.

There are a couple of screen captures posted in my blog if you want to check out how this will look. Once this change has been implemented Paul and I go back to work on the site, getting all the new features dialed and styled for the beginning of October.

Still to come: changes to profiles, the login page, portal, and a tweaked new look and navigation. We've also got an upgrade to the cults system that we think everyone's going to be really stoked on. Until then enjoy the rest of your summer and please feel free to let us know what you think of the changes via PM or e-mail (cko@newschoolers.com).