The Update

The Update has a new Facebook app! Jason Dyer Snowflake has spent a good chunk of time working out the kinks and we’re happy to announce the app is up and running!

 

The new app will deliver all the up-to-date info of The Update to your Facebook profile. Now you can check in without having to leave your main online location!

Here it is in all its delicious apptacular goodness:

Thanks to Jason for all his work, add the app today!

And for those that didn’t know, we have a Facebook group… of course!

The Update is an important part of the NSL community. It holds the latest information for what happens or is going to happen with Northwood Student Life. Not only event information, but updates on students (like Cooper’s trip to Colorado), articles about living life, results from surveys, and random things like “reader rewards" and “Hidden Hangouts.” Basically, The Update keeps the pulse of NSL.

Currently, there are two different versions of The Update and a little confusion about which is which and what the differences are, so we’ve put together a little chart to help you understand why the two exist.

Quality	The Update Online	The Update:Inbox Edition
Timeliness How long until the information is available and how often is it updated	Instant Posts are available immediately online. New posts 2-3 times a week on average	Monthly Email version is sent out once a month and contains the “greatest hits” from the online version.
Interaction How much can you do with the information provided	Direct You can comment on each post and share your own feedback.	Indirect You can respond via e-mail and share thoughts to be included in the future.
Availability How easy is it to re-access the information provided.	Perpetual It’s the Internet, things never go away!	Limited As long as you keep the e-mail.
Search How easy is it to locate specific information that was provided	Integrated At the bottom of each page is a search bar that lets you rediscover anything from any post.	Unavailable There is no search for the Inbox Edition of The Update
Delivery How does it get to you	Multiple Systems You can be alerted to new posts immediately by subscribing via RSS Reader or E-mail.	Single We don’t call it the Inbox Edition for nothing, this version is only available through e-mail.

So there you have it. The differences between the two versions of The Update. The blog is obviously the most in-depth and up-to-date way to keep up with what’s happening in the NSL universe, but the monthly Inbox Edition is a handy way to highlight some of the key ideas and themes.

If you’ve got any feedback on ways to change or improve The Update please contact Luke or leave a comment below.

It might just be that I spent to much time watching those home improvement shows this weekend, but I decided that The Update could use a new design. So here it is, a labor of love, complete with a few great additions.

Less Clutter
The new design has nothing but the posts up top, meaning less to distract the readers. There is still some handy stuff down below, but the new look is more streamlined. There wasn't anything before that wasn't already on the NSL site.

Cohesive Design
The old design didn't look much like the NSL website. The colors, design, everything really, didn't match. This brings a more universal approach.

Easier Commenting
Did you know that you can add comments to posts on The Update? Probably not. The old design made it pretty hard to do. Now you just click where it says the number of comments below each post, and share your thoughts!

Convenient Links
Once you are at the Update it is now easier than ever to get to other places you might want to go like the NSL website, the Northwood Church site, or the NSL photos page.

So that's some of the benefits. That, and it gave me something fun to work on during the weekend. I hope you enjoy the look, but more importantly, I hope it makes it easier to keep coming back and keep up with all that's happening with NSL.

Wanna know a super easy way to get all the latest info from The Update? I thought you might! So today I'm gonna clue you in on RSS (Really Simple Syndication). It's a really simple way to get automatic updates when The Update is updated.
Some of you have e-mail subscriptions already set up. This works great most of the time, but some days I'll be posting more than once (like today) and soon your e-mail inbox will be overflowing with youth groupy goodness. A nice way to avoid all that is to use an RSS Reader. Take a couple minutes and check out this plain-english-no-tech-knowledge-needed-simple-explanation of what RSS is.


So that's all it is! Easy, right? Personally I use Google reader and just have it running on my homepage so I can check whenever I open the internet. Others of you might find Yahoo! or bloglines.com to be better. It's all about making the most useful for you and therefore... really simple!
So find yourself a reader and add click this guy on the right hand side of the screen. Soon you'll be in Update Subscription Heaven, and able to enjoy the newest NSL has to offer at the click of a button!

Have other suggestions for The Update? Leave them in the comments section!

Hey crew, long time no see.

The summer was, quite frankly, AWESOME! Boundary Waters, Splash Camps, Mexico, Paintball, Cookouts, Hangouts, and tons more. There was all sorts of neat-o stuff.

But all that activity led to a little less "what-what" courtesy of the update. So here we are, summer is closing down and the next chapter of cool stuff is coming up, and what better way to get the word out than to revitalize "The Update" for fall 2007?

You'll notice there's a new look and new feel for The Update this year. We are switching to a Blog format, which means a few things are different.

• Posts - Additions now come in the form of "Posts" (anything that is posted to The Update) will be listed in reverse chronological order. Which means that the newest will be at the top, and the oldest at the bottom. This way the latest and greatest is the easiest to find, but you can go back and look at older things if you need.
  
• RSS Feeds- You can SUBSCRIBE to The Update now! I'll hook you up with step-by-step directions in a later post, but if you know how to do RSS (that stands for Really Simple Syndication... so it can't be that hard!) you can now get it going.
• Links & Archives - On the right hand you'll see a place for Links (cool sites to check out) and Archives (older posts). These are both great places to find even more helpful info on the web, so check 'em often.
  

I'm really excited about the changes to the update. We're also still working on the new Student section of the new Northwood Website. I'll keep you posted. That's it for now, more soon!