We require the downtime in order to make some database changes.

While we expect the changes to take less than 10 minutes to complete, we’ve giving notice for downtime between 11:00 and 11:30 BST.

During this time, Siteleaders will not be able to login to their sites and visitors to sites will see an unbranded page letting them know that essential maintenance is underway and that they should return later.

Thanks for your patience – it’s appreciated.

The new file manager really does make it a lot easy to find, access and use all the different additions to your website. All your files are now displayed in List View…

…or in thumbnail view:

In List View you can sort by name, size, upload date and file type.

It’s also easy to increase or reduce the size of the window, making it possible to see more of your files.

You get more detailed feedback about how each upload is progressing, and you can also drag files around from one folder to another.

Take a look and let us know what you think!

This time it’s a minor release. We’ve added the blog feature to around 30 more templates. And we’ve got these great new templates for you too:

Take a look and let us know what you think!

We’re very happy to say that in the Online Website Builder Group Test WebEden was given Silver!

We beat many other website builders from some of the biggest names in the business. It’s a proud day for everyone here at WebEden!

My thanks go to both you, the customers (without whom all this would be pointless!) and of course the developers, hard at work in the windowless box…

We’ve been taking about the new blog feature for the best part of 2 years, and it has been a long and intense bit of work to finally produce it. The product is still in beta so we’re really like to hear if you have any comments about how we can improve it.

To start with, we’ve got 9 awesome templates that are blog specific for you to choose from. If you prefer then you can just use a standard template.

If you just want to add a blog to your website, get started by clicking the new ‘blog’ button on the WebEden toolbar

That gets you into the new Dashboard:

from where you can add an Text Post, and image post, or an article post:

The two other main options from the dashboard are to manage your posts, or your comments:

Within settings you can control general stuff like posts per page, comments per page, author info, comments management, and where you want to upload images to:

That’s it

We’re really happy to get this product live, and we hope you enjoy using it. We’d really like to know if you have any feedback about the blog feature. Let us know what you think below, or the WebEden Facebook page or on Twitter.

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The chances are it’s probably both. And it’s the idea that we use both – search engines and recommendations from friends – that’s behind new search engine ‘Qyo‘.

Qyo is..

“…the world’s first search query sharing system that allows for social information discovery and real-time collaborative search”. Ahem. Snappy, ain’t it?

What that means in practical terms, is that when you search online on a particular topic, and you have social connections who know a bit about that topic, then it’s easier for them to make recommendations to you.

Qyo asks you to connect your Facebook account to enable “collaborative search”. To use the example above, let’s say you are researching travel across Sweden, you might find that one of your friends has been there, and is able to see your searches and respond within Qyo with their own recommendations and advice.

It’s such a neat idea that Google itself is considering doing something similar – you may now already be in Google+, and this feature is what will grow from Google circles.

Take a look at Qyo and let us know what you find.

We’ve now brought this effect to WebEden so that you can take advantage of it too!

Now, when in edit mode there’s a new ‘pop up’ tab in the Editor which let’s you set the pop-up flag, the pop-up image and an image caption.

This is what the editor looks like:

This means that any image can be popped up to full size, so that your visitors can get it in all its original glory.

This is what the same image looks like when popped up on the screen:

NB. This feature isn’t available for images inside galleries or frames, but we’ll look at extending it further in the future.

The only drawback at the moment is that this isn’t available for images inside galleries or those in frames.

That’s it

Take a look at the new features and let us know what you think by leaving a comment on the blog, Facebook or Twitter.

Now the BBC has taken up the challenge by launching a project called ‘First Click Friends‘.

The aim is to help an estimated 9 million people in the UK who have never even used the Internet.

Can you rescue a Newbie?

The BBC wants us more tech-savvy people to become the ‘first click friends’ of these people, rescuing friends or family members from the web-ignorance.

The idea is to guide their first few steps on the web, giving users the knowledge and skill to navigate themselves deeper into the web.

There are downloadable starter manuals, further resources and information about the project all on the new BBC ‘First click friends’ website.

Well if you’re a fan of domain names then you might be excited to hear that there’s a new one on the way – the .XXX. But before you rush out and buy one beware: this is for adult content only!

The Internet’s governing body – the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) recently approved the new .XXX domain but will restrict it to ‘adult content’ Web sites.

ICANN have been chewing this over for a decade but gave it final approval at its annual meeting in San Francisco in March, voting 9-3 to approve the domain.

There’s actually quite a few governments, including the U.S., opposed the creation of the domains. And surprisingly, the Free Speech Coalition, which represents some of the adult industry, were also against it.

Perhaps the only ones to profit will be those selling the new domain extension – thought to cost $60 each.

And no, WebEden will not be offering the .XXX for sale!

What do you think – a good idea because it clearly marks out adults sites? Or is this just another money making exercise for ICANN and the registrars? Leave us a comment below.