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DonRocks

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The short answer is, there's no effective way to convert an image in JPG, GIF, etc. format to a vector image. You have to redraw. Some of the advanced graphics packages have an "autotrace" feature that sort of does this, but I wouldn't consider the resulting image high-quality - you still have to edit.

Bottom line - someone with Photoshop or the equivalent needs to rebuild your logo files for you.

Thank you, sir! This is the type of brass tacks info I need.

Now to find that certain someone. :)

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We recently paid $100 to someone to create a vector file for a sports' team. If you get to the point of wanting to pay for this, let me know and i will forward the contact information. Once you have a vector file, you can create stickers, magnets, hats, apparel, huge flags to mark your location at Don Rockwell picnics and other group events, maybe even wrap your car in the logo. Actually, I don't know if you can create a car wrap, but that place below Caribbean Grill could help with that. Anyway, our team logo is just a multicolor logo with the team name. Not sure how it works with a photo or what that cost would be.

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We recently paid $100 to someone to create a vector file for a sports' team. If you get to the point of wanting to pay for this, let me know and i will forward the contact information. Once you have a vector file, you can create stickers, magnets, hats, apparel, huge flags to mark your location at Don Rockwell picnics and other group events, maybe even wrap your car in the logo. Actually, I don't know if you can create a car wrap, but that place below Caribbean Grill could help with that. Anyway, our team logo is just a multicolor logo with the team name. Not sure how it works with a photo or what that cost would be.

Don, why not set up a special paypal account for this where those of us so inclined can send in $10, $50 or whatever we're able to do? I bet you get more than enough cash and, when coupled with good vendor suggestions like Lizzie's, this can get underway. If you get too much cash, you can just be transparent about how it'd be used, return it, use it for Matt's college fund, or whatever.

Many want stickers while restaurants will be proudly posting them. Others want t-shirts. I may be the only one that wants a ball cap. And that's all I have to say about that.

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Don, why not set up a special paypal account for this where those of us so inclined can send in $10, $50 or whatever we're able to do? I bet you get more than enough cash and, when coupled with good vendor suggestions like Lizzie's, this can get underway. If you get too much cash, you can just be transparent about how it'd be used, return it, use it for Matt's college fund, or whatever.

Many want stickers while restaurants will be proudly posting them. Others want t-shirts. I may be the only one that wants a ball cap. And that's all I have to say about that.

Honestly, I don't want to take the quantum leap of accepting donations for anything at all just yet. I heard from the designer/printer BUT my laptop got fried so I'm on makeshift computers for the next few days. I will need that vector file done, eventually, so if someone wants to help with that, that would be great - it's not on the critical path yet, but might be in about a week.

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I know this thread has moved on, but to address your first question, I had some thoughts.

I'm sitting here, sipping a Willett, and wondering why Yelp is kicking my ass ......

One problem may be the site access. I resisted joining for ages because of delays in getting an account set up. I know it only takes a day or two but almost every other "member site" out there allows damn near instant sign up and access.

Another thing that may drive people away is the fact you can't search the site without being a member. When I first found the site, I tried to do a search for say "minibar" and got shut out because I needed to log in first. I said, "screw it" and went somewhere else to find what I was looking for. I didn't end up joining the site until a couple of years later.

Maybe that just means I'm an impatient jerk, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been put off by not being able to at least search the site without being a member.

I'm sure you have good reasons for a non-automatic membership and a member-only search policy, but both policies slowed me down in joining/participating.

Just an FYI, that's all.

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I know this thread has moved on, but to address your first question, I had some thoughts.

One problem may be the site access. I resisted joining for ages because of delays in getting an account set up. I know it only takes a day or two but almost every other "member site" out there allows damn near instant sign up and access.

Another thing that may drive people away is the fact you can't search the site without being a member. When I first found the site, I tried to do a search for say "minibar" and got shut out because I needed to log in first. I said, "screw it" and went somewhere else to find what I was looking for. I didn't end up joining the site until a couple of years later.

Maybe that just means I'm an impatient jerk, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been put off by not being able to at least search the site without being a member.

I'm sure you have good reasons for a non-automatic membership and a member-only search policy, but both policies slowed me down in joining/participating.

Just an FYI, that's all.

This is very useful information, and exactly the type of thing I need to hear.

Back when I thought the world was going to beat down my door, I restricted a lot of things from non-members, including the biggest perk of all - the dining guide which I decided to (at least temporarily) open to the public last Christmas. It's being viewed quite a bit.

I haven't even recently thought about the fact that non-members can't search the site, and need to revisit that based on your comment. Long ago, I disabled the searching capability for non-members, hoping to add that as a perk for those who post here (this site is completely worthless without members who post, and they deserve to be rewarded; nevertheless, searching is a pretty fundamental thing.)

When I founded the website back in April, 2005, I was pretty much begged not to require real names because of member privacy (incidentally, we have a very large percentage of female members). So I made a promise to everyone that I'd not violate their confidence in registering with their real names - the integrity of everything boils down to one thing: "Do we trust Don and the membership directors to keep our identities private." In seven years, that trust has not been violated, and that's something I'm very proud of. All I have to do is push a button, and membership can be instantaneous; instead, we require people to give us a real name (which we manually verify for every member!), city of residence, and to disclose (in private and in confidence) any industry affiliation. Does this limit the number of people here? Oh, God yes it does. And yes, you're right - things like this are exactly why websites like Yelp have so many more members (well not to mention funding, marketing, etc.)

Likewise, the Professionals and Businesses forum which only a subset of our members can post on - long-time members who have posted here before and who have stood up to peer scrutiny of their restaurant reviews. It is such a pleasure to see someone posting in that forum because they are so highly valued that their posts remain unedited and trusted blindly. The content in the Professionals and Businesses forum is awesome, yet is by definition limited.

All these requirements can be lifted at any time, to any degree, but I've always felt that once you open that floodgate, there's no going back. I recently found out that people who sign up through Twitter (Tw'eaters, I call them - who, by the way, cannot post but CAN search!) cannot reuse their email addresses if they ever want to sign up for full-fledged membership and begin posting. I just realized this yesterday afternoon when Aykan Demiroglu signed up through Twitter, then couldn't post - I couldn't add him as a "regular" member because his email address was in use. I had to delete his Twitter account before I could add him as a regular member. This makes me wonder if I should disable the ability to register through Twitter since none of these users can ever sign up for a regular account using the same email address.

So much to think about. There's no question in my mind that the more stringent the requirements for membership, the better-quality content we'll have, but that limits the number of participants which by definition limits the amount of content. It sure seems to me like it's one or the other, and I've opted for "total respect" rather than sheer volume.

Have I made the right decision? Does anyone have any opinions here as to what I can ease up on? It is much more important to me to get posts than it is views because ultimately, it's quality of content (yet, paradoxically, quantity of content) that will attract viewership which in turn will attract advertisers and venture capital (regarding advertisers, the people who *do* read this website are the crème de la crème - the tenderloin (or I suppose I should say the dry-aged ribeye) - of the internet-foodie target market). If I could ever find a programmer - and all it would take is a college intern with basic HTML skills willing to do minimal work in exchange for recognition and reference - then I believe we could survive and thrive, but despite having an M.S. in Computer Science, this is not something I can do myself.

BTW, could you all go onto Facebook and "Like" the dcdining.com page (you can find it through my personal homepage). Things like that are very helpful, and you'll see that the posts from dcdining.com are very limited in number, and very content-driven (i.e., it's worth Liking). Thank you!

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I have not heard back from my friend, and I haven't seen her on facebook for awhile. I don't know what's up. If anyone else has someone they can call on to help, please do so.

I have heard back from my friend. She has 2 small children and has returned to work fulltime, and says she is sorry but she cannot take on the graphics work at this time.

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Have I made the right decision? Does anyone have any opinions here as to what I can ease up on?

The limited nature of it is both the charm and the value, as you've pointed out. I would not automate memberships - I suspect you'd spend as much time kicking out jerks and bots as you do now not letting them in to begin with.

As for searching and area access to non-members - yes, but limited to forums and maybe only the review-type forums (not the gatherings forum, not the member profiles, probably not even the help wanteds). If it is possible, you could have any search return the dining guide as the first return, if that search keyword is mentioned in the dining guide. That way you're mostly funneling outsiders through the guide, which helps you keep your reputation for quality places and reviews while putting their search into a 'filtered' neighborhood context. Without this, they'd never see the guide, which I believe adds a second dimension to your content (instead of vertical looks at a single restaurant, horizontal looks at surrounding restaurants).

I'm not a "shut the door closed behind me" kind of guy - I generally believe the internet is best when it is open. However, to differentiate and thus maybe make some money, I believe you want some heavy filtering and exclusivity. There's much written about the success of 'cult' psychology, where some barrier to membership makes a group more desirable, both from the outside and to defend it from within. I recall waiting a few days for login approval and thinking that maybe it was because my only 'cred' was that I spend way too much on dining out....I'm not an insider, I don't know Peter Chang from P.F. Chang, etc. But that wait makes me think that I best not be a jerk here, and makes me appreciate that I take way more from here than I give.

How do you monetize that? That's up to you I suppose. But I'm glad that you recogize that major changes to make this more valuable may in fact wipe away whatever value is here.

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This community could quickly devolve to "DC Chowhound" if member registration is loosened up. The process of being verified creates a sense of membership which comes with a normative obligation to be a good citizen. I like that. Content quality is very high. I LEARN stuff here!

Monetizing the site doesn't necessarily require sheer volume. A segment such as the Rockwellians are extremely valuable for certain types of businesses. Restaurants, obviously, but the lifestyle habits of discriminating diners tend to attract other types of businesses, too. In media terms, the CPM of a community like this one could be pretty high.

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This community could quickly devolve to "DC Chowhound" if member registration is loosened up. The process of being verified creates a sense of membership which comes with a normative obligation to be a good citizen. I like that. Content quality is very high. I LEARN stuff here!

Monetizing the site doesn't necessarily require sheer volume. A segment such as the Rockwellians are extremely valuable for certain types of businesses. Restaurants, obviously, but the lifestyle habits of discriminating diners tend to attract other types of businesses, too. In media terms, the CPM of a community like this one could be pretty high.

As long as Jackie and Pat don't mutiny, I think membership verification is here to stay for awhile. :)

Speaking of CPM, does anyone have any idea how to get the metrics of this website? I was asked for them recently, and was embarrassed not to be able to produce any answers - we used to have Google's analytics plugged in, but somehow it got unplugged with an upgrade.

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I'm quite sure this isn't the quick-and-dirty metrics answer that you're looking for, but I haven't had any trouble installing the google analytics tracking code on a few different websites, simply by following the Google Analytics install instructions.

That being said, this guy seems to be hawking an Invision-ready tool for Google Analytics: http://community.invisionpower.com/files/file/5142-enhanced-google-analytics/.

Also, if you become more interested in making metrics-based decisions on website design, content, etc, I highly recommend Avinash Kaushik's "Web Analytics 2.0". I know web years are like dog years and this book was published in 2009, but it's well-written, digestible, clear and, to my eyes, still highly relevant and useful.

Alex

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I'm quite sure this isn't the quick-and-dirty metrics answer that you're looking for, but I haven't had any trouble installing the google analytics tracking code on a few different websites, simply by following the Google Analytics install instructions.

That being said, this guy seems to be hawking an Invision-ready tool for Google Analytics: http://community.inv...ogle-analytics/.

Also, if you become more interested in making metrics-based decisions on website design, content, etc, I highly recommend Avinash Kaushik's "Web Analytics 2.0". I know web years are like dog years and this book was published in 2009, but it's well-written, digestible, clear and, to my eyes, still highly relevant and useful.

Alex

Honestly, the metrics that I personally care about the most are 1) posts per day (which Invision keeps track of nicely) and 2) average duration of visit (the latter is a statistic of which I'm quite proud - it's pretty darned high ... people come here and hang out which (I'm not kidding) makes it *all* worthwhile).

That having been said, I suspect an investor couldn't give a whit about either of the above (which is fairly short-signted IMO because everything else can follow from these). And I guess I really don't care as much about the first as the second because if I did, there wouldn't be any moderation - maybe I should restate it as "posts per day given that the moderator is a persnickety testicle."

ETA - Awesome! I just coined a term that's not on Google (I liked the rat-a-tat cadence to it).

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This community could quickly devolve to "DC Chowhound" if member registration is loosened up. The process of being verified creates a sense of membership which comes with a normative obligation to be a good citizen. I like that. Content quality is very high. I LEARN stuff here! .

What do you mean about "devolving to something like DC Chowhound"?

The thing that Chowhound has going for it is it's ease of use for locals and out of towners. I can imagine a lot of travelers to DC check the various food sites and spend a lot more time on Chowhound because when they search for Komi, for instance, something comes up other than you need to login to see the content. I'm starting to restate my point from above, but it happened again to me last night.....I was using my wife's iPad to seach for something and got locked out/blocked out by the login.

I recently went to Miami and did all my restaurant reseach on Chowhound because it was easy. Maybe no one cares about ease of use for non-locals, but I'm sure the same issue drives locals away too.

But back to my original quesiton, what's wrong with Chowhound? Lowest common denominator?

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But back to my original quesiton, what's wrong with Chowhound? Lowest common denominator?

You can go to the thread on Chowhound to see my diatribes, but... I am a very frequent Chowound user, I probably have over 10,000 posts on the site. I do like it for traveling and for what just opened, where, etc. And there are some places mentioned that aren't mentioned on here often, more whole in the wall type places.

BUT I find the discussions are not as in depth, users are not generally as informed, there are some great people- most of them are also on here, and often people make really stupid comments. Also I get REALLY tired of answering the same tourist questions over and over again. There are not very in depth reviews of restaurants or the type of detailed information you can find on here. I answer tourist questions on there because I feel like someone needs to, and often point them to similar threads. Chowhound is more of a public service, DR is more fun, more in depth and more personal. If it lost that I would be really disappointed. I actually like some of the exclusivity because it means people often take this site more seriously. I also like that users are more accountable for what they say here.

I do think the screening process for becoming a member is essential. I agree that perhaps non-users should be able to get a "taste" of what the site is about by being able to see a limited amount of content and not all the specialty threads.

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You can go to the thread on Chowhound to see my diatribes, but... I am a very frequent Chowound user, I probably have over 10,000 posts on the site. I do like it for traveling and for what just opened, where, etc. And there are some places mentioned that aren't mentioned on here often, more whole in the wall type places.

BUT I find the discussions are not as in depth, users are not generally as informed, there are some great people- most of them are also on here, and often people make really stupid comments. Also I get REALLY tired of answering the same tourist questions over and over again. There are not very in depth reviews of restaurants or the type of detailed information you can find on here. I answer tourist questions on there because I feel like someone needs to, and often point them to similar threads. Chowhound is more of a public service, DR is more fun, more in depth and more personal. If it lost that I would be really disappointed. I actually like some of the exclusivity because it means people often take this site more seriously. I also like that users are more accountable for what they say here.

I do think the screening process for becoming a member is essential. I agree that perhaps non-users should be able to get a "taste" of what the site is about by being able to see a limited amount of content and not all the specialty threads.

What she said, +1000.

It is RARE to find a useful review on Chowhound. "I'm coming to DC - rate my list of restaurants!" "Tell me the places where tourists don't go!" "I want to eat at the best DC has to offer!" It's the same old, same old, every day. No one there bothers to post reviews any more. It serves a purpose, but usually not MY purpose.

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What do you mean about "devolving to something like DC Chowhound"?

The thing that Chowhound has going for it is it's ease of use for locals and out of towners. I can imagine a lot of travelers to DC check the various food sites and spend a lot more time on Chowhound because when they search for Komi, for instance, something comes up other than you need to login to see the content. I'm starting to restate my point from above, but it happened again to me last night.....I was using my wife's iPad to seach for something and got locked out/blocked out by the login.

I recently went to Miami and did all my restaurant reseach on Chowhound because it was easy. Maybe no one cares about ease of use for non-locals, but I'm sure the same issue drives locals away too.

But back to my original quesiton, what's wrong with Chowhound? Lowest common denominator?

Bart, thanks for these candid comments.

Can you give me some suggestions that you think a CH out-of-towner might like to see? Honestly, there's a good chance I'll implement them.

In terms of the Search function, I'm going to add that right now - I can always remove it later, but quite honestly, opening up the dining guide to the general public seems to have increased participation, for whatever reason (probably because it increased member registrations).

I can't see opening up any type of posting to anything but full-fledged members, but I'm willing to listen to people - the one thing I'm worried about is out-of-towners need help, fast, and they don't have time to go through the registration process; on the other hand, they may not be likely to be return members (although I'd still like to help them somehow).

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Okay, visitors can search now. :)

Sweet! That was my "gripe" before I joined. I try not to be too impatient, but I've noticed for me personally, that a side effect of the instantaneous nature of life on the internet, is that I'll blow something off if it requires more than a click or two. It's ridiculous, I know but that seems to be the way it is for me (and many others I'm sure). Case in point - if someone sends me a link to a newspaper article I'll read it if it opens when I click on it, but I'll blow it off if the site makes me register first. Hell, I don't even bother with youtube videos on my iphone because they take all of 10 seconds to load! It will be interesting to see it the increased access (even as read only) will increase the membership and participation.

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Sweet! That was my "gripe" before I joined. I try not to be too impatient, but I've noticed for me personally, that a side effect of the instantaneous nature of life on the internet, is that I'll blow something off if it requires more than a click or two. It's ridiculous, I know but that seems to be the way it is for me (and many others I'm sure). Case in point - if someone sends me a link to a newspaper article I'll read it if it opens when I click on it, but I'll blow it off if the site makes me register first. Hell, I don't even bother with youtube videos on my iphone because they take all of 10 seconds to load! It will be interesting to see it the increased access (even as read only) will increase the membership and participation.

I'm the same way as you are, and also, dcs (member dcs) reminded me today of an idea I'd long ago thought about (with his permission, I'm going to cut/paste his PM to see what people think, but I'm waiting to hear back from him).

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I'm the same way as you are, and also, dcs (member dcs) reminded me today of an idea I'd long ago thought about (with his permission, I'm going to cut/paste his PM to see what people think, but I'm waiting to hear back from him).

And here it is:

"Can you create a separate guest forum that guests can see and post to without having to register? Maybe if people can "test post" in a separate forum and get some positive responses, they will realize that posting is not all that scary and actually sign up and participate. This could also lure in the last-minute type who needs a questioned answered quick, but does not have enough time to go through the registration process. If a bunch of dunderheads try to take over the forum with nonsense you could just delete it. It could be an experiment, and keeping it a separate forum would avoid gumming up the rest of the site. Just an idea, but I am not even sure it is technologically possible."

What do you all think? It's extremely easy to do - I could have this ready to go this afternoon. I could make it the Help Needed forum, perhaps? That would be in keeping with the spirit with helping others. If I wanted to make it less of a free-for-all, I could allow Twitter and Facebook users to post in that forum only (that's not a bad idea, right?), but not allow just anybody, because then we'd have automated robots that post from overseas and it gets ugly in a hurry.

(As I'm typing this and thinking about it, the decision is sort-of making itself.)

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What about allowing guest posting for people who are validating?

That's very doable - can you handle it on your end? Problem is, if they don't complete the validation process correctly (or honestly), I'd need to delete the posts manually and it becomes sort-of ugly looking, especially if people reply to their posts. We could try it for awhile and see how it goes, but I think it might be asking for trouble.

Do you think that allowing Visitors to post in the Help Needed forum obviates this need?

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That's very doable - can you handle it on your end? Problem is, if they don't complete the validation process correctly (or honestly), I'd need to delete the posts manually and it becomes sort-of ugly looking, especially if people reply to their posts. We could try it for awhile and see how it goes, but I think it might be asking for trouble.

Do you think that allowing Visitors to post in the Help Needed forum obviates this need?

you're going to want to moderate everything and then choose what gets posted or not, otherwise you'll be overrun by posts from bots if you allow them to post while waiting to validate.

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That's very doable - can you handle it on your end? Problem is, if they don't complete the validation process correctly (or honestly), I'd need to delete the posts manually and it becomes sort-of ugly looking, especially if people reply to their posts. We could try it for awhile and see how it goes, but I think it might be asking for trouble.

Do you think that allowing Visitors to post in the Help Needed forum obviates this need?

I haven't thought a lot about this, but it seems like segregating to one forum makes it easier (for you or for whomever you designate) to deal with. That should probably be a completely separate forum so that someone can sort out bots and trolls. This is probably more a PM'ing thing, but it seems that the new software is pretty good at rooting out spam and undesirables, better than it used to be.

One aspect of the past and current design is that it's very hard for bots and trolls to get in here. Picking a balance between that status quo and more activity is going to mean more need to moderate to keep spammers, etc. out. Manually approving people definitely helps.

And if you do allow validating people to post, I would recommend choosing someone to moderate that because it will drive you out of your mind, Don. You don't have time for that.

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Speaking of CPM, does anyone have any idea how to get the metrics of this website? I was asked for them recently, and was embarrassed not to be able to produce any answers - we used to have Google's analytics plugged in, but somehow it got unplugged with an upgrade.

I can't stress enough how this website is going nowhere without the following:

1) A technical person who can act as liaison between Dreamhost (our host) and Invision (our software). The work here requires more perseverance than HTML skills, but there would be some minimal HTML coding involved, ideally.

2) A marketer to solicit ads (and to coordinate with our technical person to implement them) - there's no reason we can't have a single, very high-priced ad at the top of each page, perhaps a different restaurant each week. The publicity for those restaurants would be huge, even if nobody clicked on the ads and everybody just saw them. Of course I don't know how much since I have no idea how to get our metrics.

3) A community liaison to get the word out about dr.com and dcdining.com, and to help me to seek investors and venture capital.

There's no imminent danger of anything crumbling, I assure you (keeping this going at the current pace is quite doable, albeit one heck of a lot of work without any rest), but in the long, long term (a decade, two decades out)? Not sustainable, I can tell you that much. I'm good at what I do (critiquing restaurants, maintaining the forums, keeping a city-wide dining guide current and correct), but I'm right at the border of what one human, even a super-human, can do without compromising quality (most companies would require ten people to do those three things the way they should be done, and I'm winging them in my spare time). I *love* working on them, but I need help with the peripherals and the business end of things here, badly. I'm never really tried to seek investors, but I'm ready to entertain business plans. Obviously, investors should not count on me compromising my principles under any circumstances, or obtaining equity in almost ten years of my life and mega-content without a very, very serious proposal. Volunteers here deserve to be paid something, and people who have busted their rear ends in the past like hillvalley and mktye deserve something too. I'd rather things just remain the way they are and I'll just keep waiting if I have to. Someday, something good will happen.

I'll probably delete this message in the morning, but these are just some thoughts I'm throwing out there.

Where's the MacArthur grant, dammit? Why doesn't a major publication or well-funded enterprise lease this website and plug it in to their own?

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You know what else you need? An app.

I can't believe I just typed that becuase I'm a recent convert to the whole world of smart phones and apps and previously sort of turned my nose up at the whole idea, but I was driving home last night (actually riding) and we as we got near that new high end food shop, Society Fair, I wanted some information on what it was, how it was being received, etc and one of things that popped was a review in Urban Spoon (this was the first I heard of this outfit). They also had a free app, which is very similar to the yelp app.

I don't know if you want to go down this road but all the kids today are doing it. Of course this will cost money to develop. Maybe you could charge for it, but that would probably limit the appeal and the traffic. I downloaded Urban Spoon becuase it was free and I'll probably use it in counjuntion with yelp, chowhoud, DR, WashPost, etc.

I don't know if an app with further your cause or take you down a road you don't want to travel but these things are the wave of the future (or the wave of the present) for all sorts of things and all sorts of people use them. Might be worth looking into.

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You know what else you need? An app.

Now that the Dining Guide is available to the public, anyone with an iPhone can create their own "app" in a matter of seconds.

Bring up the dining guide on your iPhone, and then hit the little plus sign (+) at the bottom of the screen. This puts it as a one-touch icon - I have all four from DC (DC, MD, VA, Multiple Locations) on mine, and use them every day.

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Now that the Dining Guide is available to the public, anyone with an iPhone can create their own "app" in a matter of seconds.

Bring up the dining guide on your iPhone, and then hit the little plus sign (+) at the bottom of the screen. This puts it as a one-touch icon - I have all four from DC (DC, MD, VA, Multiple Locations) on mine, and use them every day.

I guess most people could probably figure this out, but it wouldn't hurt to add this information to the text you have on the front page about bookmarking the URL and using it on your phone. "iPhone users can make their own app..."

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I guess most people could probably figure this out, but it wouldn't hurt to add this information to the text you have on the front page about bookmarking the URL and using it on your phone. "iPhone users can make their own app..."

Like that? :)

I'm not just pimping when I say actually use my iPhone dining guide "app" every day, and I'm the author of the bloody thing. (We must be getting up to 2,000 restaurants - I know all the bold-italic-normal ratings by memory, but it's more like, 'hmmm ... where to go this evening? Ah, yes - SE Capitol Hill, haven't been there in awhile'. And when I see SE Capitol Hill, I'm reminded that I've taken some heat over my Chesapeake Room rating, for example, (a couple people have written me recently and think I've got it rated too high) and need to revisit and reevaluate).

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You know what else you need? An app.

I can't believe I just typed that becuase I'm a recent convert to the whole world of smart phones and apps and previously sort of turned my nose up at the whole idea, but I was driving home last night (actually riding) and we as we got near that new high end food shop, Society Fair, I wanted some information on what it was, how it was being received, etc and one of things that popped was a review in Urban Spoon (this was the first I heard of this outfit). They also had a free app, which is very similar to the yelp app.

I don't know if you want to go down this road but all the kids today are doing it. Of course this will cost money to develop. Maybe you could charge for it, but that would probably limit the appeal and the traffic. I downloaded Urban Spoon becuase it was free and I'll probably use it in counjuntion with yelp, chowhoud, DR, WashPost, etc.

I don't know if an app with further your cause or take you down a road you don't want to travel but these things are the wave of the future (or the wave of the present) for all sorts of things and all sorts of people use them. Might be worth looking into.

I actually use the Invision IPBoards App on my iPhone and just have this board as the only one that shows up. I actually think its pretty useful.

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In anticipation of the forever-rumored iphone5, I'm still clinging to a 4-year-old blackberry. You know, the kind without even a camera and with very minimal capability or memory to support the generally lame apps written for the death-spiraling RIM.

But, all that aside, dr.com presents pretty well on it. Very usable despite the lack of really any bells or whistles.

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I am old. And I am also tired of learning new things..every two years...now.

I have a Blackberry World that I have used on either side of the Atlantic for three or four years. (Has it been five?) I was one of the first to have this and I only reluctantly parted with my Treo when I bought it. Of course the Treo had a camera and the Blackberry doesn't. But it has the internet, e-mail and allows me to make expensive phone calls back to the U. S. when I am elsewhere.

I am typing this on my laptop. In the upper right hand corner of my screeen, on AOL, I have "favorites." When I click on this I must have 50 or more although I really only use 10 or so each day. I don't have more than 50 because that seemed like excess. I also don't pay a penny to a single website that I go on. Not even the European "foosball" sites to follow Bayern Munchen when they play and I want to watch them (whom I have actually flown to Munich to see play; I note this for my passion.). I may watch them on a website where the announcers speak Arabic but I can still watch them. For free.

I don't understand the significance of an "APP." I can google almost anything I want on my laptop, desktop and Blackberry. Why should I pay for an "APP?" I have a navigation system that I can take with me, I already carry my Blackberry and sometimes my laptop. Why do I need an I Phone or a Droid? So I can pay for a particular "APP?" A larger screen? Three and one half inches? Four? I bitch about my laptop being too small which is 15".

Yes, I understand that eventually I'll probably have to buy an I Phone or a Droid. But I walk by the Apple store at Tysons and the Apple store at Reston Town Center at least once a week each as part of a daily routine that I do to grow old with a bit of physical fitness. Nobody in either is over 40. Actually, I don't think many are over 30. (Of course most on Yelp aren't over 30 either...)

I can't resist typing this (yes, typing-I once went to a typing class in high school...years ago...) because I don't want to learn a new system of knowledge every two years. I also don't really understand "APPS" as long as there is "google." Of course a year or two ago I didn't understand "google" so maybe I'm just slow. (But I'll challenge anyone on here in a "typing" contest: many decades ago I won a contest typing 120 WPM for ten minutes with no errors! Serious....no erfors!)

I'm also guessing that in places like The Villages a concept like "APPS" is absolutely cutting edge. Forgive my "inside" humor for those of you who have never heard of The Villages.

I'm sorry. I'm just at a point where I don't think the world needs to be reinvented every two years. Of course a humongous number of tech companies would disagree with this-their livelihood depends on it.) For those of you reading this in your office and it is now after 8 o'clock at night-a sincere apology. I relate to long hours. I just don't relate to long hours trying to force me to learn another epistemology. (First time I've used this word since college...decades ago.)

Forgive me, I just couldn't resist responding reading about the importance of "APPS."

...I also can't type like I use to.

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... I don't understand the significance of an "APP." ...

I didn't until Santa brought me an iPad last year, mostly because he got tired of me borrowing his. I have a laptop, but the iPad slips into my handbag, is much lighter to carry, and tablets have their own wireless network on campus that has very little traffic, so I get great signal. Safari (Apple's browser) is clunky on the iPad; you can't block ads which take up both space and bandwidth, and I have yet to figure out how to reset the browser to drop cookies etc., although this problem could be my lack of tech knowledge. I'm going to download the Invision app mentioned above (thank you, Rovers2000), and I have several other apps, including a book reader that I never thought I would use (it's fabulous on planes), and, for demographics' sake, I'm over 40 and carry a Blackberry. You don't necessarily have to learn something new to use apps, but parsing out the things you like best about other, larger programs and/or devices and having those items available with a single click and no distractions can be very nice.

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... I don't understand the significance of an "APP." ...

It's the thing that comes before an entree.

This is terrible by any standard - it's not funny, it's not cute, it's not even good enough to cause an eye-roll.

An iROLL, however, (and I'm making this up as I type - I don't even know what I'm going to say yet...) is a new Apple device that costs a lot of bread :( dough. :(

Dough = a Persian yogurt drink.

Dough Haus is what a Germanic Persian is in when he comes home late to his wife.

The drugs are taking hold!

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I am old. And I am also tired of learning new things..every two years...now.

I have a Blackberry World that I have used on either side of the Atlantic for three or four years. (Has it been five?) I was one of the first to have this and I only reluctantly parted with my Treo when I bought it. Of course the Treo had a camera and the Blackberry doesn't. But it has the internet, e-mail and allows me to make expensive phone calls back to the U. S. when I am elsewhere.

I am typing this on my laptop. In the upper right hand corner of my screeen, on AOL, I have "favorites." When I click on this I must have 50 or more although I really only use 10 or so each day. I don't have more than 50 because that seemed like excess. I also don't pay a penny to a single website that I go on. Not even the European "foosball" sites to follow Bayern Munchen when they play and I want to watch them (whom I have actually flown to Munich to see play; I note this for my passion.). I may watch them on a website where the announcers speak Arabic but I can still watch them. For free.

I don't understand the significance of an "APP." I can google almost anything I want on my laptop, desktop and Blackberry. Why should I pay for an "APP?" I have a navigation system that I can take with me, I already carry my Blackberry and sometimes my laptop. Why do I need an I Phone or a Droid? So I can pay for a particular "APP?" A larger screen? Three and one half inches? Four? I bitch about my laptop being too small which is 15".

Yes, I understand that eventually I'll probably have to buy an I Phone or a Droid. But I walk by the Apple store at Tysons and the Apple store at Reston Town Center at least once a week each as part of a daily routine that I do to grow old with a bit of physical fitness. Nobody in either is over 40. Actually, I don't think many are over 30. (Of course most on Yelp aren't over 30 either...)

I can't resist typing this (yes, typing-I once went to a typing class in high school...years ago...) because I don't want to learn a new system of knowledge every two years. I also don't really understand "APPS" as long as there is "google." Of course a year or two ago I didn't understand "google" so maybe I'm just slow. (But I'll challenge anyone on here in a "typing" contest: many decades ago I won a contest typing 120 WPM for ten minutes with no errors! Serious....no erfors!)

I'm also guessing that in places like The Villages a concept like "APPS" is absolutely cutting edge. Forgive my "inside" humor for those of you who have never heard of The Villages.

I'm sorry. I'm just at a point where I don't think the world needs to be reinvented every two years. Of course a humongous number of tech companies would disagree with this-their livelihood depends on it.) For those of you reading this in your office and it is now after 8 o'clock at night-a sincere apology. I relate to long hours. I just don't relate to long hours trying to force me to learn another epistemology. (First time I've used this word since college...decades ago.)

Forgive me, I just couldn't resist responding reading about the importance of "APPS."

...I also can't type like I use to.

I appreciate what you're going for here. I'm 36. I grew up with a typewriter, then had 15 minutes a week on an Apple 2E in 8th grade, took typing in high school, then got an email account in college when no one knew what email was. I got my first smart phone in October. They are not necessary to live your life. But they do make life DAMN convenient.

I don't use DR.com from my smart phone because Sprint makes remote internet access miserable. (To be fair: DR is one of the easiest internet sites to load on my phone, but it can still be a pain because, again, Sprint sucks, and I'm yet an amateur and if I want to see the latest post on a 15-page thread, I have to flip through them all and then scroll way, way down to see new content. But that's a subject for another day....)

An app (Joe H: not an acronym, but short for "application," plural "apps") is a way to access information using the cell network--it comes in fast and you don't have to sit around so long to wait for it to load. And while I appreciate--nay, love... LOVE!--the Dining Guide, when I'm out and about, not at my computer, and finding myself remotely needing a place to go, I frankly have to rely on the Yelp app to map options in the neighborhood I happen to be in, and then try to call on my reliably faulty memory of the Dining Guide and what I've read lately on the Dining branch to lead me. I would really, really love to spike Yelp and just rely on DR, but the lack of an app or a mapping function limits its usefulness for me... and for the large and demographically important group of people who rely on their phones for spur-of-the-moment guidance on where to eat and drink.

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I didn't until Santa brought me an iPad last year, mostly because he got tired of me borrowing his. I have a laptop, but the iPad slips into my handbag, is much lighter to carry, and tablets have their own wireless network on campus that has very little traffic, so I get great signal. Safari (Apple's browser) is clunky on the iPad; you can't block ads which take up both space and bandwidth, and I have yet to figure out how to reset the browser to drop cookies etc., although this problem could be my lack of tech knowledge. I'm going to download the Invision app mentioned above (thank you, Rovers2000), and I have several other apps, including a book reader that I never thought I would use (it's fabulous on planes), and, for demographics' sake, I'm over 40 and carry a Blackberry. You don't necessarily have to learn something new to use apps, but parsing out the things you like best about other, larger programs and/or devices and having those items available with a single click and no distractions can be very nice.

My wife has an IPad and I use it. But I don't like it. The screen is too small. Yes, it's lighter and certainly more convenient but for everyone else on here it's the ideal; for me it's the complete opposite of everything I want. The screen is too small. For all of the convenience I just don't enjoy watching something as much on it as I do on a larger screen. I also don't believe it's quite as convenient as everyone else does: it doesn't fit in my pocket.

Of course you might ask if I want a larger screen then how can I possibly complain because something doesn't fit into my pocket. Or why don't I carry a cable to connect an IPad/laptop/camera/etc. to a larger screen? I would answer that I don't want the awkward bulk of the cable in my pocket but that's not an honest answer.

The real answer is that I'm probably going to buy an IPhone in the next month or two (grudgingly) and I'll even break down and download a number of apps. But, I really believe that I have learned enough in life and really don't want to learn anymore.

Still, when Bayern Munich plays and I can't find them on GolTV or ESPN Desportes I'll watch them on ESPN 3 or a German language broadcast on a Russian website ( http://livetv.ru/en/ ) but it won't be on an IPad or an IPhone or even my 15" laptop. It will be on the biggest screen I can find.

I should note here that I'm not trying to convince anyone else that I am right; rather that I have just reached a point where I don't want to have to double my own personal technical knowledge every two years or so. I was once doing well when I could double it every decade or two. Two years is just out of the question.

Please, I know that I am archaic, backward and without hope of future growth. But that's all right. It's just me.

Did I mention that last night my wife and I watched the 1956 "Don't Knock the Rock" which is now out on DVD? It was the introduction of Little Richard and featured Bill Haley. (Before you laugh watch the two minute video and ask yourself if you can dance like this?

)

Sunday night when we watched the Grammys we actually wondered how tech savvy Mike Love, Johnny Cash or even Bruce Springsteen are? Anyway, I am well off of the topic but it's a good two minute video. To watch on an IPhone or an IPad. Even better on a Big Screen.

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You know what else you need? An app.

I can't believe I just typed that becuase I'm a recent convert to the whole world of smart phones and apps and previously sort of turned my nose up at the whole idea, but I was driving home last night (actually riding) and we as we got near that new high end food shop, Society Fair, I wanted some information on what it was, how it was being received, etc and one of things that popped was a review in Urban Spoon (this was the first I heard of this outfit). They also had a free app, which is very similar to the yelp app.

I don't know if you want to go down this road but all the kids today are doing it. Of course this will cost money to develop. Maybe you could charge for it, but that would probably limit the appeal and the traffic. I downloaded Urban Spoon becuase it was free and I'll probably use it in counjuntion with yelp, chowhoud, DR, WashPost, etc.

I don't know if an app with further your cause or take you down a road you don't want to travel but these things are the wave of the future (or the wave of the present) for all sorts of things and all sorts of people use them. Might be worth looking into.

"I don't know if you want to go down this road but all the kids today are doing it."

Gosh, I'm 68 years old and I've had Urban Spoon, Yelp, and about a dozen other food/restaurant apps, not to mention about 50 other apps, on my iPhone for most of the 4 years I've had an iPhone. Does that make me a kid at heart?

.

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Please, I know that I am archaic, backward and without hope of future growth. But that's all right. It's just me.

And Andy Rooney. RIP.

I only very recently got a smart phone. I still find the hardest thing to do on it is make a phone call. And I'm not even 30.

On that note, what is the easiest way to use the dining guide on a Droid based phone?

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Now that the Dining Guide is available to the public, anyone with an iPhone can create their own "app" in a matter of seconds. Bring up the dining guide on your iPhone, and then hit the little plus sign (+) at the bottom of the screen. This puts it as a one-touch icon - I have all four from DC (DC, MD, VA, Multiple Locations) on mine, and use them every day.

Is it just me? I'm not seeing this plus sign... Do I need to be viewing the 'full version' to have access to this option?

It's links like the one above to New York Magazine that make me wish there was a LIKE button around here :P

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Is it just me? I'm not seeing this plus sign... Do I need to be viewing the 'full version' to have access to this option?

It's links like the one above to New York Magazine that make me wish there was a LIKE button around here :P

It's not part of the actual webpage; it's on the horizontal strip at the bottom of the iPhone screen (this is using Safari).

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