Warning. Long post ahead.

Some may not realize that running a site means alot of behind-the-scenes work. I spend about 5 hours a day on the site besides my full-time job. The only thing you see about that is the occasional news update and sometimes a new feature.
For example, when I changed the layout, it took me over 500 hours spread over 3 months.
Many hours are spend on finding news, replying to mails, checking the guestbook/chatroom/forum, uploading pictures and downloads and working on new things to the site.

Why do I post this message before the real reason of this posting? Because you then may realize of how much time this all takes; When I don't update the site for 1 day, people start complaining. Also the reason of not posting things on times, is most likely because I was at work or asleep.

Now for the real purpose of this post: New stuff coming to Snooty Sims!

Some may remember I talked about the colorchanging feature. A cool way to easily give the entire site another color with the click of a button. Here's a screenshot of how this will look with the current green one for comparison:

Note that I actually was planning on using the Brown layout as a default. It's by the way not just the front page. All the other green you see for example in the Infocenter stuff all the tables; they should change color as well.
Everything is finished; Only need to upload it, make the links and test it.

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Another thing I'm working on is a big update on the Tutorials section. This is one part that is really lacking on this site. Jusinbuzz is helping me alot with this.
At first I wanted to create many tutorials myself. However as I wrote, I really don't have time for this and why re-invent the wheel? There are so many tutorials made by others for example the Sims2.com that it would just be a rewrite. I will ofcourse make one myself when I have the time, but most will be made by others.
So the tutorials will be seperated from the Info Center and will get it's own page with a link on the homepage.
I haven't completely figured it out completely but it will be devided in for example:
- Building tutorials
- Bodyshop tutorials
- Technical stuff (how to put things in the game)
- Story tutorials (how to make good stories and make good pics)
- Misc. tutorials (that doesn't fit in any category like how to change the Nhood).

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A search feature. Did you know that Snooty Sims is made out of almost 200 html pages? Even though one of the main goals of this site is to find stuff easily, with so many pages you may not directly find everything.
The problem for this site is that it's not database driven like this forum is. I could have a database driven site, but if too many people visit, the site may become unreachable (it will have too many 'connections'). I've seen this happen on other sites and this is really something I want to avoid.
So therefor I searched for an alternative and Bravenet has a nice solution. You can find that here: http://www.bravenet.com/webtools/search2/index.php

It's not that great looking and not as sophisticated, but I think it will do the job.
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With all this stuff being added to the right side of the screen (search and color changer), I needed a solution to keep the most important things visible without scrolling down. Someone mailed me a great add-on to do that. With this, I can fit all 4 affiliates in the same space as 1 banner. And even add a new one. Here it is: http://www.news-scroller.com/

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Another thing: Ads. You may know that I hate ads myself. I have a popup blocker and normally never even look at them. However, the Google thing is not that bad. it's just text links and it even has some interesting things on them. I even clicked a couple times on it because I saw something of my interest (even though I'm not allowed to since it's on my site).
Since it's so hidden (you have to scroll down to see it), it's not earning much; just a small percentage of this sites's costs.

Now I really would like to have something that would make this site self-suporting; as in that this site pays for itself. Heat, who you may know from the forums, sent me a link to something that would acomplish this. I haven't looked at it yet, but don't worry, I won't have pop-ups/unders on this site ever nor will it get a prominent space.
Though this is ofcourse none of your interest, I wanted to mention it anyway as one of the things I'm looking into.

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And lastly, I'm working on a Houses downloads page. It's not getting fast as I don't hear from my main contributor (Kollormn) much, but if you made some houses and want them to show on the site, feel free to send them. Here's a test page of how it's going to look: http://www.snootysims.com/housesindex.php?id=houses

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Well that's all for the future for now. I can't say a precise date on everything, since, as I wrote, I don't have that much time, but the Tutorials is something I will try to complete this weekend. No promises about that though.
Ofcourse that is not all. Many more things are in the back of my mind like an rss thingy, a newsletter, some more aditions to the Extras and Info center sections but that is for much later.

ahh so now I know all these secrets you've been keeping from me

*applauds* You mentioned you were planning some of this back when this site got its new layout? I'd meant to ask about some of that. Great to hear SS is extending. *hands you refreshing mango* You earned it.

great job snooty, appreciate your hard work to maintain this site

thanks, nice to know whats coming in the futture you know, sorry im impatient...

Yay!! this sounds really great. Can't wait. thanks for sharing.

very nice snooty, I really like the brown one

And I think everyone part of your site truley appreciates the work and effort you put into it.

You're great snooty

Wow...That looks great! I can't wait for you to upload it all. I like the blue version, and I was wondering how long that color change of the forums had been there, I tryed them all, but I still like the default blue haha.
Good work Snooty!

wow Snooty, seems like a lot of work has been put into this! Can't wait for the color changing feature, that's a lot of messing with CSS


And for the search, why not use a text-based search? There's a bunch on www.hotscripts.com if you cannot find some


But anyway, thanks for doing what you do, tons of simmers appreciate it :)

I was wondering when you were going to add the color changing. It has always been on my mind, I kinda thought would be about 2 more months. I didn't know you spent so much time on the site! I spent about 2 hours this month so far trying to get the color testing down for my site. Not much compared to yours? I already new you spend a lot of time on the site, but eh, not this much. And censored who complain about no updates. I know I complained like once a/ I first joined(well actually like 2 or 3 months) but I just was even more immature. Sorry about that snooty. Hope all goes well.

please watch your language next time ok?, even though complainers are annoying - jusinbuzz

Great job Snooty, the way i see it now, with all those new stuff coming on the site, and the consistency in updating the news, SnootySims will be an industry leading site with all the sims stuff.



Don't worry, the link i sent you is actually to a program that is MUCH more flexible than Google Adsense, it's simply text-link-ads that you put the code of whereever you want, you specify how many links you want to sell, you specify the font-size of these links, and of course the background and color for maximum integration with the site.

One more thing i forgot to tell you about in the PM's - they sell the links for you, they negotiate for you, you do nothing except for putting the code. Ideal for someone who's got nearly no time in his hands.


Heat

yeah snooty I wouldn't go with google adsense, did you see what happened to mod the sims 2? bad news for google and for delphy.


I would reccoment Adbrite, I switched over to that and there is a lot more customization than google, and a lot easier to use

AdBrite

Adbrite is actually the worse monetization network out there, i'm sorry to ruin your affiliating revenue - but i suggest Snooty stays out of Adbrite. I've tried it, and it performed way worse than Google Adsense, it's much less flexible than Adsense, and even less from TLA.



Heat

fine, bash me down why don't ya


no just kidding, but thank's for the heads up

Thanks for all the hard work you're putting into the site. I really appreciate it!