Mario Kart: The Squarespace In-House Gym

CEO, Dane Atkinson (front), Engineering Director Davin Chew (center), and Director of Technical Operations Rolando Berrios

For those of you that think playing video games is for lazy couch potatoes, you've obviously never played Mario Kart at the Squarespace offices.

Mario Kart requires skill. Mario Kart requires determination. And most amusingly, Mario Kart also requires pushups--at least it does here.

It's true: the price of entry into any Squarespace team Mario Kart game, is the understanding that win or lose, you're going to be doing some pushups.

Here's how it usually goes down:

• Post lunch, a group of 4 Squarespacers will gather on the couch, and go to battle
• 4 or 5 games will be played
• Screaming and cursing will ensue
• Based on the final scores, the winner will do as many pushups as the loser's final score and the loser will do as many pushups as the winner's final score. The second placer does pushups corresponding to the 3rd placer's score and the 3rd placer does pushups corresponding to the second placer's score.

Ok, just writing about this is exhausting enough, but trust me: I have seen these guys do many, MANY pushups in the couple months since I joined the Squarespace crew. The loser could end up doing up to 75!

So let this be a lesson to us all: video games can actually be good for your health!

Positioning Comments

I got a slew of emails when I launched www.newtoyork.com asking about how I moved the comments to the right of my blog instead of the default location below the content. I will give you a quick overview of how to achieve what I did on www.newtoyork.com, and from there you should be able to take things anywhere you want.

So first, you need to determine how wide your content area is. On www.newtoyork.com it is 500px wide. You can find this by going into Style Editing Mode > Banner & Navigation > Change Widths > Content. Once you have that number drop in this little chunk of code into your custom CSS area.

.journal-add-comment-area-wrapper { position: absolute; top: 315px; left: 565px; width: 400px; }

Since my content area is 500px wide I position the .notice-box 565px from the left edge, leaving 65px of a margin between the content and the comments. This is where you would plug in your site's width, and then add whatever margin to the total to achieve what you are looking for. I am also positioning it down to align and then specifying a width for it.

So that will pull up the text-area and comment generation area, but the actual comments themselves are still below the content. Next, add this chunk of code to your custom CSS.

.journal-comment-area-wrapper { position: absolute; top: 970px; left: 565px; width: 400px; }

This is bringing the actual comments themselves over. The thing you have to do here is make sure you position them down from the top enough to clear the add comment wrapper, which is why my top position is 970px. You can leave the left position the same.

I really like how it looks when the comments section is up right next to the content and not hiding below the content--it seems to encourage people to actually comment.

Hope this helps open up some more custom designs from all of you in the future.

Squarespace on Wired's Hopkinson Report

Check out Anthony and Tyler's interview on Wired Magazine's Hopkinson Report podcast with Jim Hopkinson.

This was recorded during SXSW Interactive this March, and the guys had a blast talking to Jim about how the company got started, how the platform works and some fun upcoming beta features.

Squarespace iPhone GIVEAWAY UPDATE: Only one single #squarespace tweet from here on out = entered forever. http://bit.ly/1a8gCl. Thanks!

At Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 9:35AM

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iPhone Giveaway Update: Enter Once, Forever

Wow.

At the half point in our Twitter iPhone Gift Card Giveaway, we're all pretty darn wowed by the response.

While, of course, we hoped and anticipated that this would all be a giant success, we have been absolutely blown away by the enthusiasm, excitement and participation of the Twitterverse-at-large. We've received tens of thousands of tweets so far, have gotten thousands of new followers, tons of great comments right here on our blog. So, first and foremost, THANKS!

That said -- we want to take a moment to make an important change: 

• Starting from today's entry period (the prize dated June 23rd), and continuing to the end of the contest, tweeting "#squarespace" a SINGLE TIME enters you into the contest in perpetuity until all phones are given away. 

The rules of this contest were conceived for a much smaller audience, and is the first time we've ever run something like this. While we think it's great to see people tacking on #squarespace left and right, it wasn't our intention to have Twitter so consumed by the nature of this campaign. This change also implies that tweeting multiple times will not improve your chances of winning on a going forward basis. 

Also, there have been various questions about whether or not an iPhone is being actually given away. As was originally posted to our front rules page, the detailed rules page, in our FAQ, and to our Twitter updates: You're entering to win a $199 iPhone gift card (http://store.apple.com/us/personalize/iphone?mco=MTc1MDE&product=MB891LL/A) usable towards an iPhone, upgrade, or anything else at the Apple store. Between starting this contest right before the iPhone 3G S launch (we couldn't even purchase them), and the issues surrounding iPhone activation from AT&T -- Apple advised us this was the best way to conduct the giveaway, and we agreed. Most of our winners are actually pleased at the flexibility of winning a gift card instead of a physical product, and given that the old iPhone 3G is now $99 with contract, the prize seems better than winning the old model anyway.

Thanks again for all of the positivity surrounding this event. We wanted this campaign to be a thank you for the success we've seen over the past few months, and with this change -- I hope this can become a much more non-intrusive part of everyone's day.

Our F.A.Q. has been updated as well.

BK/NYC Bloggers Meetup Tonight!

If you are a NYC Squarespacer, you should come on out tonight to the Bell House in Park Slope, Brooklyn for a rockin BK/NYC Bloggers Meetup!

The Bell House is offering a "lagers for bloggers" drinks special, and we'll even have some Squarespace t-shirts to give out.

We're co-sponsoring the event with our friends at the Brooklyn Creative League.

Everyone's welcome...bloggers, wannabe bloggers, and even people who just like hanging out with bloggers.

You can find out more details (and RSVP!) here.

Here is an idea. If people are getting sick of you "spamming" #squarespace, try doing it ONCE a day and actually make it about Squarespace.

At Monday, June 15, 2009 at 3:45PM

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Guess who's blasting Michael Jackson in the #squarespace office right now? Yep, that would be m.e.

At Friday, June 12, 2009 at 10:48AM

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Can one of @chrishfilms friends tell him he won our #squarespace iPhone? Where are you buddy?

At Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 5:37PM

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So @chrishfilms wins our #squarespace iPhone and goes to SLEEP?! CHRIS. please.

At Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 5:34PM

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