Life In The Office

Well, if you’ve been saying to yourself, “I’m going to join the forum and get my chat on so I can win anything I want from teh NBC Universal Store” then today is your last day to do it.

The original post is here. Basically, you just need to sign up and have at least 10 posts. If you head over to the forum you can introduce yourself for your first post and I guarantee you’ll find 9 other things you’ll want to comment on. For instance, jump in and see if you can answer the latest question posted in The Office Trivia.

Good luck to everyone. I’ll pick, notify and announce the winners tomorrow.

While we are all counting down for tonight’s episode, let’s have one of those lively LITO polls.

I think that the cast and crew of The Office is incredibly talented. The actors and actresses are all perfect for their parts and play their characters great…most of the time.

For me, there are scenes now and again that aren’t played well. Of course I’m not saying this to complain, I love the show. But sometimes I catch myself thinking, “Why in the world did they not shoot that scene again? That was horrible acting.” Usually the scenes are with minor characters, although a couple weeks ago Jenna was off her game just a little. (It was obvious that she was ill in real life so that’s a pretty good reason. Kudos to her for working her best. We love you Jenna.)

But, we’re all about the positive here in LITO-land so let’s put a positive spin on the question:

Well, the last forum contest is now over with the iPod fully loaded and out the door. So, what to do next?

At the end of February, I’ll choose two random people and those two users can choose anything they want from the NBC Universal Store For The Office. Mugs, shirts, DVD’s, bobbleheads…whatever they want. LITO will purchase the item and send it to your house.

For those of you already rocking the forums, you’re already eligible. (Well, not you Adam.) But, there is something you can do to increase your chances. This month will be about growing the forums.

Encourage your friends and family to join and participate in the LITO Forums. Once they have posted 10 times, have them send me a private message and let me know that you referred them and that they’ve posted ten times. After a quick ip look, they’ll be added to the contest and you’ll have a second submission in the contest. So, refer five people and you’ll have six chances to win. That’s easy right?

For those of you who “don’t do forums”, this one might be a fun one for you to try. It’s simple to sign up and start chatting. Also, the users are kind, courteous, friendly and informative. We all do our best to be sure that there is no negativity or crude language. I think that makes for a nice place to visit.

So, jump over and give it a try.

Well, it’s been one month, 539 users, and 10,056 posts since we started the LITO Forums. And since it is the last day of the month, I asked my wife to pick a random number between 1 and 10,000. She chose a number, I looked up the comment comment and the winner is…Adam. (pictured)

For those of you who use the forums often, I’m sure you recognize the name. Since day one, Adam has been active and very helpful to everyone on the boards. He’s added nearly 700 posts. (I hope his boss doesn’t visit the forum.) When I saw how much he was putting into it I asked him if he’d like to be a “Assistant TO THE Site Admin.” He said that he would as long as it didn’t disqualify him from the iPod contest and I assured him it wouldn’t. Well good thing he asked because I just sent him a brand new iPod fully loaded with Office videos, images and sound clips.

Congratulations to Adam (and his fiancé who will no doubt enjoy it too.)

Thanks to everyone for playing along. And be sure to visit the site tomorrow because I will be announcing the February contest.

Here’s a warning in advance that posting may be a bit slow this week. I’m in San Francisco now with my company, Macminicolo.net. We are here for the Macworld Expo and will have a booth thru the week. In fact, if there are any LITO readers in the Bay Area that would like to have a ticket to the expo, let me know and I’ll see if I can hook you up.

I’ll be sure to get the Office news up still, but it may be a bit slower than usual. If you’re looking for your Office fix, be sure to cruise thru the Life In The Office Forums. They are really rocking now and it’s easy to get in on the conversation.

This morning I am excited to announce that we now have an official forum for The Office. That’s right, LITO land now has a place to go and chat about our favorite show.

Of all the emails that I get, the request I get most often is “Do you know how I can get a hold of Jim?” But only slightly less requested is, “You should start a forum for all of The Office fans.” So, I decided to give it a try. You can find the forum here.

A few things as we get started:

1. While I’m familiar with running blogs and websites, I’ve never created a forum before. After some work, I was able to get it working and looking attractive. If there are any hiccups, please let me know so I can fix them.
2. As you sign up for the forum, you can choose your username and an avatar. An “avatar” is a little image that goes next to your name each time you post. It helps to add color to the site and helps people be identified. I’ve made available a ton of great choices courtesy of The Office Icons group, but you can always add your own if you’d like.
3. I’ve created several “Ranks” on the forum. At each interval of 5 comments, your rank will change to something new. I hope you get a few laughs from that.
4. There is an RSS Feed for the forum in case you want to follow it that way.
5. When you sign up for the site, be sure to introduce yourself in the Introductions Section.

I admit it’s a little risky trying to create a new community like this. I suppose I’m a little nervous to see how it will do. Having everyone go to the forum and seeing only one topic in each category is even a little embarrassing. But, we have to start somewhere right? I guess it’s better than me going and populating all the categories with made up topics and replies.

And now for the exciting part…

To get the forum up and running, I thought I’d start out with a little contest.

For each real comment made in the new forum, that will be an entry to the contest. Then, on January 31st I’ll randomly select a name from all the entries and the winner will receive a brand new Office-packed iPod. What is that you ask?

I’ll send the winner a brand new iPod. It will come pre-packed with every episode of The Office. Also, it will have all the Office Audio clips and one-liners ready to go. The winner can choose whether they’d like the black or white 30GB iPod.

There are only a couple rules. First, only “real” comments will be counted. This means that comments made that are obviously there to pad numbers will be omitted. Second, I suppose I need to reserve the right to cancel this contest if it’s necessary. (Though I can’t think of a reason why it’d be necessary.)

Well, I think that’s it. So let’s get this party started. You can head over to the new Office forum now, get registered, and introduce yourself.

The last couple weeks have been a long stretch of Office-less time. Not only has there been no new Office, but the Office news was also slow. That was no fun. Did anyone else feel it?

So, there’s no news in this post, but I’m just glad that the countdown timer in the sidebar is getting so low.

I was feeling creative today so I thought I’d make a Dashboard widget for Life In The Office. It’s simple really. The widget updates each time a new post is put on the site. You can click on any post in the widget to have it open a browser and load the full post.

You can get the widget here.

(PS, Widgets use the Dashboard on Mac OS X.)

Since we have all this time with Office on vacation (and because I love polls), let’s take this time to evaluate the whole Office series so far. Below I will list the title of all the episodes that have aired. Your simple task is to decide which one is your favorite. (You can always use the Episode Recaps category if you need a refresher.)

As I look thru this list, I am reminded of a ton of great laughs. I’m also surprised that I can pretty much tell you, scene for scene, what happens in each episode. I’ve never had a TV show that I followed so closely.

But enough about me. Make your choice. If you feel like you have to justify your answer, do so in the comments. I’m really excited to see which episode comes out on top.

I get a ton of emails from LITO readers. They are fun to read. You guys have great comments and great tips.

I also get some questions in the emails. I thought I’d post the answers to the popular questions here in case any of you are wondering the same thing.

What’s the deal with the boxes on each post?

A while back, I thought it would be a good idea to have a little message go out to all the first time visitors to LITO. Basically, a little blurb that told new visitors what we’re about and how they can keep up with the news.

Last night, my buddy made a WordPress plugin that makes this possible. At the beginning, all of you should see it. But after the second time that you visit the site, it should not show up again. This let’s the new visitors see the message a couple times and then the note disappears. I’m hoping this will increase the LITO community and get more people in on our comments and critiques.

Why do my comments not show up sometimes?

As this site gets more and more popular (8,000 daily viewers right now), it receives more and more spam comments. Luckily, there are some nice tools out there that help me control these spam comments. There are usually about 400 a day. Every once and a while a legit comment will go in there. I keep a pretty good eye on it though so if your comment doesn’t come up right away, it will eventually.

Why the ads on the site?

The ads at the top of the site and in the sidebar are served up by Google. Each time an ad is clicked, a little change comes my way. It’s kind of a nice surprise at the end of the month to have a movie and dinner paid for from my work on LITO.

The ads you see are served up automatically by scanning what is on the page you are reading. That is why you see ads on Scranton, The Office and other popular TV Shows. While I can’t control what ads are there, i can control which ads don’t show up. I try to keep an eye on them and if there is a spammy ad or an inappropriate ad, I try and add it to the list of “Do Not Show” ads. If you ever click on one and it turns out to be just a page full of ads or something, please let me know about it and I’ll add that url to the list.

Can you tell _______ that I love the part they play on the show?

As much as I try to have the site be informative and entertaining, I’m unfortunately not connected directly with NBC or The Office. If I’m ever in a position to talk with them, I’ll be sure to pass along any messages I can.

Hope that helps.