Personalization Added

I know it sounds like a simple thing, you would really like to have a picture up that identifies you on GolfStakes.com. Now for the past couple of months we have had a graphic up, but you had no way of personalizing this graphic or to add your own. Now you do.

Introducing Gravatars

Gravatar.com is a web site which provides globally recognized avatars and allows a user to sign up for free and to upload as many avatar images as they would like to have and manage all of these images from one spot. GolfStakes.com has taken the unique approach of taking the Gravatar.com provided path and linking that in with our system so that you too can have access this this great service.

Steps to putting up your avatar

There are a few steps that need to be completed before a GolfStakes.com user can have an avatar posted on the web site. First you need to visit Gravatar.com and signup for a free account on their web site. You will need to provide an email address to them, and you will  need to be able to verify this email address.

Once you have your Gravatar.com account login to GolfStakes.com and go to your settings page.

Two things you should notice. A gray golfer image is displayed next your profile control panel. This is where you new avatar will be displayed. Second, you should see that under the profile management heading there is now an option to add/remove an avatar. Click this click to add your Gravatar.com image.

You're now on the avatar management page.

We give you short introduction of what we're doing with Gravatar.com, how to get a Gravatar.com account, and what we'll do with the email address that you provide to associate your Gravatar.com account with a GolfStakes.com user account.

Clicking the 'associate accounts' tab will now take you to where you can actually associate the accounts.

Now the only thing that we need from you is the same email address that you used when you signed up for Gravatar.com. What we're going to do with this email address is that we're going to do a one way encryption of the email address and then use that as part of the path way for your Gravatar.com identity icon. We will have no way of knowing what email address you have entered and the email address is no longer human readable (the encryption used can not be used to un-encrypt this address). When you click the associate my email address' button you will be sent back to the settings page and if the email address you entered on GolfStakes.com is found on the Gravatar.com servers, your new image icon will be displayed in the upper left corner.

Now we know that there are times when you no longer want to have an icon identifying yourself. You can easily go back to the settings page, and click the 'add or remove avatar' link. You will now see on the avatar page and option to remove your Gravatar.com email from our servers. Once  you click the button on this page, we no longer know which email to use, and the GolfStakes.com default icon will now be displayed in place of your custom image icon.

Summary

We hope that you like this new feature of GolfStakes.com. As you start to use the site more, you'll notice that the new avatars will start to appear in new areas. Right now you will see your new avatars on the profile page, and on your handicap page. You will also be able to see your friends avatars, and soon you will be able to see avatar images when you search for friends, and on some of the golfing statistics pages. Let us know how we're doing and we hope that you enjoy this new service on GolfStakes.com

We're On the Radio

This Saturday morning (3/28/2009) Kyle is going to be on the radio in Kansas City Missouri. Listen to 1510AM @ 8am and hear Kyle talk about all the great features of GolfStakes.

Hot Talk 1510 KCTE - Programming

KC Sports and Fitness 8 am - 9 am
Hosted by: Steve Fisch and Jim Potoski

User Profile Section Updates

Your account settings page now has a few more items that you
can control.

Account Management is where you can control specific items associated with your GolfStakes membership. You can change your password, your email address and your security question from here. If you feel that GolfStakes.com just isn't for you, you also have the option to close your account with us.

Profile management does exactly what it says it does. From here
you can update your personal information like your name, your display name, your GHIN index and write some open text about yourself. You can also add or change a mailing address and a phone number.

These new options can be found under the settings link next to your profiles avatar.

Speaking of profiles, you now have several ways of reaching your profile while on the GolfStakes.com web site. First, there is a global link found in the upper right corner of the site. Click your name will always take you to your profile. Second, when you click on 'My Game' you will see that a profile link displays on the left hand side near a gray and white golfer avatar. Third, when you're inside of the 'My Game' section of the site, you will notice that there is a prominent glossy white button or green button
in the middle of the page. This link will also take you to your profile.

In the future, we're looking to adding a number of other features and additions to you profile section. This will enable you to find your friends faster and to make new friends easier.

Hope this helps, and enjoy using GolfStakes.com.

User Interface Updates

From some feedback we had at the Chicago Golf show we've made some changes.

Gone are the drop down menus. People were having a hard time keeping the menu open or the menu got in the way of doing something on the page. We've replaced the drop down menus with a nice second level of menus. These menu items appear in the green bar directly under the main menu items.

Second, we've moved the profile and dashboard areas into a new section of the site. To get to your dashboard items, click on the 'My Game' link and you should now be able to access you score and handicap history, your friends and favorite course lists, along with a direct link to your profile page.

We have also changed the way you can update your personal information. Next to the golfer avatar picture, you will see a link called 'Settings'.

Clicking on this link will give you access to your GolfStakes.com account and allow you to update your personal information, change you password and manage your friends. In the future you will see a lot more options added to this section.

 

That's it for now, let us know how we're doing. If you have any suggestions, please leave them in our forums or send it directly to us using the contact us page found under the information tab.

Speed and uptime

We've been having a few issues lately of our hosting company not being able to keep our site up 100% of the time. To fix this problem we've taken the site to a new hosting company. We our new company we now have the ability to scale both our databases and our web servers with little problem.

For you the user, you really shouldn't notice any changes in the way GolfStakes.com works. Everything should appear normal and work as advertised. We have had to make one change to the way you access the mobile site. Instead of typing "m.golfstakes.com" into your phones web browser we now as that you use "mob.golfstakes.com"

Other than that, have fun using GolfStakes.com!