I’m over the moon to be able to announce that last week Ostomyland received her 5millionth page-view/hit. It’s a staggering achievement considering that the 4millionth hit was only in late-August last year!
Presently, we’re averaging over 5000 hits/page-views a day across the entire Ostomyland site which includes this main site and the board. I cannot thank everyone enough for their support towards Ostomyland, and for helping making our Community and website one of the best Ostomy Sites online today! I’d especially like to thank the Board Admin and Chat Room Ops teams, who dedicate so much of their time to the site and the community to help her keep ticking over efficiently, and keep the services friendly and safe for everyone of any age. Thank you everybody, very, very much.
Shaz, one of the Ostomyland.com chat room’s Senior Ops, has recently announced the re-launch of her message board on her own website. Using vBulletin software, Shaz’s new board brings lots of new user friendly features to her own Ostomates.org Community. Her new board can be found on the Ostomates.org website, or by clicking the link below. I’d like to wish her all the best with it and hope it proves even more popular than her previous board.
Shazbutt’s New Message Board: http://www.ostomates.org/forum/
NB: The Ostomates.org forum is entirely seperate to our own Ostomyland.com forum.
The newly re-vamped Ostomyland Guestbook has just been launched. It is now integrated into the main site itself, instead of being a seperate new browser window hooking up to a seperate site. It’s certainly much more website-friendly than it’s predecessor, and as with all the other Ostomyland services, I’ve taken the opportunity to change the colour scheme over to match the new site’s colours.
I hope you enjoy reading the new guestbook, all the previous posts in it have been retained and make interesting reading. If you’ve not signed our guestbook yet, then nows the idea time to do it!
Visit: http://ostomyland.com/mainsite/?page_id=127 to sign our guestbook.
More Ostomates top tips have been added to the “Ostomists Top Tips” page of the Lifestyle Guide section (Chapter 23). Thank you to Higgi’s Girl for sending them in.
You can see Higgi’s Girl’s tips at the bottom of the page. And you can find the link to it on the left hand side menu, under the “Lifestyle Guide” section, or alternatively you can click the link below to be taken directly to it.
It’s a feature I’ve been wanting to bring to Ostomyland for years now, namely user blogs. And finally I’ve found a way to do it thats easy to use and free. The software for it is currently in testing and I hope to be able to launch it all for you in the coming weeks. It’s a great way for new Ostomates to monitor their progress by making posts as they go along (be it private or public posting), and a way for the community services to expand even further.
So, watch this space… Ostomyland Blogs are finally on their way. Yayyy! 
The new look Ostomyland website has been live for a few months now, during which time I’ve been hard at work bringing all other parts of the Ostomyland experience up to date too. Today its the turn of the Ostomyland Java Chat Client. Graphically it’s been brought into line with the main websites theme, and a couple of changes have been made to the individual client pages as per requests of the users.
Coloplast UK have now mailed out Issue #29 of their free Ostomy magazine, Charter. The magazine is available free to all UK Ostomates only, regardless of if you are a Coloplast customer or not. If you’d like to receive your free copy, please visit complete the form on the Coloplast UK website - the link is below. Don’t forget to mention in the comments box that we sent you. :0)
This issue covers many varied, informative, topics including: Managing a child’s stoma, Coloplast’s 50th Birthday, Peristomal Hernia, readers letters and lots more.
Links:
Coloplast UK Website: Charter Magazine Registration
Ostomyland: Our own Coloplast Information Page
Please note that with the conversion of Ostomyland Message Board to phpBB3 from phpBB2 a new set of User Terms and Conditions came into effect. These are the rules/T&Cs that all users agree to abide by at registration and are applicable to all Ostomyland Message Board users, be it current/long-time users, or new registrations. Therefore, please give them a read when you get a chance. A permanent copy of them is available on the message board, and also in the newly created page on this part of the Ostomyland website which is linked to from the main menu on the left, or by clicking on the link�here.
OK, boring stuff over… lets get back to the fuuuuuuuuun! 
Wishing you a Very Happy 30th Birthday, Sean!
On February 26th, 2008 our message board will have had it’s first month using the new system/software thanks to the upgrade from phpBB2 to the rather funky and cool-to-use phpBB3.
I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their patience whilst the admins got to grips with what buttons did what and so on, and also for all the nice comments people have given about the new forum boards features and ease-of-use.
So, a big thank you to all the board members. Here’s to looking forward to many more months of phpBB3 powered fun.
If you are not a member of our message board community, why not pop over and visit us now. Registration is free. Whether you are looking for Ostomy Support or off-topic chat, or just the chance to hang out with people thats already been there and bought the proverbial Ostomy-Tshirt, then the Ostomyland Message Board is for you!
