I have connected the website to Facebook via Facebook Connect. For those that choose to, you can connect your current screenname to your Facebook account. This is not mandatory, but instead gives you a little more functionality. Hope you enjoy. I’m also setting up a Facebook fan page so you can become a fan. This is purely for publicity sake, so you do not need to add if you don’t want.

When I get the chance, I will see if I can connect to Google Buzz for those that are interested in that as well. I do have a current Buzz page set up for my private use that our twitter site is linked with. But it might be nice to have all social domains covered (except for MySpace because I loathe MySpace).

2010 has begun. I hope the end of 2009 was as good for all of you as it was for us here in Texas. As with tradition, I’ve been thinking about my goals for this year. I hope all of you have made your goals and that you’re successful in them throughout this upcoming year.

For this website, I have come up with some goals that I hope many of you will be able to help with. I know we have frequent visitors, I’d love to have an introduction from each of you. I find myself not knowing what to post about.

I also want to start setting up information pages. I would love any input. If you have information on any parenting issues, feel free to send the information to melody at asparenting dot com. I will make sure you get credit for any information on the website. If you have a blog or website, I will make sure to link back to it.

I have wanted to update the look of the website. Today I did so and hope you all like it. I’m hoping we can finally get some discussion going. This is just as much for me as it is for all of you, so let’s see what we can do to make it great!

I’m attempting to get into the new world order, ie. social networking. Scary, I know.. Aspies being social and all that. But as such, I’ve created a twitter account for everyone to follow if they so desire. All new posts will automatically be produced on twitter in tinyurl form. I will also be using Twitter at any conferences I go to for small updates that don’t require a post.

I’ve also upgraded bbPress to the final release. If you find any errors, please let me know ASAP. As seamless as they try to work together, sometimes it does not happen as quickly and easily as I’d like. My husband and I are also trying to figure out a way to create a better Featured Post plugin. This way it will only feature the most current blogs.

If there is anything you would like to see, please let me know ASAP. I’ve set up webmaster@asparenting.com for any website related issues.

As if it’s not obvious, I have upgraded the website. We’re not running on WP 2.8 and bbP 1.0 RC3. The final of bbP should be coming out relatively soon. When it does, I will upgrade again. I don’t foresee any problems using the release candidate, but please do let me know if you run into any problems.

As well, I’ve used a service to get a more seamless integration. I do need to figure out why I’m getting their default logo for the posts. I am also looking for a way to have a feature news story at the top and underneath the categories, a way to have a livefeed of other blogs which are of importance to AS parents.

Finally, I redid the logo. I mainly did this because I’m hoping to make myself a t-shirt. I liked the old logo, but it doesn’t suit my personal taste for apparel. The new colors I feel do. If for some reason others decide they’d like to make it into a t-shirt, I don’t mind sending out the logo via email. I do have it in a much larger size. The logo was created by manipulating an infinity sign, adding a spectrum of colors, and then adding the two newly formed letters together. So there is an element of the neurodiversity movement symbol in it.

Please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions on improvements!

I have been meaning to do this for quite some time and it seems like there is just never enough time in the day. Luckily, because of my decision to join the ASAN (Autistic Self Advocacy Network) mailing lists, I was approached by a lovely lady. As such, I decided I do need to update everyone.

My family has made a large transition over the course of the last 3 months. In the middle of March, we drove from Connecticut to Texas for relocation. So from the time of my last update until then, we were packing and preparing for all that moving entailed. I have since then been implementing all that we needed to do.

So far, the boys are back in school in a wonderful school district who is taking care of their needs wonderfully. As well, they are extremely open to my suggestions unlike most professionals I have dealt with in the past. My oldest will be transitioning to K in the Fall so we are also going through those transition meetings.

We are also getting the boys taken care of therapy wise. ST and PT evaluations are done, but OT will be delayed because of maternity leaves (congratulations to those ladies). We are also attempting to find a group that does ABA and floortime/DIR as each of child benefits from alternate methods.

As soon as I find out the schedule for ST and PT, I will be contacting a counseling center for myself. They hold support groups for adults with Asperger’s but also do private therapy. I’m opting to do the private therapy as I feel with my unique needs as a woman, a wife and a mother, I will be better served on a one-to-one basis. I make these statements knowing that the majority of the support group are male and unmarried.

I will be kicking back up as soon as I have finished all of that. Hopefully, I will be able to get back going within the next month.

Are link backs acceptable forms of getting the word out about this website? I’ve been pondering this since I got this site integrated. I have such problems with knowing what’s socially acceptable, as many of us do. So I question if this is seen more as spam, or would it be seen as an invite.

As well, I’m wondering if I should go ahead and upgrade to WPMU (multi-user) or BuddyPress. I had hoped this would be a place for all AS parents would come to blog.

I have decided to do both of these. The WPMU will not disrupt the normal flow of the website. I will not go live with WPMU until I have all seams ironed out.* I am also going to go ahead with the linkbacks.

This post is more to make you all aware of the changes. As well, I want to apologize to any of you that come to this site from a link back and feel it was spam. I assure you, I had the best intentions in mind.

*After carefully looking at WPMU, I don’t think it’s a viable option for this website right now. I am looking at other options to allow multiple users to have blogs on this website. Both with the option to post news to the main page, or for your own personal blog.