A Webjam channel is a hub for Webjammers who share a specific interest. For more information about channels read the Webjam Blog post or read on for information about joining, accessing and managing channel memberships.

Joining:

1. Explore the channels: Arts, Charity, Family Life and Football and see which one you like
2. Click the ‘join this channel’ button on the channel homepage
3. Choose if you want to submit your webjam or just become a member

Also note that if you replicate a channel template you are automatically a member of that channel. In addition when you create a new webjam we ask you to choose a channel so every webjam is a member of a channel (not all channels are live yet).

Channels have an editor and can be private, members only or public. With some channels you may need to ‘request to join’, or you may be allowed to join immediately, depending on the settings of the channel.

Access:
In your settings tab on your webjam, instead of the (former) category you have a new tab – ‘Channel’ that lists the channel your webjam is affiliated to.

In the My memberships lightbox you now have two mini tabs: Webjams and Channels. The Channels tab lists all the channels you are a member of.

In the Activity lightbox you now have an option to view the activity of your friends and webjams you are a member of (this remains as it was before) or the activity of a specific channel you are a member of.

To view the available channels you can start from the Templates page or click on the images below:

Management:
To remove your webjam from a channel: on your webjam, go to 'settings' then the Channel tab and click on the red X.
To delete your membership of a channel: click the 'webjams' link in the top bar, then choose the My memberships tab then the 'Channels' link to view all the channels you are a member of, click on the red X to remove your membership of a specific channel. 

Here's a feature that may have passed you by: the ability to lock a forum thread.

As the editor of a webjam with a Forums/Message boards module you will notice an unlocked padlock within each thread. The unlocked padlock indicates the forum thread is open for anyone to post a reply. If you click on the padlock you can lock the thread and stop any more replies on that particular thread.

Open padlock = an unlocked thread:

Closed padlock = a locked thread:

Subscribe to blog post comments - for all users

While Morgan Freeman is making the headlines for his accident and his divorce, for me he still is the Voice behind March of the Penguins. So for a bit of Friday fun, here is how to add some cute penguins to your webjam.

 

- Embed it in a blog post as I just did, by clicking the HTML Icon when writing your blog post

Thanks to Peter Leeson who first spotted the penguins on ... a webjam (!) and kudos to aBowman who seems to to have a cool catalogue of widgets.

Perhaps you want to get your webjam noticed, or gather a few members/readers interested in your webjam topic. Promoting your webjam can be as simple as adding a badge to other websites, but there are other ways to communicate your webjam on the Internet and get noticed by interested people and search engines:

• Complete the data in your webjam account and especially add relevant tags and a description of your page
• Ask friends to place a link to your webjam or badge on their homepage/blog
• Take part in web forums that match the topic of your webjam
• Fill your page with new content, news, pictures etc.
• Insert your address as your homepage address in your online profiles
• Send invitations to join your webjam to friends and family and contacts you know are interested in the topic
• Insert the URL address in your signature in bulletin boards and e-mails

Badges are an easy way to link to your webjam from blogs, forums and websites.

Click the promote tab to view a selection of badges, make your choice then copy and paste the code in the text box onto any website on the internet. You could add a badge to a forum you participate in, to your company website, online resume or second blog, or leave a message and your badge on your friends' websites.

For example here's one for this page:

If you want to share the editorial position of your webjam with someone, but do not want to give them access to the entire webjam - now you have a new feature that can help - make them a co-editor of a specific page.

A tiny new + sign has been added to the status of every member of your webjam, in the 'members' tab (see the photo below).
This plus indicates the list of pages that are included in the webjam, and is aimed to allow you to make the user a co-editor of a specific page.

So if I want to make Chickerino a co-editor of two pages on my webjam, all I need to do is tick the box next to these pages (see photo below). And that's it - Chickerino is now a co-editor of these pages.

Remember  - a co-editor shares almost all the privileges you, the editor, have. A co-editor can delete or add content, change the style, invite members etc. So be careful who you give this title to - make sure it's someone you trust!

Google have released an excellent widget which allows users to talk to you through Google chat.

"A Google Talk chatback badge will let visitors to your web page chat with you. They'll be able to chat with you whenever you're signed in to Google Talk"

If you are already a googlemail user visit:

http://www.google.com/talk/service/badge/New

Where you can customise the chatback badge and receive an embed code.

To use this embed code on your page, ensure you are signed in and click on the modules tab, click on the Widgets tab and then the Create a widget option, paste the code in the box provided and click on the create widget button.

If you receive an error message stating "It would appear that JavaScript is not enabled on your browser" then read on for why this happens and how to resolve this error.

Webjam uses a code called JavaScript to authenticate the Webjam pages you work on. If you don't have JavaScript running on your browser you will not be able to Sign in or edit your webjam, however, you will still be able to view Webjam.

What the error message means:

• It is usually caused by security settings in Internet Explorer being on the highest level as this disables all JavaScript
• It can also happen if ActiveX has been disabled if the security settings have been set manually
• It is NOT caused by not having the latest version of Java installed – Java is completely different to JavaScript, despite the similar name. We don’t use Java in Webjam.

The solutions:

• The easiest way to resolve this error is changing your browser security setting to 'medium-high' or 'medium' – which is the default Internet Explorer setting
• If this does not work, then it’s worth installing the latest updates for Internet Explorer – via windows update: http://www.windowsupdate.com
• If this does not work, Webjam recommends you install the Firefox browser: http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/ to edit your webjam