Upgraded to paid status - now what?

[dreamshark]

I finally decided that I kinda like this LJ thing and I'm going to stick with it, so I upgraded to paid status. I seem to remember people telling me that I could do all kinds of cool additional things with a paid account, but the descriptions on the website are completely cryptic. In fact the descriptions of what I can do with a free account are too cryptic for me, but I'm pretty sure I'm not doing any of them.

What are your favorite "advanced" features on LJ? (In this case, advanced includes anything more complicated than compiling a friends list and posting occasionally). I'm trying to figure out how to create filters for reading just a subset of my friends list, but I don't know where to start.

Have I mentioned that I am GUI-impaired? When faced with an easy-to-use graphical interface for almost anything I run into brick walls. I often have a hard time figuring out where to start and almost always have a hard time figuring out how to finish things up. F'rinstance, I had put off upgrading to paid account because I was sure it would be hard, and sure enough, I stared at that page for about 5 minutes trying to figure out how to say "Yes, I want to do this, ask me for my credit card info." Turned out there was a button that said "Add to account" or something like that, but it was directly under some option I wasn't interested in, so I didn't even SEE the button, much less intuit that this was the one I wanted. *sigh* I like linear text.

I'm going to try to figure out how to add an icon now. Wish me luck.

Comments

[jbru.livejournal.com]

Luck!

The one thing I see most people with paid accounts taking advantage of is the ability to have multiple user icons.

If you have an icon you'd like to use (.gif, .jpg or .png; no bigger than 100 x 100 pixels and no bigger than 40k), go to http://www.livejournal.com/editpics.bml. Once there, you will hopefully see a blue box with several form fields at the bottom of the page. The default options are selected for you and are probably what you want. Click the button labelled "Choose File." Navigate to where you have your icon stored. Select it and click OK. That should get you back to the LJ page and the file name of your icon should appear next to the "Choose File" button. Now look to the bottom of the blue box and click on the button labelled "Proceed." Your file will upload, the page will refresh and you'll see the icon above the blue box.

Now any posts you make will have that icon associated with them. You can repeat this process to add others. You can give them keywords (to be able to tell them apart) or comments (usually used to give credit to someone who made it for you) either at the time you upload them or after, but let's get you the one first.

Hope that helps.

Advanced features?

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

There's advanced features?

[ckd]

Polls are fun. Phone posting (which I meant to do from the LJ party at Minicon but forgot to) can be a great way to blog on the run.

Reading filters I can explain, but not right now.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

You'll like the difference in server speed with a paid account. That's the biggest change.

K. [I can show you many LJ things in person sometime]

[mle292.livejournal.com]

Definitely my favorite is the ability to make polls.
See http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=69 for information about that.

advanced features

[mmagidow.livejournal.com]

I think the free one is advanced enough for me, until proven otherwise. It still beats writing in a diary. BTW, I love your new picture!

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Luck! I like having a larger selection of icons. I haven't tried to poll about anything yet. I like the icon you are using now, but would you like one that looked like a Dream Shark?

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Like one of these?
http://www.dreamspell.net/transfer/Dreamshark.jpg

http://www.dreamspell.net/transfer/Dreamshark3.jpg

http://www.dreamspell.net/transfer/dreamshark4.jpg

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Oh yea! Draw me a dreamshark!!

I don't get the point of multiple icons. How and when do you switch them? I loaded two of them, but it seems to have just taken the last one as my default and displays it all the time.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

You can select which icon you want as your default. Some people use the various icons to indicate the their mood or a particular tone. I use mine that way: the cat/woman I use when I'm feeling snarky, the child when I'm feeling smaller and more vulnerable, the pegasus for a reflective tone, the maenad when I'm feeling wild-eyed and spacey, etc.

[daedala.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I don't pay for lj because of the advanced features; I paid because I think the service is worth paying for. That said, I messed with my journal style. You can't tell much, but the changes were important to me (I do not like teeny text on web pages).

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad to have a paid account. I like the friend of friends feature. Here is yours.

I also created my own custom Lord of the Rings mood theme here.