photo credit: Conanil

You may have noticed a few subtle differences here at JediNet recently. We’ve made a few adjustments under the hood and have made a few tweaks that will hopefully improve the look and feel of the site. Of course, we’re still basking in purple glory, but there is a new theme in the works as well and more changes that will be rolling out over the next few months.

The site has upgraded to the latest version of Wordpress, and we’ve taken the opportunity to fine-tune the permalinks. You will note that post links are now organized by category and title. The feed URL has updated as well, so please update your feedreaders (Feedburner subscribers, no need to change).

At JediNet, our motto is “Star Wars news for the fans, by the fans.” Anyone is welcome to contribute news to JediNet, and there are several ways to do this. First and foremost, you can register for an account. Only registered users can post articles. All you need is a user name and a confirmed email account to register. Current users, we’ve given the admin panel a makeover, so it’s all new and shiny now! Once you have a registered account, you can post through the admin panel or your favorite blog management tool: Flock, Scribefire, MarsEdit (Mac), a bookmarklet, and so many others.

If you don’t want to write for JediNet, but simply want to point us to an interesting article, video, or photo, that’s fine too. You can share your links to our del.icio.us account or send email to news [at] jedinet [dot] com, it’s that easy.

There’s more changes in the horizon, so check back regularly for more site updates, or you can follow us on Twitter too!

In case you’ve missed it, Steve’s Star Wars Timeline has been alive and well at Jedinet. It’s viewable by the standard timeline and also a shipping schedule; plus, it’s got a nifty little quicklink to help you navigate Galactic History in search of your information. Check it out.

Just a quick heads up, you might notice these little widget/buttons at the end of each story here on Jedinet. This is a new feature, that brings Jedinet to Web 2.0, theoretically. This is courtesy of Sociable. So now if you find something interesting here, you can add it to your favorite social bookmarking site. Digg it, Reddit it, put it on Del.icio.us, or whatever suits your flavor.

And, as always, you can subscribe to our feed!

The content is still a little out of date, but the basic functionality is complete enough for me to re-post Steve’s Star Wars Timeline. Yes, the timeline that just won’t die resurfaces once again!

I’ll be phasing in a few more updates to get it back to its former state, and hopefully add new features from there. As always, I appreciate your feedback and hope you find the timeline to be a useful resource.

“Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if you had a community-driven site where folks could write about Star Wars.”

That’s always been the mission of Jedinet, so this latest development is just part of the natural evolution of a Star Wars based website. Again, it is regrettable that content on this site has been scarce as of late, and for various reasons my contribution has has been lax lately. But with a fresh start, I’m resolved to change that. I’d like to encourage everyone out there, the loyal readers of Jedinet, to register and contribute news and information. The internet is changing, and there’s still a lively community out there. Things are a lot more interactive now.

For the moment, if you have Star Wars related news or information and wish to see it posted here, you may contact me at my temporary address via fazimoto at gmail dot com. Otherwise you’re welcome to join and post away!