The Hear & Meow: Notes from Catster HQ

Presenting the MAKE YOUR OWN DIGITAL GIFT Contest!

Anders Porter — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:29:15 +0000

Update 1 We updated the below submission specifications to resolve any confusion about what image formats we can accept and convert into store gifts

Update 2 We created the Digital Gift Makers Workshop Group for anypaw and everypaw that wants to make gifts that share, learn and help each other. HQ will be hanging out there too.

We are always amazed and impressed at how creative everyfur gets on Dogster and Catster with their spectacular pet pages and profile pictures. That’s why we decided to have a special contest for all you creatives out there: We want YOU to make the next new digital gift for the gift store! We are outlining some guidelines below for creating the artwork for the gift, and the winner will receive a bowl-ful of Zealies, a badge to show off on their pet page and of course, props from HQ. When the gift is available in the gift store the creator will get credit so that all the Dogsters and Catsters out there will know who made it!

Entries

There are three different sizes of gifts you can create: Furever Rosettes, Stars & Small Gifts, and Large Gifts. You may submit as many entries as you’d like in each category.

Files should be zipped and sent to: gift_submit[AT]dogster.com

Entries must be submitted by July 1st, 2009 midnight PST.

Winners will be announced by July 15th.

Winners will be selected by Dogster HQ.

Prizes

Furever Rosettes - winner gets 100 zealies

Stars & Small Gifts (type 1) - winner gets 250 zealies

Large Gifts (type 2) - winner gets 500 zealies

Specifications

There are some guidelines that must be followed in creating the submissions. Please take the time to reads the guidelines closely to make sure your submissions can be considered. If an entry does not comply with submission guidelines we will have no choice but to not accept or review it.

1) We cannot accept or use artwork that is trademarked, registered, or displays any trademarked or copyrighted terms (such as brand names). Make sure you have the right to use any artwork your submit. Please do not submit any artwork that you are not the original creator of.

2) The gifts, stars and rosettes must be supplied and clearly viewable in multiple sizes since they are displayed on various pages, such as the virtual gift store, on pet pages, and on the homepage. While the image that appears in the Store and on Pet Pages is the most important, the other images sizes need to look good too. Usually we find that reducing a large image to a small image will not work. Usually the small image needs to be made separately or at least modified so it appears clear and neat.

3) All submissions should be the original/source layered artwork file. Photoshop, Illustrator, Gimp and many others allow for layered artwork. Common file types are, but are not limited to .PSD, .AI, .PDF .EPS. Entries should not be flattened single layer artwork, and it’s very unlikely we will be able to accept GIF, PNG or JPG files.

4) Finally all submissions need to be on a transparent background (this includes animated gifts) but ultimately, once we reduce them to animated gifs, must not exceed 50kb. Therefore we strongly recommend animated gift submissions to not exceed 30 frames.

Furever Rosettes, Stars

One file must depict artwork at 100 pixels high x 100 pixels wide

One file must depict artwork at 15 pixels high x 15 pixels wide

Small Gifts

One file must depict artwork at 40 pixels high x 40 pixels wide

One file must depict artwork at 15 pixels high x 15 pixels wide

Large Gifts

One file must depict artwork at 80 pixels high x 80 pixels wide

One file must depict artwork at 15 pixels high x 15 pixels wide

Tip: Sometimes a small or large gift does not lend itself well to the required 15 x 15 size and thus it will be a sampling of the larger image. For example, we just used Scaredy Squirrel’s head for the smaller image.

Help

We have created the Digital Gift Makers Workshop Group to ask questions, get answers, help, learn and share. We warmly invite all designers to join. We will use that for announcing updates if any are needed

Terms

By submitting any materials on or through the “Make Your Own Virtual Gift Contest”, you automatically grant to us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, right to publicly display or re-display such Materials in other formats not simply limited to websites.

Winners

We will announce winners 2 weeks after the submission closing date. We are not going to put a cap on how many winners that will be. There will be at least one winner in each category, but we will pick the number of winners based upon how impressed we are. So please, IMPRESS US! =)

Good luck to all you creative geniuses! We can’t wait to see what you invent!

Woofs and Meows,

Dogster/Catster HQ

Meowsing the Internet in Style: Introducing the Catster Browser!

Anders Porter — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:48:02 +0000

Just when you thought your online Catster experience couldn’t possibly get any better, our friends over at Brand Thunder have stepped in and built an amazing (and FREE!) Catster Firefox add-on that will make the way you meowve around the Internet an even cooler experience than it was before.

You’ve got to try it out and let us know what you think! Feline unsure about what your dogs will think? They can go ahead and download the Dogster version for their yaptops… We don’t want to start any inter-species squabbles, you know…

It’s a Mozilla Firefox thing, people, so if you’ve been debating trying out Firefox, your reason to finally make that jump is here! This themed browser, along with the fact that all of our sites work best on Firefox, will help you get the most out of your Catster experience.

Read more about the Catster browser here, or install it immediately right here.

Enjoy!

–Anders

Veteran Tipster Tracie Hotchner on the Daily Tip

Anders Porter — Thu, 21 May 2009 02:49:39 +0000

This week and next, it’s Daily Tip pro tipster Tracie Hotchner who is once again dishing out the tips on The Daily Cat Tip, the Catster blog that serves up a juicy tidbit of feline information every weekday.

Tracie is the pet expert who started things up for us here on Catster’s Daily Tip, and we’re always excited to roll out more of her purrfect tips. Tracie already has a few tips up this week, so head on over to the blog to check them out! And keep checking in to make sure you don’t miss a one of ‘em!

Here’s a little more about Tracie: Tracie Hotchner is an investigative journalist who became a best-selling author years ago when she wrote PREGNANCY & CHILDBIRTH, exposing misunderstood issues. The result was a devoted following who bought one million copies of the book, and an invitation to the Oprah show and the Today Show. Tracie brought the same keen eye to every aspect of living with a dog, resulting in THE DOG BIBLE: Everything Your Dog Wants You to Know, an encyclopedic book that has captured the hearts and minds of people across America whose dogs are their family members.

Tracie did it again for cat lovers with the all-encompassing THE CAT BIBLE: Everything Your Cat Expects You to Know. Her investigative research exposed a number of startling revelations, not the least of which was the harm of dry food for cats, coining the phrase “kitty crack” to describe it.

In addition to her two weekly live radio shows, Tracie travels across the country giving talks on nutrition to pet lovers (“You’re Feeding Your Pet What?!), and offering herself as “a bridge between consumers and providers” in talking to students in veterinary colleges from Tufts to UC Davis with her presentation “FUR PARENTS – Managing the Two-Legged Client.”

Tracie lives in Vermont where she and her husband have 13 acres for their three adopted dogs – two big Weimaraners, Scooby Doo and Teddy and Jazzy, a Border Collie mix (dogs who – to her dismay - would make life too miserable for a cat).

If you’d like to sign up to receive The Daily Cat Tip via email, so that you don’t miss tips from Tracie or any of our other grrreat pet experts, you may do so here, or to add the RSS feed to your reader, click here. Want it all? You can also get them via Twitter when you follow @catster.

Try Out Our New Cat Trivia Game!

Anders Porter — Wed, 20 May 2009 23:35:24 +0000

Knowing how much y’all like our cat games, we’ve been working hard on another one and IT’S READY fur you to try out!

Our new Cat Trivia Game not only tests how well you know cats by asking you to answer a bunch of fancy feline questions, but it lets you submit your own questions as well! How cool is that?

Ready to start playing? Click on the screen shot below to get on over there and get your trivia on!

Catster Moms Meet Mr. Higgins

Anders Porter — Tue, 19 May 2009 03:59:25 +0000

Inspired by a tail that they first caught wind of on The Cat’s Meow, a bunch of curious Catster members recently sent their humans to Eddie Rickenbacker’s burger joint in San Francisco to see what all the hoopla over a 27 pound cat was all about. If you don’t know who Mr. Higgins is, you can read all about him here.

The Catsters behind the investigation (Chai Latte, Little Bit, Sugar, Galin, Aislen, Alana, Luci, Guido, Yolo, Baci, Sausage and Meatball) had their moms make a trip to the restaurant to find out if this feline Maitre D was fur real.

From Guido’s Diary, in eye-tal-ian, of course:

A whole buncha cat chat! What a fantasticat time weeza all had in San Franfuncisco Saturday when 5, yep that’s Cinque in EyeTailYun or Cinco in EspanYole, uh huh I meanza 5 Catster mommas redezvouzed to meet the famous MR HIGGINS Maitre D cat at Eddie Rickenbackers Restaurant. He’s not just a kitty, heeza a humungous dude weighing 27 whopping pounds. He hangs on da bar Momma said and picking him up for a foto op was like working da biceps furza herza.

Myza furiends mommas are catzowey! Wee’za had a visit from SAUSAGE and MEATBALL’S Pink Monkey Momma - sheeza purrty and hugza likesa she mighta be EyeTailYun! And da purrty momma of my MY 3 SAN JOSE CalEyeFurKneeYah Meowster Pals Galen, Aislen, Alana hugged me too. And and, well derza more, da purrty momma of CHAI LATTE, SUGAR AND LITTLE BITwell, sheeeza a molto bene meowster hugger too. Oh Basta Pasta derza more news and mews cuz my friend LUCI sendsa her exPURRt hugging momma too so can you in yurza 9 lives imagine da cat chat that was going on at Mr Higgins’ ristorante? UndoubtaCATically he purrobably excused himself to go and catnap !

The verdict: Yep - he’s fur real! Check him out!!

Thanks for investigating, Catsters! Pawsome work!

Cat Mothers are the Cat’s Meow

Anders Porter — Sun, 10 May 2009 20:29:23 +0000

I’ll just start by saying Happy Mother’s day to all of our cat mothers out there, both feline and humine (hee hee). Mothers are amazing, with our without fur, and they deserve all of the recognition that they get on this special day. That said, don’t let it be a Hallmark holiday — it’s okay to call your mom next Friday or on July 11 and wish her a Happy Mother’s Day. Every day is a day to thank yo mama.

As most of you know, there was a contest on The Cat’s Meow this past week to choose the Best Cat Mom. Choosing just one, as soon as I saw all of the entries starting to pour in, was something that I thought would be impossible. But Karen has done it and has chosen a winner! To find out who took home the honor, click here.

That said, every Cat Mom is a winner, which is why Karen made this badge for all of you great Cat Moms out there to post on your Catster profile page or your own blog!

If you haven’t read the entries, you should take a few minutes and do so. They are extremely touching and reflect the caliber of our purrific members: caring, loving, concerned and generous. At the close of the contest there were 226 entries. I will leave you with one of my personal favorites:

HI, my name is Spot but I am writing on behalf of our whole family. This is me as a kitten

When my mommy lost her kitty Peanuts (when he was 15) she went to petfinder to find a new fur ball to love. She found my pal Tater from a rescue in Idaho. Then she found my brother Patches & I in a high kill shelter in TN. We came with all kinds of goodies, like ringworm that was nearly impossible to get rid of. But she did it!

Then she saw Blue (and this is the picture that made mommy 100% sure she HAD to have him) and adopted him from a TX rescue.

A year later Scooter desperately needed help, he was very sick (almost but not AS sick as Blue was as a kitten) so mom adopted him from GA. But he gave us ALL parasites. So all of us had to go on several different meds.

Unfortunately right after this I got VERY sick. So sick mommy’s vet couldn’t tell her what to do to help me after going to the vet every few days for 2 weeks. So mom took me to a vet over 2 hours from home. They did all kinds of tests on me and told mom she had to give me shots! She learned but I kept getting sicker
So she took me back to the vet again every few days…I kept getting worse. Mommy (who is a vegan) fed me first raw, then cooked liver, baby food. Anything to try and help me get my blood work better. No such luck.

Mom ordered me special medicine from England. Those shots didn’t work either.
Mom spent hours online and wrote to vets all over the world asking for help. No one knew what to tell her
So mom took me to an internal specialist. He did all kinds of tests on me. They hurt.
This is me right after i got back from my bone marrow and assorted biopsies

No matter what mom did, nothing seemed to help and no one could tell her what was wrong with me. She spent thousands of dollars trying to save me but within 3 months of getting sick I left mommy, my brother Patches and all of the family…

Mom is still sad about losing me but she has since adopted Chance & Lucky (2 Chihuahuas) and 2 more kitties, Indy & Coco who now live with all the rest of the gang and Grimley (who was adopted from the rescue mom volunteered with for 7+ years!) the big dog who i used to think was my daddy.

I hope you think my mommy is a great as we all do!
Love, Spot

Thanks for the great entry, Spot! And Happy Mother’s Day to all the Cat Moms out there!

Field Trip! San Francisco SPCA

Anders Porter — Thu, 07 May 2009 21:30:17 +0000

This last weekend I was fortunate enough to be able to take a tour of the San Francisco SPCA facility, a beautiful complex that houses an amazing adoption facility for dogs and cats, as well as a brand new, state-of-the-art Animal Care Center.

It was so great to see so many dogs and cats being treated so well, whether they were waiting to be picked up by their new owners or still adoptable. At the time of our visit, the facility was taking care of 16 dogs and 41 cats. The pets are housed in spacious environments, so they have plenty of space to run around and play… a few of the rooms even had televisions in them, to keep the little guys company when a volunteer is not around. Cool!

Whenever I have the opportunity to visit a shelter or an pet adoption center, I am always blown away by the loving assistance that is provided by the volunteers. The SFSPCA is no exception. The facility relies on volunteers to care for shelter dogs and cats, conduct adoption counseling, participate in humane education, provide foster care for special needs animals, and enrich the lives of people in the community through animal-assisted therapy.

I was impressed so much by the facility and the staff that I JUST NOW printed out their volunteer application and plan on filling it out and sending it in. I just GOTTA get back over there and lend a helping paw!

Have you toured your local adoption center or rescue facility? If you haven’t, give them a call and find out when you can stop by and say hi. You may soon find yourself printing out a volunteer application as well!

Special thanks to Suzanne Hollis for the great guided tour! You can see Suzanne’s Catster family here!

Now You Can Comment on Diary Entries!

Anders Porter — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:09:17 +0000

We’ve just today added a new feature to our Diary pages, so that other cats can meow back comments about what you have to say! Yay!

It’s easy to do–as you can see here, Tailer just went in and commented on a diary entry that Aisha wrote:

If you’re logged into your Catster account, you can simply choose the pet author that’s writing the comment and start meowing. OR, you can enter a name and email address (URL optional) and then write your comment.

And don’t worry, you don’t have to allow comments, or you can choose to approve them before they can be published. You can change your commenting preferences by going to “My account” and then choose to modify your “Account preferences” and then choose “Modify now” next to “Comment preferences”… and you’ll get this screen, where you can make your changes:

That’s it! We hope you enjoy this new feature–now get on out there and start commenting on your favorite diary entries!

MEOWZERS!

It’s National Pet ID Week: Is Your Cat Tagged?

Anders Porter — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 23:36:35 +0000

Extra! Extra! Meow all about it! April 18 - 24 is National Pet ID Week! Yay! We love our community of kitties (as do you) and are determined to make sure that we don’t let one single cat go unprotected. One in three pets will get lost in their lifetime and sadly, most of these dogs and cats do not find their way back home. You can reduce the chances of losing your cat by preparing for the worst today. The steps are simple, quick and will save you from unnecessary heartbreak should your cat ever go lost or missing in the future.

How many of the following can you check off your list?

Take a picture of your cat. Right now. Not only is it important to have a recent photo of your cat, but you should make sure that it is stored online somewhere, so that you can access it from anywhere at any time, if you should need to print up posters or show people what your cat looks like. Whether you choose to store your images on Flickr, Snapfish, Photobucket, Catster, or on your cat’s pet ID and recovery service profile page, you’ll be glad that you can access them when you need to.

Get your cat microchipped. Every vet’s office will now do it for you, so what are you waiting for? As our own Dr. Barchas says, “Microchips cannot be lost, and they remain the most effective way to identify your pet permanently.” Enough said.

Make a contact list for your pet. Take a few minutes to write down the names of people who know your cat well. This should not only include friends and family members, but people who see your cat every day, like a cat sitter or your neighbors. Then, make sure that you have a current phone number and email address for everyone on the list, and make sure that they have yours. These are going to be the first people that you contact in the event that your cat goes missing. They may not only have tips for you when you need them most, but they will be of great benefit when it comes to helping you keep an eye out for Fluffy.

Register with a pet ID and recovery service. While having an ID tag on your pet is a great start, you should make sure that your ID tag is connected to an online pet ID and recovery service, so that your up-to-date contact information is always easily accessible to the finder of your pet. We believe that our own pet ID and recovery service is the best one on the market, but we also believe that no matter which service you choose, it’s the decision to register that’s most important. Celebrate National Pet ID Week by registering your pets today.

Help us spread the word about National Pet ID Week and forward this link to all of your pet-loving friends, so that they can also make sure that they’ve got all bases covered. It’s a team effort - it takes a village of YOUs, MEs and WEs to make sure that every kitty on the planet is tagged and easily identifiable.

Enter coupon code PETIDWEEK09 on the payment screen to get the discount.

This offer is good this week only so act now!

Let’s do this.

*The cutie pictured here is Catster member Skeezix. He’s tagged! Are you?

Are Female or Male Cats Dominating the Pawpulation?

Anders Porter — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:30:44 +0000

Are you ready to find out?

We’ve collected data from all of our cat members and it turns out that the numbers of males and females are pretty much the same! Just like their owners, they share the planet equally! Yay!

Okay, okay, it’s not exactly equal - if you look at the chart below, you’ll see that the males have a slight edge, but not by much…

Pulling from statistics that represent over 185,000 cats, this finding is based on the gender information that you provided when you set up your cat’s profile. You also told us about activeness, intelligence, curiosity, vocal strength and friendliness, which means that we have a LOT of feline and breed-specific information from the people who know about cats best: YOU. We’ll be sure to share some of those statistics in the future as well!

Is the cat pawpulation in your household or on your block equal? Let us know in the comments!

Manly purrs and beautiful elegant graceful meows,

The Catster HQ number crunchers