Care in the Community

Sometimes the only way to get your point across, or to really describe what's going on, is to show a video. You might want to show off your latest tech project, do a video review of your latest gadget, take us onto a trade show floor with you or give us a tour of your company's server room.

In recognition of this, we've added a feature that will let ZDNet members embed a YouTube video in their blog postings.

All you have to do is grab the URL generated by YouTube. If it's a video you've uploaded, you can find it here:



Or you can grab the link for any YouTube video in the address bar above:



Just paste this URL into the body of your blog entry where you want it to show up. It's best not to put it near the start of the post, as it might interfere with its showing up on the Community page listings--and anyway, a few words of introduction are a good idea.

If you've got any feedback on this, or have questions, just leave a comment or send me an internal message. Until then, I'll watch out for the loltechs...

We know that ZDNet members, especially those who've entered the Homebrew Challenge competition, want to share images in their postings. Good news — we've made changes to let you do this.

While you can't upload images, you can embed pictures hosted elsewhere--on Flickr, for example. To do this, use the usual standards-compliant code:

<img src="URL" width="NUMBER OF PIXELS" height="NUMBER OF PIXELS" alt="WHAT THE PICTURE SHOWS" />

The maximum width of your image should be 400px. It will break if it is any larger than this.

Hope that helps! Post a comment if you have any questions or feedback.

Friday is the deadline for our competition to win a spiffy black MacBook and a hard-to-find matching Vodafone USB modem. So if you haven't had a go yet, then get cracking and enter. Even if you don't want the laptop bundle for yourself, Christmas is coming, and you could get one present sorted.

It'll only take a few minutes — all you have to do is answer a simple multiple choice question and complete a short tiebreaker. So here's the competition page — give it a go.

Here's a head-start on a massive competition — think £20,000 in prizes — for all those IT pros whose pursuit of tech doesn't end when the working day does.

We know that many of you, when you get home and close the front door behind you, roll up your sleeves and get stuck into a project — not because you're paid to, but because you love to do it. It could be anything from setting up a rack server in the garage to designing a home automation system with a web interface. Or perhaps you've set up a distributed media system — not so much a home theatre as a home multiplex.

In the next couple of weeks, ZDNet.co.uk will launch a competition to find the most impressive home tech project. Once you've entered, you'll be able to post extra info, pics and video to a group blog — and the more you post, the more the judges will have to go on.

It doesn't matter whether it's a project you've been working on for a while, or something you cook up especially for this contest. And as long as it involves tech, we want to see it. However, the competition is only open to members, so if you haven't got an account yet, go here to sign up — it only takes a couple of minutes.

This is your chance to get started before the launch. We can't give full details of the prize yet, but it is worth £20,000, and there's a heavy hint in the headline here. Watch this space for more to come.