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Tomorrow, you will notice a change when you log into your account and glance over at your "My Stuff" box in the top right corner of People section pages.  No longer will you see a huge profile picture and a bunch of big buttons leading to your profile manager.

Now, you will see a small profile pic next to your latest "friend update" (more on that in a sec), above the latest updates from your friends on the site and four "My Tools" buttons that drop down to reveal links to where you can add or edit content and manage other parts of your profile.

If you click the "Open My Inbox" button below your new friend updates, you'll go to the front page of your new Personal Inbox.  From here, you can manage everything your email notifications and friend invitations, as well as your friend updates.

If you use social networks like Facebook, you're familiar with the idea behind friend updates.  From your My Stuff box or from your Inbox, you can jot a short "update" about what you're doing that will be seen by others in their update feeds and on your profile page.  There are plenty of privacy options here too--you can choose to let anyone see your updates, to not use the udpate feature at all and turn it off, to let only those you've friended see your updates, or to choose specific people on your friends list to see your updates.

Apart from the update feature, you can also make other choices as to how you receive information from Bakersfield.com and from whom you receive information.  You can choose to receive emails from jsperber@raisingbakersfield.com--comment notifications, friend invitations, "send a message"s--in your email only, in your onsite inbox only, or both.  And you can also choose who can and cannot contact you via "send a message," guestbook messages, and blog comments, through the "blocked users" manager.

Check out our FAQ for these new features, explore around, try stuff out, and let us know when you have questions, concerns, or ideas.

Enjoy!

Ryan Pedigo
Web Technology Evangelist