Just a reminder that now you can sign up for your own user blog on Hoosier Access!  First, you need to register for an account if you haven’t yet. From there you can follow the simple steps to start your own blog.

If you already have account (from before we set up the ability to have user blogs) you can set up your own user blog here.

Join in the conversation and share your voice!

By the way, become a fan of Hoosier Access on Facebook while you’re at it.

Congressman Mike Pence will be speaking to the 2009 graduates and alumni of the Indiana Leadership Forum at the annual ILF luncheon tomorrow at the Hyatt at 11:30.  Hoosier Access will be there as well to bring the Congressman’s speech to you live.

For those of you who are not able to attend the lunch be sure to tune in, right here, to Hoosier Access for the broadcast.

Indiana Leadership Forum

Today I’m extremely pleased to announce some brand new changes at Hoosier Access.

First of all, the first thing you’ve probably noticed is the brand spanking new site design. We think you’ll enjoy the new sleek layout.

Secondly, and most importantly, you can sign up for and create your very own blog on Hoosier Access!!! We’ve been saying we’d have this since day one, today it’s finally true!

Third, you can reply to individual comments. We think that will get some great conversations going on HA.

There will be other new aspects coming to HA this week (such as a mobile site). And we’re not completely done with the new site design, but we think you’ll enjoy some of the new features.

And don’t forget to vote for us for a Blindy in the category of “Best Political Blog in Indiana”!!

Today I found out that Hoosier Access has been nominated for “best political blog in Indiana” by the Blog Indiana 2009 Conference!  What an honor!  We are in the running with four other excellent political blogs (2 Republican, 2 Democrat and the RTV 6 blog).  There is only one vote per person so please vote for us! Voting ends at 12:00AM Saturday, August 15th.

We’re excited about the new changes coming to HA!  I did want to mention to those who have emailed us about the user blogs, they should be available this weekend.  Also, because we are working on changes this week, sometimes you will get an error when either signing up or registering.  This will all be resolved by this weekend.

Thanks again for wanting to join our community.  Everything should be up and running very soon!

It was two years ago today that Hoosier Access launched and without readers like you, we wouldn’t be around today.  So we want to say thank you to all of our readers and inform you of some upcoming events.

The biggest news is that Hoosier Access will be making history and participating in and broadcasting the first ever blogger moderated Congressional debate in Indiana!  On August 25th, 2009 at 6:00pm our very own Mark Warner and Scott Fluhr (also of HoosierPundit.com) will join Gary Snyder of Huntingtonpolitics.com for a debate that will feature 5th District Congressional Republican candidates John McGoff, Mike Murphy and Brose McVey.  More details will come on Monday morning with an official press release .

Also, a new site design, user blogs, a mobile site and many other new features will be rolled out this week.

Our third year is looking to be our best yet.  And we want you to be a part of it.

Hoosier Access will be experiencing some outages over the next couple of hours as we work to upgrade our software.  We will be up and running smoothly in a few hours.

I want to alert you guys to a couple of blogs up in Howard County that deserved your much coveted attention. First of all we have Mallot’s Blog. This guy hits the point, but is funny at the same time. Secondly, we have “Right Thinking“. He currently has a pretty interesting political quiz up on his blog right now. You’ll be surprised at some of the answers.

Also, since we’re promoting other conservative blogs from around the state, I want to encourage those of you who are on Facebook and haven’t signed up to sign up for the Official Hoosier Facebook Group. Good stuff going on there! Also, make sure to subscribe to our RSS feed, either by email or the traditional way.

And thanks for keeping on coming by to check Hoosier Access!

(If you want, use this as an open thread)

A quick note to everyone, who visits and would like to leave a comment. Because of the craziness that’s occurred over the weekend in one of the posts below, and because I think it’s a cop out to “comment and run” we’ve changed the commenting feature. From now on, if you want to leave a comment on Hoosier Access, you will have to register with the site. This may affect how many comments we get at first, but I’m sure it’s something we can all get used to.

I know that vast majority of the people who leave comments are actually leaving worthwhile, engaging and conversation pursuing comments, but sometimes a few people can abuse a simple privilege and ruin it for the rest of us. I’m sorry we had to do this, but we at Hoosier Access want to keep our house a clean house with thought provoking conversation and not teenage-like ramblings. We don’t want our comment section to turn into the comment section of the IndyStar or like TDW when Jen was still around.

No more anonymous comments, no more subject titles as names and hopefully, no more comment hit and runs.

Thank you for coming to Hoosier Access and we hope you will agree with our changes.

Very astute of you fair reader. I too was wondering why Hoosier Access wasn’t loading. The unfortunate thing is, our webmaster is in China. Taking a chance, I emailed him considering that it’s evening over there. I got an immediate response! (Yes, he’s that good!) Turns out some files or what not are being moved around on our server. Here’s what he sent me.

(Read more below the fold)

Here at Hoosier Access we’re looking at ways to improve our site. We want to make it more enjoyable and a more user friendly site for you, our readers. So you may have noticed a few changes over on the far right hand side of the site since the last time you were here. We’ve changed and added new icons for our RSS feed (sign up for Hoosier Access in your inbox!), check out our video archive and subscribe for our podcasts on iTunes which include bonus material not included here on Hoosier Access! And because we love the social networks here at HA, join our Facebook group. Also, we moved the Tip Line higher so in case you may not have seen it before.

Our goal was to clear up some of the clutter and we hoped we’ve accomplished that, but you guys are the judges. So here’s my question to you dear reader, what do you think of the new icons/changes? Give us your feedback.

Hoosier Access started back in August as the newest alternative in conservative blogging. In January, we launched Hoosier Access Radio and have interviewed Congressional candidates Jon Elrod and Sean Shepard from the 7th CD, John McGoff in the 5th, State Rep. Candidates Adam Nelson and Chris Swatts as well as sitting elected officials in Congressman Dan Burton, State Representative Cindy Noe, and Mayor Greg Ballard.

In March, Hoosier Access joins Facebook! We have launched the Hoosier Access Facebook group and I encourage all of our readers to join!

It’s just our next step as we continue to see Hoosier Access grow as the number one conservative new media outlet in Indiana. There’s more in the works for the future. This is going to be an incredible year! We hope to see you here and on Facebook!