Grab your helmet, check the air in your tires, and hop on your bike because in many U.S. cities, May 12 - 16 is Bike to Work Week! Six Apart has a lot of biking enthusiasts, so we're very excited to support this event by encouraging all of our employees to bike to work this week. San Francisco's Bike to Work Day is tomorrow, Thursday, May 15th, and New York's is Friday, May 16th.

Bike to Work Week

Six Apart is helping out its employees by providing maps (shaded according to steepness - a must in SF!) to help everyone plan out his/her route, as well as finding first-time riders buddies to commute with. We're also supporting ALL SF riders who pass the front of our office by handing out coffee, juice and snacks from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. If you're in our neighborhood, look for the sign that says "Six Apart Supports Bike to Work Day" and stop by to say hi and get energized!

Improve your health, financial status, productivity, and happiness by joining thousands - maybe even millions - of commuters around the country who are hopping on their bikes to get to work. Visit the Bike to Work Week website to find out more about events in your area.

Support the two-wheeled way of life with the "Passing Left" theme found in "Photo-Based" in the Design Area. Planning on cycling to work this week? Let us know in the comments!

Passing Left

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As we mentioned last week, we had to postpone the maintenance that was due to occur on Thursday, May 8th.

We have rescheduled the maintenance for tonight, Tuesday, May 13th, starting at 6:00 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time (that's 1:00 A.M. UTC/GMT). We'll be taking Vox offline for a bit in order to move the service to a brand new home in some bright, shiny new server racks. We don't expect to be offline for more than an hour or two, but we apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.

Again, thank you for your patience as we continue to invest in Vox's infrastructure!

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Tonight, starting at 6:00 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time (that's 1:00 A.M. UTC/GMT), we'll be taking Vox offline for a bit in order to move the service to a brand new home in some bright, shiny new server racks. We don't expect to be offline for more than an hour or two, but we apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.

Thank you for your patience as we continue to invest in Vox's infrastructure!

Update: we've postponed tonight's maintenance, and will let you know when we reschedule.  Thanks for your patience!

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Last week, we announced the winners of the HP "What Do You Have to Say? Theme Design Contest and promised you we'd make the winning themes available on Vox in the coming weeks. After a little more thought, we decided you shouldn't have to wait a second longer to use these creative and inspiring designs on your blogs, so we made them available for you today. Who says good things only come to those who wait?

Winning Themes

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One of my favorite Six Apart traditions, even though it can only be described as a truly bad idea, is that sometimes when everybody is having drinks on a Friday afternoon, Mena cuts daveman692's hair. Thanks to Mr. Sippey for grabbing the video.

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Straight to Video
Now you can share your Flickr videos on your Vox blog!

A few weeks ago, Flickr announced that pro members are now able to share videos of up to 90 seconds in their photostream. Many of you already post photos to your Vox blog directly from your Flickr account, and now we’ve made it so you can do the same with your Flickr videos.

To post a Flickr video to your Vox blog, just follow the same steps you would if you were posting a Flickr photo. (Yes, that means you’ll find your Flickr videos in “Photos,” not “Videos.”)

Not using Flickr to add photos to Vox? Find out how to connect your Flickr account to your Vox account. Plus, using Flickr means you’ll never have to upload a photo twice, or waste valuable storage space!

Around the World with Vox and CupCate
A little over a year ago, we announced that CupCate was one of the Grand Prize winners of the Vox World Tour. A month ago, Cate and her husband, Iain, packed their bags and flew to San Francisco, the first stop of a three-cities-in-fourteen-days vacation.

While they were in SF, Team Vox was lucky enough to have a yummy lunch with Cate and Iain and some of us even made it out for a late night karaoke session at The Mint.

CupCate and Lisa

We were also happy to hear, however, that she took some time to enjoy a glass of wine, a roaring fire, and the luxury of utter relaxation.

Then it was off to Tokyo where she saw gorgeous cherry blossoms, the Tokyo Tower and the Sensoji Temple, and even got a special tour around Tokyo with Ayako from Six Apart’s Japan office!

Cherry Blossoms

And it wouldn't be a Vox World Tour without Paris in the spring time, decadent French meals, and, of course, the Eiffel Tower.

CupCate in Paris

It sounds like an amazing adventure. Congratulations again to CupCate. We had so much fun with you while you were in SF and we can't wait until your next visit!

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Show us a picture of the pet you'd most like to have in your life.

Working dog

I want a dog. I don't care if it's a puppy, an adult dog, big, little, purebred, a mutt, whatever. I just want a dog. Two would be great but I won't be greedy.

My apartment doesn't allow pets and I want a condo anyway, so I've been tucking money away over the past few months. If I do that consistently, I might be able to buy a place in the next, I don't know, five years? I could find an apartment that allows dogs, I guess, but I can't afford the rent on a new place so I'm kind of stuck here for a while.

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It was hard to choose from the 355 entries, but the judges have announced the winners of our month-long "What Do You Have to Say?" theme design contest, sponsored by HP. And the winners are....

First Place: "River at Night," by Teresa Jones

First Place

Second Place: "Live and Learn," by Li Kim Goh

Second Place

Third Place: "Vectori Drips," by Terri

Third Place

People's Choice Award: "Shiny," by Noah

People's Choice

The First Place theme, “River at Night,” was designed by Teresa Jones who told us that nature plays a big part in many of her designs. “I love nature and really love combining nature themes with a touch of whimsy,” Jones said. The inspiration behind her winning design? A childhood memory of sitting on the dock on summer nights.

And while we know it's not polite to brag, you'll forgive us for a moment while we gush about the fact that the 2nd and 3rd prize winners are both Voxers!

The Second Place theme, “Live and Learn” was submitted by Li Kim Goh, or as you may know her: gollykim. We thought it was pretty cool to hear that Li, “didn't really think about winning, but mainly [entered] just for fun [while also] creating a few new banners for [her] own Vox blog.

When asked why blog design was so important to her, Li answered, ““because it draws readers' attention and makes your blog stand out from the millions of other blogs.” With such a great design, we think Li did just that.

The Third Place winner, Terri, showed off her “funky-fresh style” with her theme, “Vector Drips.” Terri said that having her theme picked made her day. You know what Terri? It made our day too!

The best part of the contest? In the coming weeks, we’ll make all the winning themes available on Vox, TypePad and LiveJournal so that you can use them on your blog!

Thank you to everyone who entered the contest and CONGRATULATIONS to all the winners!

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40+ designers at up to 80% off!

Are you going to be in New York City this weekend? If so, you won't want to miss the Billion Dollar Babes Spring Sale! We told you all about our favorite nationwide sample sale a few weeks ago, but we wanted to send out a quick reminder that this Friday, April 25th and Saturday, April 26th, you can save up to 80% on over 40 amazing designers at the NYC Spring Sale. This is a shopping experience you do not want to miss. Trust us.

Plus, the fabulous ladies at Billion Dollar Babes have a very special offer exclusively for Vox shop-a-holics. Visit http://www.bdbinvite.com/ and enter voxvip in the promo code box to receive an early start time and first look at the sale!

Not going to be in NYC? Don't worry... You can still make the L.A. sale (May 30th - 31st) or the S.F. sale (June 6th - June 7th)!

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the last few days have been amazing, for reasons both personal and professional. but since this has somewhat become my running blog:

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