Everyone is cordially invited to check out the development site where I'm writing the next version of Silicon Investor.
dev.siliconinvestor.com
Keep in mind that this is a work in progress. It may be something along the lines of only 10-20% done at this point. It doesn't have the ability yet to view profiles, write messages, and several other key components, but it does already have a few features the current version lacks, like different search options (by no means complete yet), and what I think is a much cleaner interface. A lot of the "smarts" of the Heritage interface, but with the simplicity of Classic and a lot of the "gee-whiz, neato" of iHub.
I expect to be working on it tonight to put "dead-end" pages at the links that currently don't have code written for them.
As you use the new site, keep the following in mind:
1. It's a *development* version. This means that it can be taken down (either intentionally or accidentally) with no notice. This also means that not everything works on it yet. So please don't send me messages like "I like the look, but the message-writing function is broken." Yep. It's broken. I haven't written it yet.
2. It has much of the data in place from the current version, but a lot of it isn't. It's rarely a real-time copy of the current production system. As it gets closer to being ready for release, the data will get closer to real-time.
3. A lot of the data migration currently requires emptying some of the tables on the development site and repopulating them from scratch. This'll happen without notice and when it does, huge parts of the site will be empty for a couple of hours at a time.
4. Please, no "look and feel" suggestions yet unless I've made a BIG mistake from an interface perspective and you're qualified to tell me so (ie, you're not color-blind like I am).
5. This interface will be the ONLY interface for a while after it's gone into production. At first there will be no Classic and there will be no Heritage. Let me get this interface completed and in production, then I'll work on other interfaces.
6. Keep in mind that this invitation to kick the tires on the new version carries with it an implicit understanding that you know what "beta" means, and an important part of that is reporting bugs to me. Use this thread to do so. However, before doing so, please do the following:
A. Make sure your browser is configured to NOT display "friendly" error messages. It needs to be configured to display the "raw" error message for it to do me any good.
B. If you get an error message, don't report it right away. Most errors will be because I'm in the middle of writing or modifying a module and will have made a mistake. In those situations, I already know about it and am addressing it and it's entirely possible that if you click the same link 15 seconds later, it won't throw an error.
7. Have fun with it and check it out frequently. It'll (hopefully) evolve on a daily basis and I hope you'll have fun watching the evolution. I know I do.
8. If you're comfortable cutting/pasting parts of URLs, you might find the search functionality of it very useful for using the current production version of the site. Feel free. It's there to be used.
9. Keep in mind that currently the system only knows of 3 kinds of users: Not logged in, logged in, and Administrator. As such, there are features available on it right now that'll eventually only be available to subscribers and grandfathered members. In a few weeks, I expect to have it being more selective about who it delivers what kind of functionality to. The example that comes most readily to mind is full-text search. It's available to everyone now, but will only be available to premium members soon.
10. Please, not too many suggestions yet for things to add to the site. In most cases, they're probably already planned. If you don't believe me, look at iHub and all the stuff it's got and keep in mind I only consider it about 75% "done" at this point.
That's it. Kick the tires a lot so I can see how it performs under a decent load, and check back frequently to see new features show up. Since Dave is now handling Admin and my wife is interviewing and will soon hire a new bookkeeper/assistant, and I've got an affordable consultant available to put out other fires for me, I'm finally able to devote most of my energies to writing the new version of the site. So things should start happening pretty fast!
PS. No, I don't know yet when I expect to roll it out. I'm shooting for the end of April, but could miss that by weeks in either direction. |
