May 25th, 2008 jimmy
Things have been going fairly well with the testing of the system. It is sometimes hard to get people engaged in testing it all out. I find I am like that as well. An initial burst of activity after sign up and then it tails off.
But I did get some good feedback from what has been done so far. I thinkk the one major change I incorporated was to the UI, or user interface. I am no designer, by any stretch. But I tried to take some feedback and open things up a bit. I took out a couple of elements, one being the meta-data pane, which form what I heard think confused people more than it really helped.
I will admit, having the code outsourced has been a bit of a challenge, especially recently as I try to tie up all the loose ends. The main developer on the project that was working my stuff got married and was away from work for several weeks with little to no work being done to remedy the final bug fixes. I am no programmer by any means as well, but I have been doing what I can to get in and learn and not only be able to troubleshoot and fix issues, but also to add new features.
I was proud of myself the other day for setting up a user admin page for users to be able to change their password. It may sound simple, but it took a bit as it was my first foray into php connecting to my database and all … good thing I had a backup, right ?
There are still some outstanding issues I am working to get resolved and tie up this set of development.
- users getting undefined in the From area when attempting to email a link to an item directly after uploading it. I have figured out what is happening here, just need to get it fixed.
- Few CSS issues with IE still to fix (If only I used Windows I could see the problem more often
)
- Issue with the Javascript bookmarklet when attempting to bookmark a page with numerous images.
Those are the main ones. Last time on my list was the integration of Amazon DevPay, which will allow a signal registration process with MyDropBin and an Amazon account. Amazon just updated DevPay fixing an issue whcih was stopping my integration, so I am now going to start looking for some help in getting this taken care of.
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May 4th, 2008 jimmy
Well, I think it is finally time to let go. I know it has been quite a long time since I wrote here. Things have been a bit crazy. I think since last time, I finally got my “Phase 2″ of development done and am wrapping up some of the last little bugs, etc.
I have had some friends and others that signed up and testing the system a bit. I worked hard for getting screencasts together for an overview and features. You can check those out here.
Anyway, love for you all to head over to MyDropBin and give it a go.
There are still a few things I have to tie up:
- user admin page
- Fix email item bug after uploading new item
- integrate Amazon DevPay for one step registration process
- Look into integrating other storage services
As always I love to hear any feedback from you all. Please put any Feature Requests or Bug Reports here.
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November 16th, 2007 admin
Hello everyone. I wanted to give an update as to where I am at with MyDropBin.
As you may or may not know, I have had the initial version of the site up for a little over a month or so. I am happy with the results thus far. It may seem a bit rudimentary to many of you, but it was and is the necessary base for what I wanted to add features onto.
In the meantime, I have been in touch with the developers about the requirements and features that will go into the next phase. Everything seems to be set and I believe coding will begin very soon. Here is some features you can expect t see in the next “release”:
- Cross browser bookmarklet that will allow you to save dynamic content (urls, images, files) you see on the web
- Upload Folders from your desktop in addition to individual files. A folder with the same name oas the one selected will be created in your MyDropBin and all files place inside of it. Great for backing up a documents folder or images, or whatever …
- Ability to send your MyDropBin item to multiple users with a comma separated list of email addresses
- An Upload Progress Bar overlayed while your content is being uploaded so you know when it is done.
- RSS feeds that you can share for each of your tags and folders.
This feature-set is getting the site more to where I want to go with it and I am excited to get started and hope to have the new features rolled out soon.
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October 21st, 2007 admin
Well, I have had the site up for a week or so. I have been doing some little things, like replacing icons and stuff. I have also been trying to get some testers on the system to work out any bugs so I can move forward with a full court press and get some interest in the site. Things seem to be going well and I am happy with progress thus far. There are still a few kinks to work out, and I am working with the developers to finish those off. I am also working on some enhancements I want to add to the current state as well as working on getting started with the development of the second phase, which will allow users to save dynamic content off web pages to their MyDropBin space as well.
I want to finish up with a nice screencasts of features and what the site has to offer and then try to make a marketing blitz so to speak and see if I cant drum up some business for the site.
stay tuned ….
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October 14th, 2007 admin
This post is going to be a kind of running to-do list of features we are going to be incorporating to MyDropBin.
Make sure to stop back from time to time to see what we have accomplished.
- Add item to multiple folders
- Users settings page to update user data to included changing S3 keys for a new storage bucket
- Add ability to add new tags to items in the Tag View
- Javascript bokmarklet to save items from the web
- RSS feeds of uploaded items by tag/folder to share
- Live rendering of documents in the view pane
- Enhance javascript gui’s
Please leave comments as to any other features you would like to see !
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October 13th, 2007 admin
Well, I finally have a product …. It has taken quite a while for me to get to this point, but I am here. Let me give a little history about how it all started. ..
A long time ago, ok like 8 months, I was waiting for a carry out order in a local restaurant. I am an avid tech follower and web 2.0 follower and can never really get my thoughts very far away from technology. In any case, there is a program I use on my MacBook called Journler. It is a great app that gives you an icon to drop things into. From there, a window comes up for you to tag and place these items into folders and keep all you stuff very well organized and at your fingertips. The only issue I had was the fact that it resided only on that computer. If I was at work, or away from my laptop, I could not get to what I needed.
So as I stood there in line, I thought, “I need a Journler for the web.” Thus was my idea. I began by jotting down notes here and there of things I wanted it to do. After a while of this, I created some powerpoint slides of front end and backend design concepts.
Basically, here is the concept. From the beginning I always knew I wanted to use Amazons S3 storage service as the backend. This way my users could simply sign up for S3, get some keys that identified their storage space and plug them into my service. My service would give the user and easy interface that would allow them to save off their data and most importantly allow them to tag meta data to the items and also place the items in their very own defined folders. The web interface would allow them to be able to retrieve this data wherever they may be, as long as they had internet connectivity. Storage costs for S3 are very cheap, also allowing the user to pay only for the storage they are utilizing.
After I had my ducks in a row, so to speak, I placed a proposal on Elance and found a company to put my design ideas to code. I am a one person company and have financed everything so far out of my own pocket and will do so as far as I can. The first phase is done. This phase includes the ability to upload and tag files from your local desktop and store them in your own S3 bucket. These files are accessible from any internet connected computer. You can also share these files with others. After it is uploaded, email them the link and they can go download the file as well. The second phase will include the ability to save more dynamic content from the web. I am looking to develop a javascript bookmarklet allow the user to drop content from the web onto and save it off, tagged and all, into their bin. Stay tuned for more updates on this as we move forward.
Oh yeah, how did I come up with the name ? Well, I spent a lot of time thinking about this kicking ideas about in my head. Amazon calls your storage spaces buckets. I wanted to think of something along those lines. It occurred to me one day, a “bin”. A bin where the user can simply drop things into … Thus I came up with My Drop Bin, and if you say it fast, it sounds like “my drop in” a place to simply drop things into.
Thanks for stopping by and please check back for more and more updates as I move forward.
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