03 January 2008
It has been a while since I have posted any news but that does not mean I have not been working on SET. I am working on a content rating system which will enable members to select an appropriate classification for each entry. The purpose is to enable members to filter what entries they see; to show only entries appropriate for children for example. I have also made a few minor interface changes both in preparation for the ratings system and to improve the ease of use of the site. Try holding your cursor over the
icon to see the author of an entry.
25 November 2007
A big thanks to ASR and Samantha for reporting and helping to diagnose an IE6 rendering bug and to Mr_Raw for reporting the 'next page broken' bug. Both of these bugs have been squished! ASR, Mr_Raw, and Samantha will be receiving a few extra points towards a new story credit for their help in making SET better.
27 October 2007
With the addition of the final core functionality — the add new story feature — SET is now in the beta version stage of its release cycle. This means that you are now encouraged to tell your friends about SET! Ask them to check things out and even create an account in order to begin writing stories and entries of their own.
23 October 2007
The feature you've all been waiting for...*drum roll* ..you can now start your own story! *cymbal crash, cheering, applause, etc.* Of course is a catch and I'd love to tell you all about it but as the saying goes, if I told you I'd have to kill you. The gist of it is that in order to start your own story you must first participate (i.e. write entries) in other stories. How many entries? I'm not saying and it is not that simple anyways. You can find some clue as to how well you are doing by visiting your profile (click on your user name in the blue bar above). Lastly everyone can start two stories of his/her own right away after creating a new account so to all of you who have already signed up (and have not begun two stories already), you are ready to go.
08 October 2007
Much fun! I have just written a couple Hayku that visitors may stumble upon from time to time — they are concerning error pages such as 403,404,500 etc.I have also put a lot of work into the the "Confirmation E-mail System" and have implemented it on the registration page (it is also used on the settings page when changing ones e-mail address).
01 October 2007
Well I must start by acknowledging that it has been a while since the last update and really there is little to show for it -- most all the work has been on behind the scenes items. I am happy to finally be done (done? yeah sure!) working on what has been quite a list of tedious bug fixes, boring features, code rewrites, and testing, testing, testing. Testing however is seemingly never done so please send me an e-mail if you find anything that does not seem right to you.
12 September 2007
Hello everyone, I am just posting to say that things are coming along nicely here in the SET Lab. I have been working hard to iron out a number of wrinkles in the site and plug a few security holes as well! If any of you out there are hackers of the sort that are willing and able to help test the security of my code please contact me...you know how to find me : )
01 September 2007
Oops! I completely forgot about all you masochistic Internet Explorer (IE) users out there. There were a number of major IE bugs in the site redesign which I have worked around the majority of now. Things should appear and function as intended now if you are using at least version 6.01 of Internet Explorer with a Windows operating system. If you are using an older version of IE...I'm sorry but you bring suffering upon yourself.
Are there any Mac users out there that would like to help me with testing?
As usual this site ought to work just fine with most any other decent browser out there.
30 August 2007
Latest feature? Everything! I just finished redesigning the layout of the entire site and with the redesign came a lot of little changes, additions, and bug fixes. I also rewrote the entries story database retrieval system to object oriented programing which is pretty new and exciting for me but really doesn't make a difference for any of you out there : ) There have been so many changes made that I will not even begin to list them; most of them are so subtle that you wont notice them ? which is exactly why they were made.
I know, I know, "How do I start a new story?"; well it is still on the list but that's about all I can say right now. Until I start making enough money to sit at home in my underwear and work on SET I will need to continue spending my days at my day job. And how do I intend to ever make money from SET? I don't know yet; hopefully there will be a way some day but if not this is a very challenging and enjoyable project to work on.
18 July 2007
Author statistics are just that, statistics of authors. Once signed in to SET you will notice that your name, which appears in the blue bar at the top of the page, is now a link to your statistics. Also, signed in or not, you can also access the stats page of other authors from any entry they have written by clicking on the author's name in the upper right hand corner of each entry. You will not be able to access the stats of authors who have chosen not to display their names. I hope to eventually expand the statistics pages into author profiles.
25 May 2007
Due to some feedback and my own experience I have increased the maximum entry length from 650 characters to 800. This will hopefully make it a little easier to finish up your thought without having to place the last sentence or so in another entry.
The intention of this still somewhat small maximum entry size is to encourage the stories to develop in smaller pieces. The reason for this is to make it easier for others to more easily change paths when reading as well as give ample opportunity for other writers to jump in and offer their own ideas.
23 May 2007
I'm not sure that anyone reading this will be all that interested but I figure the news section can be for me too. I have appropriated some code from another project and brought it over to SET. This code enables me to add news items (this is the first 'live test') tot he news section from an easy to use Web form. The news is now also stored in a database. Now more massive list of news items hand coded into XHTML. W00t!
19 May 2007
At long last you can now see just who it was that wrote that crazy entry! The author's name will appear in the top right hand corner of each entry by default. If you would prefer to be anonymous then simple visit the Settings page and click on the "Do not show my name with my entries" link.
Who knows where it all goes? Not me, but you might and you may not like it so now you can change it! You can now change your e-mail address by visiting the Settings page and following the simple instructions found there.
12 May 2007
Okay perhaps the exclamation mark was a bit much : ) The much requested feature has finally been added; you can now change your password. If you want to change your password, sign in and click on Settings. If you have forgotten your password then simply go to the Sign In page and click on the Send me a new password link.
24 April 2007
Bookmarks! Now you can add a bookmark at the end of a story-line (or wherever you like) and easily pickup where you left off next time you visit the site. You can access your bookmarks by visiting the "Bookmarks" link at the top of any page. You must be signed in to access the book marking feature.
11 April 2007
Welcome back Alpha Testers. SET ended up in a situation with our previous hosting provider which I was uncomfortable with so we have switched to a company called 1&1 for our hosting needs.
25 March 2007
Ready, SET, Write! This is the official launch of the Story Ever Telling (SET) Alpha. Thank you for all the feedback, help, and support I have already received while building SET. Now that I have finished with the core functionality of the site I need you to try things out. I also need you to send me a metric tonne of e-mails to wade through demanding I change everything to meet your ideas of what the site should be : ) Seriously though I really do need to know what you think of the site as a whole and especially any specific suggestions you have on improvements or simply repairs. Please send your comments and suggestions to set@storyevertelling.com.
28 February 2007
I have made a number of navigational changes to the way the stories are read. The biggest change was the addition of the "Previous page" functionality which allows for reverse navigation through a thread (story-line).
As mentioned in my last post you can get an idea of what viewing a story will be like by reading through the short introductory story What Shall We Do?
24 February 2007
Happy birthday to me (yesterday)!
I should also mention as a follow up that I decided not to work on a newsletter at this time so you will have to check back here occasionally to see what is happening.
If you want to see what it will look like to view a story visit the Learn more link at the top of the page and click on the What Shall We Do? link.
18 February 2007
Alright. I have added "forgotten password" functionality to the sign in/out system. If you forget your password simply click on the "Send me a new password" link at the bottom of the Sign In page to have a your password reset. The only catch with this feature is I have not yet added the ability to change your password yourself so if you do have your password reset you're going to be stuck with a very good yet difficult to remember password.
06 February 2007
Hurray! More than two hours of CSS...fun...and now it looks pretty in both IE7 & FF2 (..and hopefully IE6 & FF1). Now all our excellent [however un-enlightened & masochistic] M$ WinDoze Internet Explorer users can see the site the way it would look if they were using a standards compliant Web browser.
04 February 2007
Sweet! You can now Sign In with your SET account.
Even further into the future I would like to add a "Profile" page for each user where you can add/delete/edit various site options and also info about yourself for others to (optionally) see.
Okay, enough dreaming for now...next goal is to add "forgotten password" functionality to the sign in system. After that is done I will create the newsletter functionality. Finally when that is finished I believe everything will be in place to start actually building SET.
13 January 2007
Hooah! I have finished the registration system. You can now Sign Up for a SET account. You cannot however sign in yet but hey, it's progress.
You can also view previous news posts by following the link bellow. Please...try to control your excitement.
Oh yeah, also happy birthday Rachel Wife!
12 December 2006
I have been working on this site on average five hours a week which is not as much as I would like but things are progressing. I have been putting a lot of research into the backend systems for the user management system and the database system for the stories themselves. I have also spent a fair bit of energy into the visual aspects of the site; layout and structure as well as graphic styles and colours. This part of the site design is very difficult for me but I still feel the need to "get it right" so i struggle on. It will likely be mid January before my next post however I hope to have a functional user management system in place by then.
19 November 2006
Lots of changes happening (hopefully) daily around here so check back often to see what is happening. I will be sending out invitations for alpha testers hopefully within two weeks. Alpha testers will be hand picked however if you would like to be involved with beta testing please send me an e-mail and I will let you know when and how you can help.
It has been a while since I have posted any news but that does not mean I have not been working on SET. I am working on a content rating system which will enable members to select an appropriate classification for each entry. The purpose is to enable members to filter what entries they see; to show only entries appropriate for children for example. I have also made a few minor interface changes both in preparation for the ratings system and to improve the ease of use of the site. Try holding your cursor over the
icon to see the author of an entry.25 November 2007
A big thanks to ASR and Samantha for reporting and helping to diagnose an IE6 rendering bug and to Mr_Raw for reporting the 'next page broken' bug. Both of these bugs have been squished! ASR, Mr_Raw, and Samantha will be receiving a few extra points towards a new story credit for their help in making SET better.
27 October 2007
With the addition of the final core functionality — the add new story feature — SET is now in the beta version stage of its release cycle. This means that you are now encouraged to tell your friends about SET! Ask them to check things out and even create an account in order to begin writing stories and entries of their own.
23 October 2007
The feature you've all been waiting for...*drum roll* ..you can now start your own story! *cymbal crash, cheering, applause, etc.* Of course is a catch and I'd love to tell you all about it but as the saying goes, if I told you I'd have to kill you. The gist of it is that in order to start your own story you must first participate (i.e. write entries) in other stories. How many entries? I'm not saying and it is not that simple anyways. You can find some clue as to how well you are doing by visiting your profile (click on your user name in the blue bar above). Lastly everyone can start two stories of his/her own right away after creating a new account so to all of you who have already signed up (and have not begun two stories already), you are ready to go.
08 October 2007
Much fun! I have just written a couple Hayku that visitors may stumble upon from time to time — they are concerning error pages such as 403,404,500 etc.I have also put a lot of work into the the "Confirmation E-mail System" and have implemented it on the registration page (it is also used on the settings page when changing ones e-mail address).
01 October 2007
Well I must start by acknowledging that it has been a while since the last update and really there is little to show for it -- most all the work has been on behind the scenes items. I am happy to finally be done (done? yeah sure!) working on what has been quite a list of tedious bug fixes, boring features, code rewrites, and testing, testing, testing. Testing however is seemingly never done so please send me an e-mail if you find anything that does not seem right to you.
12 September 2007
Hello everyone, I am just posting to say that things are coming along nicely here in the SET Lab. I have been working hard to iron out a number of wrinkles in the site and plug a few security holes as well! If any of you out there are hackers of the sort that are willing and able to help test the security of my code please contact me...you know how to find me : )
01 September 2007
Oops! I completely forgot about all you masochistic Internet Explorer (IE) users out there. There were a number of major IE bugs in the site redesign which I have worked around the majority of now. Things should appear and function as intended now if you are using at least version 6.01 of Internet Explorer with a Windows operating system. If you are using an older version of IE...I'm sorry but you bring suffering upon yourself.
Are there any Mac users out there that would like to help me with testing?
As usual this site ought to work just fine with most any other decent browser out there.
30 August 2007
Latest feature? Everything! I just finished redesigning the layout of the entire site and with the redesign came a lot of little changes, additions, and bug fixes. I also rewrote the entries story database retrieval system to object oriented programing which is pretty new and exciting for me but really doesn't make a difference for any of you out there : ) There have been so many changes made that I will not even begin to list them; most of them are so subtle that you wont notice them ? which is exactly why they were made.
I know, I know, "How do I start a new story?"; well it is still on the list but that's about all I can say right now. Until I start making enough money to sit at home in my underwear and work on SET I will need to continue spending my days at my day job. And how do I intend to ever make money from SET? I don't know yet; hopefully there will be a way some day but if not this is a very challenging and enjoyable project to work on.
18 July 2007
Author statistics are just that, statistics of authors. Once signed in to SET you will notice that your name, which appears in the blue bar at the top of the page, is now a link to your statistics. Also, signed in or not, you can also access the stats page of other authors from any entry they have written by clicking on the author's name in the upper right hand corner of each entry. You will not be able to access the stats of authors who have chosen not to display their names. I hope to eventually expand the statistics pages into author profiles.
25 May 2007
Due to some feedback and my own experience I have increased the maximum entry length from 650 characters to 800. This will hopefully make it a little easier to finish up your thought without having to place the last sentence or so in another entry.
The intention of this still somewhat small maximum entry size is to encourage the stories to develop in smaller pieces. The reason for this is to make it easier for others to more easily change paths when reading as well as give ample opportunity for other writers to jump in and offer their own ideas.
23 May 2007
I'm not sure that anyone reading this will be all that interested but I figure the news section can be for me too. I have appropriated some code from another project and brought it over to SET. This code enables me to add news items (this is the first 'live test') tot he news section from an easy to use Web form. The news is now also stored in a database. Now more massive list of news items hand coded into XHTML. W00t!
19 May 2007
At long last you can now see just who it was that wrote that crazy entry! The author's name will appear in the top right hand corner of each entry by default. If you would prefer to be anonymous then simple visit the Settings page and click on the "Do not show my name with my entries" link.
Who knows where it all goes? Not me, but you might and you may not like it so now you can change it! You can now change your e-mail address by visiting the Settings page and following the simple instructions found there.
12 May 2007
Okay perhaps the exclamation mark was a bit much : ) The much requested feature has finally been added; you can now change your password. If you want to change your password, sign in and click on Settings. If you have forgotten your password then simply go to the Sign In page and click on the Send me a new password link.
24 April 2007
Bookmarks! Now you can add a bookmark at the end of a story-line (or wherever you like) and easily pickup where you left off next time you visit the site. You can access your bookmarks by visiting the "Bookmarks" link at the top of any page. You must be signed in to access the book marking feature.
11 April 2007
Welcome back Alpha Testers. SET ended up in a situation with our previous hosting provider which I was uncomfortable with so we have switched to a company called 1&1 for our hosting needs.
25 March 2007
Ready, SET, Write! This is the official launch of the Story Ever Telling (SET) Alpha. Thank you for all the feedback, help, and support I have already received while building SET. Now that I have finished with the core functionality of the site I need you to try things out. I also need you to send me a metric tonne of e-mails to wade through demanding I change everything to meet your ideas of what the site should be : ) Seriously though I really do need to know what you think of the site as a whole and especially any specific suggestions you have on improvements or simply repairs. Please send your comments and suggestions to set@storyevertelling.com.
28 February 2007
I have made a number of navigational changes to the way the stories are read. The biggest change was the addition of the "Previous page" functionality which allows for reverse navigation through a thread (story-line).
As mentioned in my last post you can get an idea of what viewing a story will be like by reading through the short introductory story What Shall We Do?
24 February 2007
Happy birthday to me (yesterday)!
Well today I am really excited; I have finally settled on a database schema. For those of you who are curious I selected the edge-adjacency model over the modified pre-order tree traversal algorithm as I determined that it better fit the needs of this site. This is only part of the reason I am excited; the other reason is because I finally have the code in place to view a story! W00t! This means I am not far from finishing the core functionality of this site which means you folks can begin to play very soon.
I should also mention as a follow up that I decided not to work on a newsletter at this time so you will have to check back here occasionally to see what is happening.
If you want to see what it will look like to view a story visit the Learn more link at the top of the page and click on the What Shall We Do? link.
18 February 2007
Alright. I have added "forgotten password" functionality to the sign in/out system. If you forget your password simply click on the "Send me a new password" link at the bottom of the Sign In page to have a your password reset. The only catch with this feature is I have not yet added the ability to change your password yourself so if you do have your password reset you're going to be stuck with a very good yet difficult to remember password.
06 February 2007
Hurray! More than two hours of CSS...fun...and now it looks pretty in both IE7 & FF2 (..and hopefully IE6 & FF1). Now all our excellent [however un-enlightened & masochistic] M$ WinDoze Internet Explorer users can see the site the way it would look if they were using a standards compliant Web browser.
04 February 2007
Sweet! You can now Sign In with your SET account.
For those of you who have created SET accounts (and actually used your real e-mail address) I am automatically putting you on the mailing list. I will add an option to opt in/out during registration in the future. I will also add an "un-subscribe" link at the bottom of each newsletter (because this is actually the law in some places and I consider it a common courtesy in any case).
Even further into the future I would like to add a "Profile" page for each user where you can add/delete/edit various site options and also info about yourself for others to (optionally) see.
Okay, enough dreaming for now...next goal is to add "forgotten password" functionality to the sign in system. After that is done I will create the newsletter functionality. Finally when that is finished I believe everything will be in place to start actually building SET.
13 January 2007
Hooah! I have finished the registration system. You can now Sign Up for a SET account. You cannot however sign in yet but hey, it's progress.
You can also view previous news posts by following the link bellow. Please...try to control your excitement.
Oh yeah, also happy birthday Rachel Wife!
12 December 2006
I have been working on this site on average five hours a week which is not as much as I would like but things are progressing. I have been putting a lot of research into the backend systems for the user management system and the database system for the stories themselves. I have also spent a fair bit of energy into the visual aspects of the site; layout and structure as well as graphic styles and colours. This part of the site design is very difficult for me but I still feel the need to "get it right" so i struggle on. It will likely be mid January before my next post however I hope to have a functional user management system in place by then.
19 November 2006
Lots of changes happening (hopefully) daily around here so check back often to see what is happening. I will be sending out invitations for alpha testers hopefully within two weeks. Alpha testers will be hand picked however if you would like to be involved with beta testing please send me an e-mail and I will let you know when and how you can help.
© Copyright 2006-2009 Daniel Baer