All Messages

  • Status 1/20/10 - 1/28/10

    Since the 20th, I've worked on the following tasks:

    01/20/10 - updated station page design, styled footer, created simple style for about pages, etc - 4.01
    01/20/10 - station page updates - 0.50
    01/21/10 - IE testing - 1.33
    01/21/10 - Broadcast dashboard design discussion - 0.85
    01/25/10 - broadcaster dashboard - 2.21
    01/26/10 - dashboard usability improvements - 1.21
    01/26/10 - Dashboard design - 5.31
    01/26/10 - dashboard usability improvements - 0.42
    01/27/10 - dashboard design updates - 3.13
    01/28/10 - player design / javascript - 2.51
    01/28/10 - player updates - 0.58
    01/28/10 - Testing, fixes, IE - 3.38

    Total Hours: 25.44

    It's been a blast and I can't wait to work together again soon.

    over 2 years ago by imathis, 0 comments

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  • SASS library issue with widgets

    I started to work on a widget editor. I can keep trucking along, but I noticed SASS cries out about missing mix-ins and such when widgets.css is used. I pushed the changes so you can see.

    over 2 years ago by Bcasci, 0 comments

    Me_andala_small

  • broadcaster with errors

    After you restore the DB, go here

    http://localhost:3000/broadcaster/users/6-davect/dashboard

    over 2 years ago by Bcasci, 0 comments

    Me_andala_small

  • Trouble running the app locally

    There are a few issues I'm running into locally. It appears to be related to the merge with hybernaut's repository, but I may wrong about that. I cannot launch the app because it complains about me needing to build 'system_timer' but I can't run rake gems:build. I get this when I try:

    rake aborted!
    no such file to load -- hoptoad_notifier/tasks
    /Users/bmathis/Documents/Workspace/loudcity/loudcity/Rakefile:10

    I also can't do a db migrate until I fix this, so I'm kind of limited in what I can do. Hopefuly we can talk soon and sort this out.

    over 2 years ago by imathis, 1 comment

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  • Possible Station layout fix

    I've been thinking about how to fix the station layout and I think I may have found a solution. One of the problems with a three column layout with the center column being primary is that it makes it really difficult to establish an order of importance.

    I took a screenshot of a station and chopped it up and moved things around until I felt like the important things were in the right place. I came up with two layouts.

    Here's a two column layout:

    Here's a three column layout:

    Think something like this will work?

    over 2 years ago by imathis, 3 comments

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  • Status update

    It looks like I've been busy this year so far. In the past two weeks I've worked 47.33 hours on the following tasks:

    updates and setup - 0.15
    project setup & discussion - 0.88
    station design updates - 6.25
    station browse design updates - 0.37
    home page design - 3.57
    app style updates and first pass broadcast page design - 9.84
    broadcast page design - 1.45
    Broadcast design - 1.67
    broadcast page design - 2.08
    header design, navigation, etc - 3.54
    updated navigation styles, styled broadcast ad in text - 0.98
    updated home page and station designs - 1.82
    navigation and pagination styling - 1.45
    station page design - 2.07
    broadcasting page - 7.45
    styling flash messages - 0.48
    user profile page - 0.30
    styled user profile comments - 0.58
    profile comments, favorites, station fixes - 2.40

    Before January most of the design work had been layout, form designs, and some various elements (like categories). This represents the bulk of the design work on this project and every page has seen significant design improvement.

    This also has pushed us over our initial estimate and I feel bad for not doing a better job of keeping you up to date with the burn rate. The remaining tasks are fairly small with IE support being the wild card. Still I don't expect that to take more than 8 hours.

    This next invoice will cover the work mentioned in this status update as well as several small entries in November and December. Given that your funding this personally I can split this invoice up into two segments so you can delay payment a bit if that makes it easier on you. Just let me know what you want to do.

    over 2 years ago by imathis, 0 comments

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  • Broadcast page content

    I decided to rip out the content from the broadcast page and paste it into a text document. I find that reading the content without the fancy dressing of a site makes it easier to edit down. My first thought was that I would go through and edit it and pull out the text that works well, but I don't know if that's something you want me to do. I've done this kind of thing a lot and I'm confident I can do a good job, however you might want to do it your self or have someone else do it.

    I thought I'd post the plain text version of the broadcast page here and see what you want to do with it.

    over 2 years ago by imathis, 0 comments

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  • Staging is back up

    The staging server is now running the latest from github.
    I've also updated the capistrano config so staging is deployed from github.

    http://loudcity.hybernaut.com

    Brandon M, if you can't work the rake stuff with your local config, please use this technique to remove your local copy of lib/tasks/rubber.rake (and don't push the removal to github). This should keep things clean on both ends.

    http://gitready.com/intermediate/2009/02/18/temporarily-ignoring-files.html

    over 2 years ago by bdv, 0 comments

    Chinposin-square_small

  • Progress Update through 12-12-2009

    Lots of stuff, Long Story short...Mathis can get in there and go sick on the design for the most part. Content is stubbed, simulated or real on these pages: home, broadcast, about, TOS, privacy policy, favorites (need to be logged in and have added favorites to see).

    Still have to work on the user screen, and a few other deeper screens that will be hidden behind logins and permissions.

    Mathis, just ring me up with specific questions. Also let me know when you need to see function screens for other areas, or if you need a guided tour for some areas.

    over 2 years ago by Bcasci, 0 comments

    Me_andala_small

  • Progress Update through 12-10-2009

    - added station manager side nav when in station/edit

    - Made a wizard for station owners to add new media servers. It performs all necessary validation through lib/stream_relay

    - stubbed out controllers and views for footer, broadcast, about, TOS and PL

    I will be adding content to stubbed out views so Mathis has something to work with when deciding design over the actual content areas.

    over 2 years ago by Bcasci, 0 comments

    Me_andala_small

  • Progress Report 11-16-09

    Last week I worked just over 8 hours on the following:

    - App setup issues
    - Gem vendoring (Compass/Compass-colors)
    - Basic Application styles
    - Layout and theme styles
    - Refactoring erb -> haml

    My changes haven't been deployed yet, but here's a screenshot

    over 2 years ago by imathis, 0 comments

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  • signup enticement

    As an anonymous user, visit this page:

    http://loudcity.hybernaut.com/stations/auralgasms-radio

    and click on the "Add to Favorites" link. You should see a popup form offering sign up and sign in options.

    This can be wired up for any actions that requires login.

    over 2 years ago by bdv, 0 comments

    Chinposin-square_small

  • a bunch of new stuff on staging

    I've wired up the sign up, sign in, and sign out; users can sign in with username or email.

    The genre list in the browse views now includes the second level of genres and the current genre is highlighted. The filter for genres which contain stations now includes top-level genres which are empty but have non-empty children (like Decades).

    Also, in the browse by genre listings, each station's complete genres are now visible (matching the station view page).

    Comments are complete; signed in users can comment on stations, and can also delete their comments (via AJAX). Also, a station owner will be able to delete any comment on their station, but station owners are not wired up yet.

    I'm nearly done with favorites; they're currently listed in the left column under the station icon.

    See Auralgasms: http://loudcity.hybernaut.com/stations/auralgasms-radio

    Also note while you're looking around that any links which are not yet wired up will turn red on hover (except the top nav which has picked up a stray styling from the fluid960s theme).

    over 2 years ago by bdv, 2 comments

    Chinposin-square_small

  • user avatars

    github uses gravatar.org and doesn't bother with the whole uploading business.

    over 2 years ago by bdv, 0 comments

    Chinposin-square_small

  • Status Update

    At this point in the project I've spent just under 10 hours on the following:

    - Project Communication
    - Home page wireframe
    - Browse stations wireframe
    - Station page wireframe

    On our recent talk on the phone, you mentioned that you're pretty happy with the layout and basic styling in the wireframes, and other than the header section, we're doing pretty well. As a result, I think we can move from this on to HTML and CSS for the site. If Brian is ready for me to do the integration I'll get started adding my work into rails. If not, I'll get started on a CSS and HTML prototype that can be integrated later by Brian or myself.

    over 2 years ago by imathis, 1 comment

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  • Search results wired up

    I'll have this deployed shortly with test data, but here you can see a snapshot of it. This is MySQL text search against station name and description.

    over 2 years ago by bdv, 0 comments

    Chinposin-square_small

  • Notes on genre selection

    I'm working on mechanics of genre selection for search filtering.

    For the UI, I'm thinking of an accordion with top-level genres only exposed to start; selecting one of these reveals the second layer in an accordion style

    http://jqueryui.com/demos/accordion/

    Filament also published some alternatives for nested UI; I like the "flyout menu"

    http://www.filamentgroup.com/lab/jquery_ipod_style_and_flyout_menus/

    What do you guys think?

    over 2 years ago by bdv, 7 comments

    Chinposin-square_small

  • Meeting today at 2pm EDT

    I just wanted to confirm that we're still on to talk at 2pm EDT. I don't know if Brian has Skype, but I figure a Skype group chat might be the easiest way to all talk together.

    over 2 years ago by imathis, 1 comment

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  • Home Wireframe

    I've attached a first go at a wireframe for the home page. My intent is to use this wireframe to discuss the content for the home page, and the basic layout.

    Since I'm not working with a developer, some of my designs may suggest features that don't currently exist. I don't really know all of the features or changes that you have planned for your development phase, but my hope is that any feature suggestions will be helpful in defining that process.

    My understanding is that the goal of this page is very much like the goal of the front page of YouTube, to offer up content that might be appealing to a user based on what other users are enjoying. Popular Stations and New Stations seemed like sensible things to offer a user. Also, I don't know how categories will work in the next iteration of this site, but in this wireframe I indicated a space to list the "Top Categories". It just seemed to make sense.

    Right now I notice that the stations page on LoudCity.com shows a random list of stations, that changes with every refresh. In this next iteration I would not recommend showing a randomly sorted set of stations. I think while it seems more fair to the stations, it can cause user frustration. For example, if a user sees several stations that they might be interested in and chooses one, when they hit the back button to see the list again, all of the stations they were just looking at will be gone.

    I think by offering Popular Stations and New Stations, you've given the user what they want, and given stations that have earned their audience a proper reward. Having stations compete for placement in the popular section can create a valuable tension. It also serves as quality control, ensuring that content that is poor, or unappealing doesn’t end up negatively affecting the perception of LoudCity.

    By offering ways to browse and search, you're letting users try to find stations that aren't featured, and that's where the playing field should be fair. I still think it's a bad idea to sort search results or category views randomly. Allowing the user to sort by popularity, date, etc. should suffice. This is how it works on iTunes as well.

    I'm not sure how you would determine popularity. I assume it would be by user rating. I suppose it would also be possible to have a "most discussed" category where stations that have a fairly active comment stream will be featured.

    There's a lot to talk about here and I'd be glad to hear your feedback over the phone if you would prefer.

    over 2 years ago by imathis, 5 comments

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  • Sponsors

    Currently station sponsors show up at the top of the home page and above search results (anywhere else?). They are listed with a link and a small text description. Is this the format you want to continue using, or would you like to look at giving them graphic ads in a banner or sidebar?

    Also I think I remember you mentioning running traditional ads on the site. Have you chosen a format? If you can give me some specifications for that, I can better plan for it when I get to the mockup stage. That way the ads will be fittingly incorporated into the site design.

    over 2 years ago by imathis, 1 comment

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