All the functions of the site seem to be working again. Ive gone through everything the past few days to check things are working.

Anything that isn't working, I would appreciated it if you would let me know by PM.

As for development, Ive restarted development. Various things have stopped me working on the site lately, but things will start to improve around here.

Stay tuned for updates, and keep ideas coming in!

So here's the deal....

Our main Hard Drive failed on Server2 (eChillout Primary). This has caused a bit of a headache.

The site is back up, but not fully functional yet.

Please bear with us as we tweak out the bits that arnt working!

Thanks.

Happy New Year all!

Im sure any of you who still visit the site must be wondering, WTF?!?!? What happened?

Well, too much! We've all had too much on to carry on development. Things have been happening behind the scene, but nothing to really tell you all about.

We have a few meetings lined up to discuss how were going to continue development. I have a lot of plans for the site, all of which you will hear about soon.

So without dribbling too much about things. I wish you all the best of sucess and happiness in the coming year!

Well, just taken me about a whole day of work (spread over a few, whilst doing other bits of coding) to get the new login method in place.

I actually used a different method of working this time. I planned a flow chart out in Visio and followed it through to get it working smoothly.

The login and cookie abstraction is now more secure than previously, here's why. There are different stages of error checking throughout the whole login process, as well as different levels of security added in. Such as, bad password monitoring.

Now, if three wrong passwords are entered, the account is blocked until reactivated by the member. The account is reactivated by following a link which you will receive in an email from us. The email will be dispatched as soon as your account is locked out.

During an account lockout, the account is still functional, in the sense that messages can be received, and comments added. But the account will not be accessible to the owner until reactivation.

We are getting close to launching the site. While it is still going to be a massive work in progress, we feel the site is nearing a level of stability that it can be launched.

Things to look out for soon though:

- Full Gallery system*. - Introducing separate galleries so you can organize your photos better.
- Different Profile Types - Not saying too much on this one just yet, but some teasers. We will introduce different types of accounts, full account, blog account, etc.
- Full Friend linking system - This will be the one you will see first. Friends will be shared, not just linked. New friend linking must be approved by both users (MySpace style). Friends will have extra functionality on your profile.
- Change How your profile looks! - We are currently working on adding in different ways of how your profile can look. This ranges from simple layout changes for regular members, all the way up to a full feature rich template editor*.
- Point your domain to eChillout!* - Just bought a domain? eChillout can be your one stop shop for your new website. Features will be introduced to allow full domain hosting to point to your eChillout profile. With some of the features that we have coming up, its sure to make a kick ass site for you!
- Polls - In the near future, you will have the ability to attach poll's to your blogs, photos, and profiles. Choose from a set of pre-defined poll's, or create your own, it will be entirely up to you!

* Features marked will be available to paying members only.

Well, that’s about it for this update.

Until next time

Paul.

Hasnt been an actual update for about a week, but rest assured, things are moving along on the site!

Ive just spent about an hour ripping my hair out trying to figure out why no one was able to upload a picture to the site. For the life of my I couldnt figure it out. It wouldnt upload any pictures past ID 127 in the database.

After a while I figure out the problem. For other developers out there, never set your MySQL feild types to tinyint The Max it can allow is 127. All fixed though.

On another note, there are more ratings in the system now. Chris has been busy working away creating more ratings icons. To see what they are, just go to another users profile and click rate.

Apart from back end coding, there isnt a great deal to report unforatunatly. But here are some updates you can look forward to!

- Complete rebuild of the user login method. You will be able to set the system to remember you, or not. And, it will be a great deal more secure. Some more powerful encrypting and hash salts will be used. For those of you who know what that is

- Change how your profile looks. This is going to be a major one! You will be able to show just your blog, just your photos, just your profile, etc, you get the idea. Also have the ability to change the design of your profile! Im looking forward to working on this section. Will be a tricky one though. A bit more complex than MySpace's "just add your own css" method. For fully subscribed members, it will mean a complete profile themeing system.

Well, thats about all I'm going to post for this update. Dont want to spoil things by sharing all the secrets just yet!

Until next time

Well, for those users who are already signed up and using the site, I am sure you have started noticing the changes that have been added.

The most obvious being the new design. The old dark design has been replaced by our funky new design.

There will obviously be tweaks here and there as we smooth out the general layout of the pages, but things should be looking much better around here now.

New Features

Theres quite a few things that have been added in. I'll go through all the sections here.

Profiles - Profiles now feature a number of different features. Blogging, Photos, Comments, and very shortly will include the ability to add ratings!

Blogging - Blogs now have the ability to add catagories to them, aswell as the option of making your blog private, or just for your friends to view.

We are also implementing a 'mood' system into the blogs, so different blogs can reflect your mood. The plan is to have this change the look of your blog with different moods, and perhaps your whole profile.

Messaging - The messaging system is getting quite good now. As well as the ability to send messages to other users on the site, you can now track the status of your message!

Photos - Theres still a bit of work to go into the Photo system yet, but things are starting to look good in there now. You can upload Photos, with a description for others to view and comment on. You can now also edit and delete your photos.

Friends LinkingThis is quite a nifty section on the site. You can define who your friends are on eChillout. Your friends will be linked on your profile, and will have the privilage of viewing your content that you only want them to see.

You can now also add pests to your account. Got someone annoying you? Add them to your pest list. Depending on what options you have in your privacy settings, you can choose to block people from viewing your profile, sending you a message, or commenting on your profile, blogs and photos.

Commenting - Commenting is now active on the site. You can add comments to others blogs, photos, and profiles.

Emoticons & BBCode - The site now has emoticons and BBCode built in. You can use these in comments and blogs. There will be guides posted up soon in the Help section to help understand how to use these, so keep a look out for updates on this.


Well thats about all for now folks, hope youve found this update useful. Dont forget to add a comment if you have anything to say!

eChillout is open for beta! As you can guess, we are no where near the sites actual launch, but we need users to test the site, and we need users to have the site running! So please, explore the site, tell people, etc, lets get more people on here!

Create a Profile, Upload Pictures, Add a Blog, message other members! Get going!

Miami
Site Director.