Commented On

Commented On v0.5b Public Beta - Available

Posted 666 days ago by Sam Brown

The wait is over, come on by and download a copy of the public beta version of Commented On!

Commented On is a self-hosted bookmarking app that keeps track of where and when you have left a comment, allowing you to easily follow up on any updates or replies.

Commented On is by no means finished, but I am fairly certain all of the main features are in working order and would love to have some greater feedback from a wider audience!

Feel free to download a copy and give it a trial run if you like testing beta software, otherwise hold on tight for the v1.0 release. Thanks.

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New Site and Launch Date Fast Approaching

Posted 672 days ago by Sam Brown

I realise things have been pretty quite on the Commented On front over the past few weeks, for that I apologise. CO is a project I am working on in my spare time and that has been scarce of late.

That said, things are still on track and I have just pushed out the proper Commented On site for your viewing pleasure and I plan to have the first version of Commented On available for you guys very very soon. Be sure to sign up for the announcement email at the bottom of the homepage.

Commented On New Site

There has been one major decision that has changed since I last posted, I have decided that I am not going to charge you anything for Commented On! It was going to come at a small fee but now that fee is going to be completely voluntary!

It will not be long now, stay tuned!

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Beta v0.3 - Upgrades and Controversy

Posted 697 days ago by Sam Brown

After some great initial feedback from beta testers (EJS, TVD, RCB and CH) I am close to releasing a third iteration of the beta which is very close to what will hopefully become the final 1.0 release.

Excerpts

Lots of updates in the past week, can’t list them all but the big ones were:

Controversy

Controversy comes in terms of the post to Twitter functionality that Commented On offers. Some have suggested that this is essentially Twitter spam, and that this is not what Twitter was designed for.

I agree and disagree, Twitter by definition is “a service to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”. Thus I believe the use of the Twitter API is fair in this circumstance, as through Commented On you are letting your followers know what you are doing.

There does seem to be an inherent problem with the way Twitter handles its API requests and a suggested solution would be to allow Twitter users to opt-out of third-party updates to their Twitter feeds. Whether this is plausible or the right solution is up for debate, but the post-to-Twitter functionality will stay in Commented On for the time being.

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Commented On Beta Testing

Posted 700 days ago by Sam Brown

A short while ago I sent out a beta copy of Commented On to a small group (6) of beta testers. In true fashion I overlooked something at the last minute and will have to send out an updated version shortly. Other than that I look forward to hearing their constructive feedback, positive and negative on their use of Commented On.

Beta Email

I will then be able to estimate when the final version will be available to the general public, hopefully in the not too distant future. I will keep everyone updated as to the status of the beta and the thoughts of the beta testers in the coming days. Stay tuned.

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Beta Testing to start at end of week

Posted 705 days ago by Sam Brown

I managed to find some time today to finish off a few important things that needed to be done before any beta testing could start on Commented On.

Version

Hopefully I can get a beta version out to some testers by the end of the week and gather some feedback over the weekend. Might be a bit hard with SXSW on but the team will be hand-picked.

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Quick Update

Posted 706 days ago by Sam Brown

Just a quick post to keep you all updated and let you know that I have, of course, not stopped working on Commented On. Unfortunately I have had more pressing client work to do, and apart from day 1 have always been working on Commented On in my spare-time.

Beta Testing is very close and I will be mailing out a pre-release version of Commented On to a lucky few to try out and report back any bugs. I am not going to put any fixed date on the beta, or a release date for the time being. Be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed to keep up-to-date on any further happenings. Thanks.

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One week later...

Posted 710 days ago by Sam Brown

It was about this time one week ago that I had just finished coding a very basic version of Commented On, a lot has happened and changed during the week, feel free to read the past updates to see how things have progressed.

Today was the sixth day (I took Sunday off) working part-time on Commented On and here is a quick run down of what happened today, productivity was high as Twitter has been acting up!

Bookmarklet
I finished and made some tweaks to the heart and sole of Commented On, the bookmarklet.

Bookmarklet

Output to your site
Want to keep your friends and visitors informed of where and what you have been commenting on? This simple little script outputs the latest entries in a style-able list.

Basic Output

RSS Feed
Give everyone instant access to what you have commented on most recently with the RSS Feed!

Output RSS

Twitter
This is a real-life example of what shows up in your Twitter stream when you enable the post-to-Twitter function of Commented On.

Output Twitter

One week on a release date for the beta is not far away at all, a select few will be lucky enough to help test this little app out and I can’t wait to hear their feedback, probably at some point next week! Stay tuned.

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Day 5 UI tweaks and a teaser

Posted 711 days ago by Sam Brown

Thursday afternoon was spent mulling over the interface among other things, I finished off what I believe the initial beta will look like (see teaser image below) but nothing is of course final, hopefully some good user feedback will help transform it into something more solid for the 1.0 release.

Interface Teaser

Other work that was done today:

There are still a couple of pressing big things that need to be completed before the beta testing can start, but I have been using Commented On in its basic form since Friday and it is already proving to be quite useful. Looking forward to releasing this one to the masses (when its ready).

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Day 4 Update - A proper description!

Posted 712 days ago by Sam Brown

Commented On is a self-hosted bookmarking app that keeps track of where and when you have left a comment, allowing you to easily follow up on any updates or replies.

So I fired up WriteRoom turned everything off including my music and spent 20 minutes turning out some possible descriptions, the above is more than likely going to be what I go with. Now you know.

WriteRoom

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Day 4 Graphics and Description

Posted 712 days ago by Sam Brown

Sadly I was not able to work on Commented On much on Tuesday due to other more pressing client work, I did however notice that the Twitter deploy happened and now when you use Commented On with Twitter your Twitter message says ‘from Commented On', awesome!

Today, Wednesday, I have managed to squeeze in a few hours of work on some code and the design, I made the desktop image below and my task for the rest of the day is to write a proper decent description of what Commented On really is.

Commented On Desktop

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Day 3 What is Commented On?

Posted 714 days ago by Sam Brown

Today was spent making quite a few changes, I need to rewrite a lot of the code to make Commented On a little more secure. Started reading the Twitter API docs and with a little help from my friend Till was able to easily integrate updating to Twitter! That will be interesting.

Still need to create a couple of widgets but this v0.1 beta is getting real close. Will let you know more soon.

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Day 2 working on Commented On

Posted 716 days ago by Sam Brown

Did quite a bit of bug testing and making modifications today, even though it is Saturday! I might have managed to create the app in day but it is far from perfect!

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Fridays are Happy Days at Massive Blue

Posted 717 days ago by Sam Brown

It was late on a cold and windy Thursday night that I got that itching feeling that I needed to create something that solved a problem that I was having. There are plenty of other ways to accomplish this feat but I wanted something specifically for this task. The name came to me straight away and luckily the domain was available and was snapped up by 11PM.

That nights sleep was very interrupted as ideas just kept coming to me, I did have my notepad and pen on my bedside table though.. by the morning there was a page full of ideas and direction, and the day went from there:

I quickly learnt during Friday not to underestimate the power-of-people and bouncing ideas around with them, more specifically I showed a select few people the splash page and each came back with what they thought it might be thus stirring more ideas for the final finished project.

Just what is it I hear you say? When will it be available? I have an early 0.1 version running but its not quite ready for public consumption, stay tuned and I shall not tease you for much longer!

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