Brent
June 3rd, 2002, 5:01am
Hi guys,
* Last night and early this morning I added a little feature that will let you more easily turn on and off the display of the MySweeps buttons ("MySweeps" & "Remove") in the sweepstakes directory.
By default, all sweepstakes listings in the directory (except on the MySweeps page itself) will have the MySweeps button displayed next to it as always unless you "turn off" MySweeps on the MySweeps options page. Whether you have MySweeps "turned on" or off by default, you can always choose to display or hide the MySweeps buttons (turning MySweeps on or off) at anytime by just clicking on the "SHOW MySweeps" or "HIDE MySweeps" links in the upper left-hand corner of the web page.
When you go to the MySweeps page, the MySweeps buttons ("MySweeps" & "Remove") are NOT displayed by default. You can have them appear at anytime by clicking on the third button at the top of the page "Edit MySweeps". To hide the MySweeps buttons again, click on that same third button again, which will now say "Hide MySweeps Buttons".
Personally, I think the sweepstakes listings look better without the MySweeps buttons. Eventually I'd like to replace them with smaller, more attractive images, but that's not a priority right now. They may not be pretty, but the buttons get the job done.
Anyway, not everyone uses MySweeps so I thought it would be nice to give everyone an easier way to turn them on and off. In the MySweeps pages, I decided to hide the buttons by default because it looks nicer. It's probably not very often that you would need to remove a sweep while on a MySweeps page. But if you need to, all you have to do is click on the "Edit MySweeps" button and voila, the "Remove" buttons appear instantly.
* For most of the day Sunday a lot of you probably got a javascript error if you went to the home page and that little window popped up in the left-hand corner. It shouldn't have affected anything if you did get the error. It's fixed.
* If you're still using the Netscape 4 browser, I suggest you upgrade. Not only does the site not look it's best with Netscape 4 (it also loads slowly), but there are features I've added in just the last couple of weeks that you can't see or use- and that trend will only continue. I recommend the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape. This last week, I greatly improved the way the site looks with Netscape 6+. Everything from here on out will work and look the way it's intended to with the recent versions of those two browsers.
* The ad for the Space Shuttle trip on the home page isn't a paid advertisement. It's actually a referral link for a referral contest the Showtime/Lycos sweepstakes is having. The webmaster that gets the highest number of referrals by the end of the sweepstakes, wins the same kind of trip that's the Grand Prize in the sweepstakes except it's for 2 people instead of 5. If you haven't entered already, I'd appreciate it if you did either by clicking on the ad or using the link in the sweepstakes directory. I'd love to win that trip! You can see the link & details here- http://www.online-sweepstakes.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?query=space+shuttle+telescope
* Sometime this week, this site is going to get moved to a "high-volume" server. Parts of the site will be down for about 10 minutes during the move. Though traffic in the forums actually decreased somewhat from the end of March to the first of May (it has since picked up again), traffic to the sweepstakes directory has steadily grown since February- up 50% in just the last four weeks. I either had to upgrade my hosting account or pay bandwidth overusage fees which would cost more or about the same in the long run. Throw in a May special for no setup fees and it was the perfect time to make the move.
BTW, Last week Online-Sweepstakes.com moved up to the #1 ranking on Google for "sweepstakes". http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&q=sweepstakes :cheer2:
* I didn't want to ever have to ask for donations to help keep this site alive, but I'm going to have to (at least temporarily) as a last resort. I'm only just now starting to get enough traffic on the site that I think I'll be able to attract some decent advertisers and sponsors soon. But like anything else, it's going to take me time to get everything set up.
I'll spare you the details of my personal financial situation, but if this site is to continue much longer, I'm going to have to either ask for donations or get another job- which would dramatically cut down on the time I have to work on the site. I've known for awhile that eventually I was going to have to ask for donations, but I've been putting it off. I don't want to ask for charity, but if you can afford it and you enjoy the site and the work I do, I'll gladly accept your donations.<center><form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post"><input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_xclick"><input type="hidden" name="business" value="webmaster@online-sweepstakes.com"><input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="Online-Sweepstakes.com Donation"><input type="hidden" name="no_shipping" value="1"><input type="hidden" name="cn" value="Username/Comments (optional)"><input type="image" src="https://www.paypal.com/images/x-click-but04.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure!"></form></center>
* I'm going to get to the "My Links" and other unfinished stuff on the home page as soon as I possibly can. You'll be able to add a list of your own links that will appear where it says "Coming Soon!" now. I had hoped to get that done this weekend, but it just didn't happen.
* Hopefully sometime this week, I'm going to come up with a form that will both submit a new sweepstakes to me and create a new thread in the New Sweepstakes forum. And instead of the "Post a Note" link in the directory's sweepstakes listings, there will be a link to each sweep's thread in the forums. Every sweep's thread will open up in the same second window (as opposed to a completely new window each time) so that you will be able to leave that second window open and switch back and forth between the two.
The form I'm going to come up with to add a sweep will eliminate most all of the redundancy that currently exists between the directory and forums and at the same time greatly improve the efficiency of the whole "add a sweep" process. I'll be able to increase the number of sweeps I add to the directory each day and in less time.
I've been thinking about how I wanted to do this very thing for quite awhile now and I've had some good ideas here and there. But on Friday, everything hit me all at once. I've got some great ideas, and I honestly believe that it's going to take this site up to a completely new level when all is said and done. I'll be able to do all kinds of nifty things that I can't do now. The changes will be subtle, yet the results will be dramatic. :)
* I'm going to be very, very busy the next couple of weeks while I try to keep the site updated and get all of this and other stuff done. It ain't gonna be easy. I'm already behind on replying to email, private messages and posts so I'll thank you all in advance for your patience in waiting for my response(s).
* I'd also like to thank all of you again for all your generous contributions and continued support. I cannot put into words what it means to me. You guys are the BEST!!! :smile3:
<center>Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
:cheer: :cheer: :cheer:
Brent</center>
* Last night and early this morning I added a little feature that will let you more easily turn on and off the display of the MySweeps buttons ("MySweeps" & "Remove") in the sweepstakes directory.
By default, all sweepstakes listings in the directory (except on the MySweeps page itself) will have the MySweeps button displayed next to it as always unless you "turn off" MySweeps on the MySweeps options page. Whether you have MySweeps "turned on" or off by default, you can always choose to display or hide the MySweeps buttons (turning MySweeps on or off) at anytime by just clicking on the "SHOW MySweeps" or "HIDE MySweeps" links in the upper left-hand corner of the web page.
When you go to the MySweeps page, the MySweeps buttons ("MySweeps" & "Remove") are NOT displayed by default. You can have them appear at anytime by clicking on the third button at the top of the page "Edit MySweeps". To hide the MySweeps buttons again, click on that same third button again, which will now say "Hide MySweeps Buttons".
Personally, I think the sweepstakes listings look better without the MySweeps buttons. Eventually I'd like to replace them with smaller, more attractive images, but that's not a priority right now. They may not be pretty, but the buttons get the job done.
Anyway, not everyone uses MySweeps so I thought it would be nice to give everyone an easier way to turn them on and off. In the MySweeps pages, I decided to hide the buttons by default because it looks nicer. It's probably not very often that you would need to remove a sweep while on a MySweeps page. But if you need to, all you have to do is click on the "Edit MySweeps" button and voila, the "Remove" buttons appear instantly.
* For most of the day Sunday a lot of you probably got a javascript error if you went to the home page and that little window popped up in the left-hand corner. It shouldn't have affected anything if you did get the error. It's fixed.
* If you're still using the Netscape 4 browser, I suggest you upgrade. Not only does the site not look it's best with Netscape 4 (it also loads slowly), but there are features I've added in just the last couple of weeks that you can't see or use- and that trend will only continue. I recommend the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape. This last week, I greatly improved the way the site looks with Netscape 6+. Everything from here on out will work and look the way it's intended to with the recent versions of those two browsers.
* The ad for the Space Shuttle trip on the home page isn't a paid advertisement. It's actually a referral link for a referral contest the Showtime/Lycos sweepstakes is having. The webmaster that gets the highest number of referrals by the end of the sweepstakes, wins the same kind of trip that's the Grand Prize in the sweepstakes except it's for 2 people instead of 5. If you haven't entered already, I'd appreciate it if you did either by clicking on the ad or using the link in the sweepstakes directory. I'd love to win that trip! You can see the link & details here- http://www.online-sweepstakes.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?query=space+shuttle+telescope
* Sometime this week, this site is going to get moved to a "high-volume" server. Parts of the site will be down for about 10 minutes during the move. Though traffic in the forums actually decreased somewhat from the end of March to the first of May (it has since picked up again), traffic to the sweepstakes directory has steadily grown since February- up 50% in just the last four weeks. I either had to upgrade my hosting account or pay bandwidth overusage fees which would cost more or about the same in the long run. Throw in a May special for no setup fees and it was the perfect time to make the move.
BTW, Last week Online-Sweepstakes.com moved up to the #1 ranking on Google for "sweepstakes". http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&q=sweepstakes :cheer2:
* I didn't want to ever have to ask for donations to help keep this site alive, but I'm going to have to (at least temporarily) as a last resort. I'm only just now starting to get enough traffic on the site that I think I'll be able to attract some decent advertisers and sponsors soon. But like anything else, it's going to take me time to get everything set up.
I'll spare you the details of my personal financial situation, but if this site is to continue much longer, I'm going to have to either ask for donations or get another job- which would dramatically cut down on the time I have to work on the site. I've known for awhile that eventually I was going to have to ask for donations, but I've been putting it off. I don't want to ask for charity, but if you can afford it and you enjoy the site and the work I do, I'll gladly accept your donations.<center><form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post"><input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_xclick"><input type="hidden" name="business" value="webmaster@online-sweepstakes.com"><input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="Online-Sweepstakes.com Donation"><input type="hidden" name="no_shipping" value="1"><input type="hidden" name="cn" value="Username/Comments (optional)"><input type="image" src="https://www.paypal.com/images/x-click-but04.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure!"></form></center>
* I'm going to get to the "My Links" and other unfinished stuff on the home page as soon as I possibly can. You'll be able to add a list of your own links that will appear where it says "Coming Soon!" now. I had hoped to get that done this weekend, but it just didn't happen.
* Hopefully sometime this week, I'm going to come up with a form that will both submit a new sweepstakes to me and create a new thread in the New Sweepstakes forum. And instead of the "Post a Note" link in the directory's sweepstakes listings, there will be a link to each sweep's thread in the forums. Every sweep's thread will open up in the same second window (as opposed to a completely new window each time) so that you will be able to leave that second window open and switch back and forth between the two.
The form I'm going to come up with to add a sweep will eliminate most all of the redundancy that currently exists between the directory and forums and at the same time greatly improve the efficiency of the whole "add a sweep" process. I'll be able to increase the number of sweeps I add to the directory each day and in less time.
I've been thinking about how I wanted to do this very thing for quite awhile now and I've had some good ideas here and there. But on Friday, everything hit me all at once. I've got some great ideas, and I honestly believe that it's going to take this site up to a completely new level when all is said and done. I'll be able to do all kinds of nifty things that I can't do now. The changes will be subtle, yet the results will be dramatic. :)
* I'm going to be very, very busy the next couple of weeks while I try to keep the site updated and get all of this and other stuff done. It ain't gonna be easy. I'm already behind on replying to email, private messages and posts so I'll thank you all in advance for your patience in waiting for my response(s).
* I'd also like to thank all of you again for all your generous contributions and continued support. I cannot put into words what it means to me. You guys are the BEST!!! :smile3:
<center>Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
:cheer: :cheer: :cheer:
Brent</center>