Login/Logout Pains

Because this site is hosted off of two servers (it's called balance loading in order to help with heavy traffic) I'm having problems keeping people logged in. I'm working on a Cookie based solution that will allow you to be permantly logged in from your home computer.

Expect this soon, just wanted to let you all know, sorry you have to deal with being logged out randomly for the time being.

Amazon Ads

You may have noticed some text links to buy relevant DVDs for some of the shows. I'm trying to keep this site non-corporate, but I need to recoup expenses, so I've tried to keep it as unobtrusive as possible. And the ads aren't random. If you like TV more then likely you'll probably buy some TV DVD sets from time to time, so think of TVOLT when you do.

As always feedback is welcomed at andy@tvolt.com

5,000 Episodes

We've passed the 5,000 mark for Episodes in the database. A big thanks to everyone who has contributed so far. The site is growing at an incredible rate.

Busy

My real job (and holiday with the family) are keeping me quite busy until the new year so updates will probably be pretty sparse in the next week. I will however try and fix any problems that affect the sites current functionality, so let me know about those.

Have a happy holiday.

Updates

I've made some updates to the Episode View page to allow you to view or rate an episode from that page. This should be helpful once the descriptions start to fill out and you can use them to determine if you've seen that episode or not.

Also we are now recording the date when you marked the show watched. This feature is pretty pointless at the moment and all current ratings are just set to 12/1/04, but in the future it will allow for features like "Shows you've watched Recently", etc.

I've also added the Episode Description stats to the Stats page.

Errors Fixed

I believe I got the 2 critical site errors pointed out to me by inominata fixed. Thanks again inominata.

Errors

I've been informed of a couple of errors when marking a show watched or editing a show's title. I'm visiting family for the weekend, but I'll fix these pieces as soon as I return. Sorry for the inconvience.

P.S. More new features coming this week.

New Feature: Episode Descriptions

I've updated the individual episode page to allow for user inputed descriptions of each show. We're looking for the standard type of data they have on sites like TVTome.com to be added here.

The individual episode pages also now have linear links so you can browse between them.

I'll be adding the ability to rate the episode from it's page next, I just have to make some larger graphics and figure out how best to layout the rest of this page.

Updates

Yesterday I did a little updating to the design of some of the pages and started work on "My Page" a new section which will give the website some custom functionality. Eventually I hope to include some calendar features to show upcoming episodes of your shows, etc. Hope everyone likes.

Disappearing Shows

You might have noticed the Show List got a little shorter. I deleted all the shows with no episodes added. Most of these were added by one person who I think just listed every show he/she watches and then left the site. Well all shows are welcome it's not too helpful to have a bunch of shows and no episodes. The shows can be added again, just wanted to let you know where they went. It's definitly helpful to add at least a couple of episodes when you add a new show to encourage others to add more, and because it does no one any good to just enter in another show title.

Version 2

Everything is going great with the site thus far. You guys are doing a wonderful job getting the database going and I'm trying my best to keep up with all the programming requirements.

I'm always looking to the future and I know soon the programming requirements of the site will be beyond my skill set. I'd like to at least start planning for version 2. Currently the site is just plan old ASP, but I'd like to get a .NET version going and take more advantage of the MSSQL Server. If you have an interest in programming for this site and are a .NET developer get in touch (andy@tvolt.com).

International Programming

I know everyone outside the US hates the fact that new stuff tends to start in the US and it takes a while before international versions are available, and I totally understand and think that sucks as well, but unfortunatly this site is no different (at least for now). I will definitly put international versions of the site on the list of things to come though. But for now let's just stick with US shows (anything listed on TVTome.com). Thanks.

More Stats

I've added some new stats for "Users of Note" and "Most Watched Shows" and done some formatting of the Stats page.

New Feature: Usernames

We're now using usernames as well as e-mail addresses. I know there is no privacy policy for the site yet, but so you know we'll never use or display your e-mail address. That means that in the future when the forums are up and running you're gonna need a username to uniquely identify yourself.

This doesn't actually show up anywhere on the site yet, but I wanted to get it out of the way so that it didn't incovience too many people when it had to be added later.

New Feature: Edit

You can now edit the episodes you've entered if you've made a mistake.

Features Coming Soon

A couple more features are coming today or tommorow. Stay tuned.

Welcome

I'm so glad to see the site growing quickly. It's still not ready for prime time, but it's great to see people using the site for it's intended purpose. Look for some extended functionality in the early part of next week.

The Future

tvolt is very much in it's infancy, but I thought I'd share with everyone my dream for the future of the site.

Extremely near future:
Registration
What good is the site if you can't register? I'll probably start off with a very simple registration system, but I'd like to get a comprehensive version going soon to allow for e-mailing on signup, lost password fetching, cookies, etc.

Very near future:
Individual Episode Pages

• Episode Descriptions
• Overall Ratings

Near future:
Tools

• Your Shows
  
• Shows you've watched recently
• Shows you've watched some, but not all of (up to current air-date)
  

Forums

• Individual Episode forums for specific questions
• Show forums for more general stuff
• Overall Television forums

(These forums have to be created from the ground up to be a part of the site. By tying in closely with the database lots of additional functionality can be leveraged.)

The forseeable future:
Integration
I'd love to find a way to build an API so the Windows Media Center Edition and other DVR's (maybe even TiVo) could automatically post watches to the site. Maybe they'd even allow you to rate with your remote.

The future is bright for tvolt and I'd love to hear about your ideas. E-mail me at andy@tvolt.com with suggestions or if you'd like to help out.

tvolt news

tvolt begins.

I've decided to host the news piece off-site in order to relay news if the site happens to be unavailable at any point.