We’ve been using WebFaction for all the LouderVoice hosting mainly because they come highly recommended by the TurboGears and Python communities (and donate to the TG project). So far we’ve been very happy with the service, performance and ease of deployment. Their recent launch of an API which allows people to script one-click installs of many applications for use by others has proven to be a very popular move.
They have just given one more reason for using them: They’ve added one long-running process and 40MB of RAM to all plans. Not only that but they’ve doubled the diskspace and quadrupled the bandwidth included in each plan.
They get my thumbs up.
Suppliers
Today is the day the code and the design have to come together. We’ve made great progress this week in figuring out some of the more annoying glitches, not all of which are due to the application code. In particular I have to admit that Wordpress is breaking our hearts with its bloody content sanitization. class inside abbr is not dangerous so why strip it out? We’re having a lot more success with MT and LJ.
The design has raced along shockingly quickly and it’s great to have another brain to look at some of my aesthetically challenged early layout concepts and say “why are you mixing actions with destinations?”. Ooops, kinda obvious when it is pointed out.
Calls and IMs will be shooting back and forward between Cork, Dublin and Leighton Buzzard all day today I’m guessing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this adventure would not be possible without Skype.
By this evening we should have a sexy looking solid prototype that has the base functionality we need for next week. Then in the run up to Christmas we add the last missing bits and start planning for stability and deployment in the New Year whilst kicking off the beta programme.
Apologies for not having the email harvester up and running yet, it’s coming soon. In the meantime just pop me an email if you want to be added to the beta list.
Design, Development, LouderVoice, Suppliers
Usually this is quoted as a negative but in our case it is entirely positive. The TechCrunch coverage lit a little fire underneath us and pushed me to finally get some lovin’ applied to the design of the prototype. We have engaged a superb designer who I met at BarCamp Ireland to just do something quick and simple for next week. The timeline is crazy but his first proposal was absolutely spot-on and we’re running with it. It is a clean, uncluttered, intelligent design to match the *cough*, clean, uncluttered, intelligent application. Now we just have to try and tie everything together for Friday.
Design, LouderVoice, Suppliers
