Roadmap for upcoming upgrades

I have received some great suggestions from UserVoice, and plan on implementing them. My reason for not doing these already is that they require API interaction that I am not able to test from Baghdad, so I have to waut until I am back in the states in order to get this working.

Texting in debts - I am going to allow users (after phone number verification) to text (SMS) in their debts by simply sending in things such as 'stan owes me $5 for the strip club' or 'I owe Sara $50' from their mobile phones. I have done a little research and I am planning on using ClickaTell as their API/prices seem to be the best. I will be documenting the whole thing on my dev blog if you are interested in how it is done. 

OpenID - Using RPXNow, I plan on integrating OpenID along with Facebook, Google, etc. for my logins. This is in addition my own login system. This will be great for users who are very security paranoid/careful, as I prefer to use symmetric encryption which some people are not happy with.

If you have any suggestions or ideas about how to implement such things, I would be more than happy to hear them.

Sessions were timing out causing errors if you were logged in too long

Sessions were timing out causing errors if you were logged in too long

By using the magic that is jQuery, you should now stay logged in while on the site and not time out. Previously, if you were on the site and sat idle for 5-10 minutes (which is strange since the default timeout for Asp.Net is 20 minutes) and tried to do something, you would get that error. Now I simply refresh your Session after a period of being idle if you are still on the site; a warning will pop-up notifying you if the refresh did not work.

How it was done

Wrote up a simplified version of how this was done here: Automatically refresh your user's Session behind the scenes using jQuery and Asp.Net.

If you want them to, every email you send will include a link to pay you with Paypal

Now on the My Stuff page, if you check the 'integrate' box under 'Paypal Integration' and fill in the blank with your Paypal address, email nudges will be sent with a link that will direct the debtor to Paypal with your info already in there. The link will have the recipient (you), the amount, and a note already populated; they just have to click and give you their money! Also, remember your Paypal account must be able to accept payments in order for this to work.

Now I know that everyone is not a fan of Paypal, but it is the most ubiquitous online pay method out there, and it is ridiculously easy to use, so I used it... quit your whining.

Thanks RJ for this idea, I think it's great.

In an effort to speed up the site before I try to draw in more users

Using Google App Engine and this amazingly simple tutorial on how to use it as a CDN, I am able to use Google's bandwidth and speed to save my server from getting murdered if this site ever picks up a lot of traffic.  Also, I found out that because of this, if your firewall blocks Google App Engine (which mine does) the site will not work as you can't get any scripts or style; I am going work on getting around this (or at least an explanation why it isn't working), but no promises.

Now I can see how often my code Fs up

Using the open-source greatness that is elmah for error catching and logging, I can now see all of the errors the site produces in a nice viewable format. I can't express how great this framework is, anyone who writes Asp.Net code should at least check it out, it will make your life so much easier.

How it was done

Once again, I wrote up a tutorial on how to set this up using MS SQL - so easy it is almost trivial: Installing Elmah for Simple Error Logging.

See that nifty little tab on the left side of the screen? Click it to give me some feedback/suggestions

The great folks over at UserVoice offer a sweet little setup that I can use to track user feedback. If you have an idea or a gripe, put it up there, it won't be ignored... unless you suck.

Did someone pay part of what they owe you?  Now you can track that too

Often times, people do not pay up all at once. Now, by using partial payments, you can track those. Simply click on the paid up icon [] and click 'partial payment' and enter the amount. This is only available on money items. Thanks for the suggestion Brian.

Now you can be even lazier than before

That's right, now when entering a new debt, the system will automatically suggest the previous entries you have made.

How it was done

Once again, this was done with jQuery and Asp.Net, see how here: Using jquery.autosuggest with Asp.Net.

You can send some funny and/or slightly offesive reminders to the people that owe you to pay up

Say someone is taking their time on paying you back, and you need your money now. Now there is a simple way to send the a friendly (or not so friendly) reminder. Simply enter their email into the 'person' column, and a little email icon [] wil magically appear; click on it to send them a message. No you don't get to choose, it is randomly chosen, which is half the fun anyways right?

Right now you have to manually enter an email. I am thinking of making this a sharing type site in the future, but that all depends on user feedback... so get back to me!