So far version 2 of millihelens has been a success in my book. I think it looks a lot better than it used to, and it's definitely easier for me to work on. I'm once again pondering where to go with this site. I was considering adding user profiles and messaging features: it would be really cool to be able to talk to other users of the site. I think everyone already uses some sort of social networking however, so I'm thinking about tie-ins with myspace and facebook.

Quick poll for you all:
1. Do you use facebook or myspace?
2. In either case, do you think a millihelens plugin would be cool? Imagine an app that would show your score in millihelens on your profile.
3. What about links to peoples' profiles on the site? This would let you message other users.

I'm currently working on: live.com and netvibes gadgets.
ETA: soonish (it's rush at my fraternity, so things are pretty hectic).

You'll notice that on the main page there's now a box underneath the pictures that lets you "tag" them. Tags are descriptive words or phrases that you can use to sort the pictures into categories. For example, say you want to look at all the pictures of blond people. Normally this wouldn't be possible, but with tags, you simply look at all the pictures that are tagged with the word "blond".

When you're tagging pictures, please try and tag them with broad phrases (e.g. "blond" or "skirt") describing the person in the picture or what they're wearing. Think whether or not you'll find it useful to sort pictures by the tag name you created. Try to also use phrases that other people will understand, for example "schoolgirl" instead of "totally hot for teacher".

I've tagged some of the pictures on my own, but I encourage all of you to start tagging the pictures that you see as you vote on the site. It doesn't take a lot of time, and you'll enjoy having the photos organized when you look through them.

I finally finished the new version of millihelens! Well, not really finished, but I have something to show you all. Consider this release an incremental step toward the final product. Throughout the next week, I'm going to be releasing new features as I finish them. I have a huge list of ideas for the site, and I'm really looking forward to implementing them. Feedback on the new version is always appreciated :)

I moved over all the user accounts and the appropriate pictures from the old site, but I had to erase all the scores (that's why all the scores are currently "?" and the graphs are all blank and the top 20 has no pictures in it). The scores will get updated as soon as there are enough votes, which shouldn't take more than a day.

In other news, I'm looking for a catch phrase for the site. I liked the definition of "millihelen", but i don't think it's catchy enough. Anyone have ideas?

I've discovered something about myself: I'm really bad at scheduling. I simply have no idea how long it takes me to get anything done.

That said, version 2 is almost done. All I have left is a whole bunch of small aesthetic issues. I'm aiming for a release this weekend (keep in mind what I said earlier about planning and my sucking at it). I then plan on gradually adding features in a series of mini-releases next week.

I've been working pretty hard on the next version of millihelens lately. I have all the basic infrastructure set up for the site, so you can create accounts, compare pictures, etc. All that's left is to fix up the history and score tracking (I'm trying to let you see how your score changes over time, but it takes a lot of storage space to keep all that information). There were some issues with tagging in the previous version that I also plan on addressing. The final step is to make the site look pretty, and then it's go time.

Do I have anything to show for this? Well, not just yet, but I'm getting close.