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.

I'm having a really hard time starting to work on this website. It's a motivation problem: part of me wants to get this done, but the other part of me is being lazy and unproductive. I have a ton of really cool features that I want to add, but I am having a hard time getting excited about the development. I'm a bit burned out from this semester. It's been a lot of work, and a vacation will do me good.

I'm thinking about a "how hot do your friends think you are" feature that lets your friends compare you (and only you) to other people. This would be on a special page that you could share with your friends, and the votes wouldn't be part of your site-wide score. I've been looking for something cool that you could put in your AIM profile, and I think this idea just might fit the bill.

One week left of school. I don't think I'll make it :<

I have had a ridiculously busy couple of weeks. Thankfully the semester is winding down, so I have some free time to work on the site.

As I was trying to think through the next version of the site, I realized that I didn't have an overarching vision for millihelens. I didn't understand the essence of the site. This realization disturbed me, so I sat down and thought about what millihelens is all about. After making some progress, I asked some of my friends what they thought. In the end, I concluded that millihelens is all about the statistics. Millihelens is the only place where you can get such detailed information about how hot you are.

This newfound knowledge helped me figure out what to add to the site: more statistics (and more interesting ways to see them)! In the next version, I'm going to try out some other ranking systems. The next version will also let you see how scores have changed over time (many thanks to Will for the suggestion).

I threw out a bunch of old pictures this morning. I've seen them way too many times :<

While I'm on this issue of pictures, for the beta I'm only going to accept real pictures (i.e. no models, etc). I've made this decision for two reasons:
- It's unfair to compare the real people with airbrushed models
- Copyright issues
I actually think the site will be more fun with "real" pictures, so bear with me here.

In other news: test + labs = no time to work on millihelens. The next set of upgrades is currently scheduled for three weeks from now. This one should include:
- deleting pictures
- better tag selection interface (a "cloud" / search box)
- customizable user profiles
- user-to-user messaging
- closeable dialog boxes

At some point I'm also going to add
- more homepage gadgets (yahoo, MSN, etc.)
- better FAQ

After much furious work, I finally finished the version 2 beta!
It's by no means a finished product, but the following features made it:
- multiple pictures per account
- picture tagging / categorization
- per-category scores
- improved history page (shows percentage of comparisons won)

Some people suggested a few more good ideas:
- a magnification button that lets you see larger versions on images
- an interface to browse through pictures on the site (something like an extended top 20)

I encourage everyone to check out the beta version. If you notice any problems while using it, please send me an email at bugs<at>millihelens.com, and I'll do my best to fix it. Suggestions and comments are also appreciated :)

Check it out here and let me know what you think!

(oh, and by the way: there aren't that many pictures on the beta, so go upload some!)