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Wow, it’s been over a year since the last written update. A lot has happened, and since I was more focused on working on this rather than writing updates, I sort of missed a few things I could have talked about. So why not get to it now?

There has been a tremendous overhaul on what this system was originally built as, and that has allowed it to become so much more. Instead of a single administrator, it now has the ability to offer some of this power to multiple moderators in order to help make the job of running the site easier on the webmaster. Members of the site will also have a much cleaner UI and modern way of interacting with the system.

Design Redesign

The design of the site has been completely reworked. While building the new elements of the site, the design itself has morphed into something a bit different than before. It was a necessary change as so many of the new features had no particular place. As time went on and the number of features increased, the look of the site had to be updated.

What you see now is the current incarnation of the design. Some of it is still in a state of change, such as the header and navigation. It is likely that the header itself will remain small but the navigation will be changed in the coming weeks.   Read More

Picrate is moving along so well that we're looking at a beta launch very soon. It will be hitting our live site in the next couple weeks for product testing, and comparing it to the current version we're looking at a major change. That means a big conversion from the live site which currently hosts over 28,000 pictures and has between 1500 and 2000 visitors a day. But what exactly are we looking at being different?

Forum
The application has been developed into a wider community drive application which now includes a built in forum. This means the current site can drop the third party app, but will need to convert the information from it into this one.

The forum is a simple built in system that works from the same engine and database as the rest of the site. This means it will be easier to maintain and work with.

Instant Messaging
Community members can now instant message each other through the site. This will give more interactivity between users to help grow the community.

Following Users
Following users is something that a lot of sites are jumping on, since it allows a member to see what their favorite users have been doing lately. This is currently in development but will be released with the next code launch.

Flagging
The flagging system has been improved and now allows the user to choose a reason they are flagging the picture. This can help make it easier on the administration by letting them know that the trouble is with the picture.

Favorites Folders
As we found on the test site, members were adding hundreds of pictures to their favorites list. However, after several hundred pictures it becomes a mess.   Read More

This project is not dead, as things may have seemed. Actually, we've had a lot of work we've been doing with other clients via Asheboro Creative so we were forced to put Picrate on hold. Combined that with the annoyance of bad seasonal allergies and an an unwelcomed system crash due to F-Secure's antivirus system, we've had to take a bit of a break from project work. However, that stops now.

Starting today, we are driving forward hard to get Picrate out the door by the 1st. From feature enhancements to code cleanup, we have a lot of work to do in order to make this a great system. Anyway, back to work.

Just testing the date conversion.

Picrate is still undergoing some maintenance that we felt was necessary before releasing the finished product. A longer explination of what has been taking place can be found [link removed].

We will post more information about it's release, cost, and feature list soon.

That's right! We're going to release Picrate on July 27th. It will feature bug fixes, feature enhancements and additions, plus redeveloped code to make it run better than the BETA version.

We will feature a full length write up on Friday which will contain a wealth of information about the product, including system requirements, cost, features. We have put a lot of hard work and sleepless nights into this application, and we believe it will all pay off in the end product.

Hello everyone!

This is Dave from Asheboro Creative. Have you ever wanted to start your own photo rating website? Now it's easy to do, using Pic Rate Photo Rating.

Pic Rate has a lot of great features. Offering picture uploading, commenting, rating, share links (Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace), and a great admin area, we've developed an application that can do a great job for any community website.

Pic Rate is currently in a closed BETA test, and the final release version should be available soon. We will be announcing the release date shortly as well as a complete feature list.