+101 - Vote for the best sites on the web

The submission process is now finished!

I’m sure there’ll be issues, but the database seems pretty solid we’ve been running lots of tests, so there shouldn’t be any data loss.

We’re now working on the how to display the data on the site, and then will move onto the voting system, but if you submit your site now you can be one of the first and start getting votes as soon as that part of the system comes up!

We’ve only got 6 hours of our official 48 hours, left.  It’s going to be tight (or a late night! )

Welcome to day 2 of our Web Application build!

Using the Web Snapr we’ve added in the functionality of realtime screen shots:

101 Best Websites screenshot

You can now follow the submission process and get an idea of what your site will look like on the site.

Log in and have a go, let us know what you think?

We’re just about half way through our target and we have the submission process up and running! It’s still a bit manual and we haven’t figured out a way for the screenshots to be made without some intervention from us but we’re happy with the progress so far.

To submit a site you’ll need to register and login, then click on submit and follow the instructions.

Simple!

The first stage of the project is now complete for +101!

You can now follow the registration process, login and logout. Also you can send us your feedback with our contact form. But for now, just leave us a comment on our blog whilst we’re perfecting things and testing.

Try it if you like? Register here:

Click here to register on +101

Let us know how you get on

The beauty of WordPress – you can get the basic theme styled up in under an hour!

Obviously there’s still a lot of work to do but this is enough for now (don’t try a search or click on the archive pages yet!). I’ll come back to this once we have a better idea of how the main site is going to work.

And so we begin!

After a basic installation of Code Igniter (www.codeigniter.com) and a neat design, we’ve templated it up and are ready to start the application.

To begin with is the user registration process which we’ve decided should be based around a username rather than a password.  This way, when we’ve developed the site further, the user can have his/her own URL, for example: http://101bestwebsites.com/user/username, and they can have their own 101 best websites!

The differences that will stand us out from the crowd are:

1. User registration, as above, each user can have his/her own area
2. For each search, the 101st ranking site will get precidence!  This way, up and coming sites have a chance to increase their ranking.

We’ll be updating this blog as we go along, so please keep popping back and let us know what you think!

Welcome to the first 101 Best Web Sites blog entry.

I’m working as part of a small team (2 people) attempting to build an entire web application in a weekend!  I’ll be building the backend systems and database, whilst the other developer will be dealing with the front end XHTML and design work.

My colleague and I run a small web design company (www.bestservedcold.com) and had an idea to build a modern web design showcase for some time now.  Being in the internet industry we spend a lot of time looking around CSS showcase sites for inspiration and new ideas, however, the sites in question seem to have stood still whilst other websites have surged forwards with their technology and up to date designs.

Our biggest issue in building this new site has been time!  When ever we try to dedicate any, we end up getting distracted with work for our clients and never quite get stuck in and the idea got shelved.

Solution?  Take a weekend out, turn the phones off, ignore email and dedicate 12 hours a day for both days building an MVC based web application!

We’ll be updating this blog during the weekend starting at 10am tomorrow, so have a look at our progress and view the main site here:

click here to see 101bestwebsites.com