Todd's Blog

I just read that Mike Ditka is going to run for the Senate seat in Illinois.  Cool!

I finished coding the entire Web site with popup menus for User links and Game links.  It should be much easier to access key features now, and it will be much easier to expand in the future.

Also, All the results history has been loaded and is available online!  Standard members can see up to 10 drawings of history, and Gold and Platinum members have unlimited access.

All winning predictions - since the feature was first available - have been calculated as well, so I can start building those pages now.  Should be fun!

Lots of stuff going on behind the scenes at Lottery Post.

I've finally finished loading all the results history for all the games, plus the jackpot history.  Both histories go back at least a couple of years - the results go back to the mid- to late-90's.

Although you won't notice the change, I have upgraded the menus to support better popup control.  You can see an example of this on the new Lottery Jackpots page.  Clicking the game brings up a context menu that currently brings you to the Jackpot History page for that game. 

There are lots of other areas I'm going to start coding context menus.  Lottery Post has gained so many new features that it has become important to implement the menus.

Next on the to-do list is the comprehensive prediction stats, so that people can see how they have done (and see how others have done).  Should be interesting.

Also, still working on Gold and Platinum memberships!

I finally got around to fixing up the Printable Page feature, which has always been a little buggy when there is lots of normatting in the messages.  Now it seems to produce pretty good plain text, suitable for printing or copying.

It was much trickier to add than I had anticipated, but the Edit and Delete functions are finally available for Blogs!

They have the same restrictions as Editing and Deleting your messages posted to the forums.  That is, you have up to 20 minutes after you post the Blog entry to Edit and/or Delete it.  I have found this time limitation to be a good balance between giving everyone the ability to fix errors (as well as second-guessing a post after a second read-through) and making sure we don't end up with a bunch of revisionist history by allowing unlimited editing.

I know the next question is going to be about deleting or editing comments made by others in your Blog entries.  I am leaning towards not allowing that.  The reaons are:

1. Everyone already has the ability to lock their Blog entries so that comments are refused
2. Allowing everyone to delete other people's comments will discourage people from posting comments
3. The ability to edit other people's comments would never be allowed, no matter what - imagine someone editing YOUR comments
4. If someone posts a truly "evil" comment, I can be contacted for removal.  But I will only remove comments in extremely rare cases - only instances where I would immediately suspend the member's account.

Anyway, I hope everyone is helped by the new Edit and Delete functions!

Just added a new Blog feature that has been requested a few times.  From the main Blog page you can click a link to show all LP members with a Blog.  Fully searchable and sortable, so when the number of Blogs grows it should be very useful.

Did you notice I was gone?  Well, not totally gone, because I always manage to stay connected wherever I go.

I was gone for 10 days, but thankfully everything seemed to hold together pretty well.

I took my daughter to see Shrek 2 today - what a great movie! From what I've seen it will probably do about $125 million in its opening weekend, and it really deserves it. Great for all ages - lots of adult humor too. It has one scene with a take-off on the Fox show Cops that was just hillarious.

This article is too funny.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_957945.html?menu=news.quirkies.sexlife

"OK, we're married .... now what?"

Big change in my life today ... wish me luck.

Didn't win too much last night, but I'm back in play for the Saturday $205 mil jackpot.

Bought a bunch a Quick Picks in Delaware today.  I've been fortunate to be spending some time in Delaware while this big jackpot run-up has been going on.  The nice part is that WHEN I win, I will have no problem claiming the jackpot anonymously.  I think Delaware is the only state that has that provision written into its normal policies.

Finished the Sent Items folder for Gold and Platinum members.  It's really nice to be able to keep a record of all the private messages sent to other members, and it also shows which messages have been read and which haven't.

Maybe tomorrow I'll post about another HUGE feature that Gold and Platinum members will get.  This one's a real "biggie".

Worked on new Sent Items folder for Gold & Platinum memberships.  This will let members keep track of Private Messages that they send.

Also working on improving the results section.  The lottery results will be available for all US lottery states, plus Canada and the UK.  And they will be among the quickest results to the Web.

Gold and Platinum members are going to get improved access, including the entire draw histories for all games, statistics, and searching past results.

Also, there will be listings of current jackpots for all games, as well as jackpot histories.

This is going to be fun!  I wish I could have everything ready sooner, but it is a tremendous amount of work.

$32.5 million - my tickets are all ready to go!  I bought a bunch of QPs because my own selections weren't doing the job.

NJ has had a tough time getting to this level lately, as has NY.  Now, they're both above $30 million (NY is $42 mil).