Hooked-in

Who likes your fishing reports on Hooked-in?

Ever wonder who has voted for your fishing reports on Hooked-in?  Guess no more... Now you'll see the list of members who liked your post. You'll find the list just below the vote counter to the right of your catch report.

I hope this makes it more fun for you to vote and gives you credit for doing it. Likewise, you'll know who else has voted for your postings.

Also, while we were under the hood, we made some minor cosmetic changes to the way links show up to make the pages more readable - the underlines will only show when you mouse over.

Hope you like the changes!

Hooked-in is now connected to Twitter

Earlier this week, Hooked-in got a system upgrade. Part of that upgrade was not completed because Twitter's Oauth user access control was down at the time.  Doh!

But OAuth came back up this afternoon and we were able to finish the job.

Now, you'll notice that new fishing reports posted on Hooked-in are also posted to @hookedin on Twitter. In other words, you can now "follow" Hooked-in on Twitter.

That was just phase 1 of this project. The real goal is to allow you (optionally) to "tweet" your fishing reports under your own Twitter account. This is a great way to share your fish stories with your friends (and "followers").

This should be completed in the next week or so... stay tuned!

Hooked-in fishing reports upgrade completed successfully

Thanks to Adam Parrott and our good friends at RailsMachine, the upgrade to the Hooked-in Fishing Reports website was completed successfully with no downtime. For you geeks out there, we upgraded to the latest versions of Rails (2.3.2) and Ruby.

We also laid the groundwork for connecting to Twitter through OAuth. Unfortunately, Twitter's Oauth implementation had been down for the last 14 hours, so we can't totally finish that new feature right now.  Coming soon!

Enough of the geek talk...

What's this mean to you and other Hooked-in users? First of all, a faster website with more capacity.  I.e. more fun.

Also, if you are also a Twitter user (or want to become one), Hooked-in will (soon) automatically "tweet" when you post to Hooked-in. A great way to tell your friends/followers about your latest fishing triumph!

Hooked-in to be upgraded this morning

Happy Earth Day! Doing some spring cleaning and expanding capacity for the 2009 fishing season... the Hooked-in Fishing Reports website will be upgraded this morning (April 22, 2009). The work will start at 9:30 a.m. eastern. We don't anticipate the system being down for very long if at all... but you never know!

Fingers crossed... hopefully the next blog post will declare a successful upgrade.

Follow Hooked-in on Twitter

With all this chatter about Twitter, I've been wondering how the members of Hooked-in can use Twitter to share fish stories... I think I've figured it out.

The main idea: Hooked-in makes it easy to post pictures and stories about your fish. Twitter makes it easy to tell the world about it. Wouldn't it be great if Hooked-in tweeted on your behalf every time you posted? I'm working to add that option and it's coming soon!

In the meantime, I've been manually tweeting some of your posts in our new @hookedin Twitter account. Follow Hooked-in here: http://twitter.com/hookedin.

Hooked-in store finally open

You can finally order t-shirts, mugs, and stickers from Hooked-in through the new Hooked-in Store. I say "finally" because our members have been asking me for this for over a year now. Here is a sampling of the popular designs:

     

All proceeds from the Hooked-in store help support the operation of the Hooked-in website.

Now it's even easier to share fishing stories on Hooked-in

Hooked-in makes it easy for you to post your fishing stories along with photos, maps, and videos. Now it's even easier to share your stories in three new ways:

1. Through social networks like Facebook and MySpace
2. Through blogging tools like TypePad (what I am using now), Twitter, or WordPress
3. Through trusty old email

You will find this new service, which is provided through a widget by ShareThis, in the upper right hand corner of the document area of most pages (see below). Just click the "Share This" link and you will see all your options.

Hope you like it!

Better dialog on Hooked-in

You may have noticed some "beautification" going on at Hooked-in. We're always trying to make things a little better every day.

We've also implemented a new feature to facilitate dialog among members: letting you know when other members comment on a catch that you've recently commented on. You'll get an email notification instantly (instead of having to remember to check back on the catch report later). This is handy when you ask a question and someone else answers it. It also makes it easy to follow the comments on the catches that interest you.

Hope you like it!

Geocoding improved, faster website

The recent episode with the iPhone application disrupting Hooked-in got me to look more closely at an aspect of the website that was bothering me -- slow and unreliable geocoding.

Geocoding provides some of the "secret sauce" that makes Hooked-in location aware and makes it easy for you to classify your posting by simply clicking on a map. Lots of geeky code behind this feature with the goal of making your life easier.

That geeky code just got geekier... We just rolled out an update. You'll notice that the system is faster when posting your catches because the geocoding is now much faster. Also, it's (hopefully) more reliable.

Please let me know if you find any problems with this.

Thanks for using Hooked-in!

Fishing Videos added to Hooked-in

Hooked-in just got better! You now have the ability to post fishing videos to the website. You'll find it simple to post your videos (the website does most of the work for you). You can post your own videos or others' interesting videos you find on the internet.

Here are some examples of what you can do with this new service:

• Giant Muskie ( Musky ) Ice Fishing Video
• Salmon Sunday at Lake Winnipesaukee Video
• Danny Thomson Bass Catch Fishing Video
• Wolves Fishing Video
• Heeeeeere Fishy Fishy Fishy Video

This should uncork your creativity!

Right now, the feature is limited to previously uploaded YouTube videos. However, we plan to expand this to enable you to upload videos right through the site and to use videos from other services.

I hope you like it! Please let me know your ideas for improvements.