UTC Blog

Up The Chimney 2010 is in the works. At the moment we’re taking email addresses onto the invite list. Initially this will be limited to 100 people, but we’ll be allowing those first 100 to invite their friends and family.

After this we’ll have a full launch in plenty of time for your Christmas shopping!

OK so as usual it’s far from perfect, and there’s not much I can do about it now. As far as I can think, it does at least as much as it did last year. Except the My Shopping page which showed a summary of what you’d bought and who you’d still to buy for. I broke that bit about 3am the night before I left, so I’ve removed it for the menu now.

One improvement for this year is multiple recipients for a present. Last year there was a lot of “something joint with Mum so can’t say”and “something joint with Dad so can’t say”, so I think this was a useful improvement. When you go to “Add something to Harold’s list”, there will be tickboxes for all the rest of your contacts for you to select (eg. ‘Madge’). Yes I’m going with the Neighbours theme seeing as I’ll be in Oz for Christmas. Obviously you need to select all the people it’s for at this stage so that it stays a secret from them from the moment you add it!

The usual disclaimer applies – if I ruin Christmas, sorry, but don’t sue me!

Happy Shopping!

Iain

It’s almost that time again folks! And given I’m leaving the country before anyone even thinks about Christmas shopping, fingers crossed I’ll have the site up and running in the next few weeks.

3 years ago Up the Chimney was launched as an experiment for immediate family, with a good response. The year after that we tried to go full pelt with a dedicated domain name, public access and advertising links. It was ok, but we put too much effort into making money and not enough into making it work well for the users. So last year, it was all about YOU! My programming skills had matured somewhat and the site was re-written from scratch (in CakePHP, if there’s any fellow geeks reading). The result was a much more stable, easier to use site.

So hopefully that means this year I can achieve the best of both worlds, and Up the Chimney will be better than ever before, whilst also making me a few bob to go towards a night or two in a hostel!

Stay tuned!
Iain

Right folks we’re ready to roll. Just in time for you all to start your shopping (except Denise who probably started in September). Looks more or less the same as last year so should be easy enough to use.

New this year:

- Add comments to presents – same as the notes thing last year, but better. Add comments to your own presents and everyone can see it. Add comments to someone elses present and they wont see it – so for example if someone asks for ‘a jumper’ you can mark it off as bought by you, and then add a comment to say ‘I got him a nice red one from Next’ or something….

- Present Link – add a web address as your adding a present, to make sure people get the exact right one.

- Present Type – book, cd, dvd, game, clothes. I just realised Toys would be a good option as well – let me know if there’s any more to add

- All presents view – a combined view of all your contacts’ lists, in date order, most recently added first.

- Chip In – a present can now have more than one buyer, so if a few of you chipped in for something, that can be recorded. Ideal for couples as well obviously – so the women cant do all the shopping and take all the glory while leaving us blokes lookin stingy.

- My Shopping – a list of all the stuff you’ve bought, so you can keep track. I’m also planning to add a spending tracker feature as well, so you can put in how much you spent on each present and see total spending. This will obviously be completely private to you, and optional. Coming soon hopefully.

Also coming soon:

Amazon wishlist – hopefully have this feature back, same as last year.

Add to contacts – i just realised this whole part is completely missing, but everyone should more or less be there from last year.

Delete presents – i also just realised theres no way to remove something from your list after you’ve added it. hmm.

Birthday reminders – use the site to do birthday presents as well, then at least it will be up and running all year round

As you’ll notice this year is aimed less at the ads and money-making bit, and more at just making it work better. Hence its now .co.uk instead of .com cos its cheaper ….. plus i’ve lost all the passwords for my affiliate accounts and stuff, and couldnt be ar*ed doing it all again!

any problems gimme a shout

Iain