What do they want this time???

This post/link is for everyone who has ever tried to figure out what their website users really wanted. I present to you the FeatureVoter. As you can see, it gives your own users the option to either submit new feature requests or vote up someone else's feature request. This way, you can tell what your users really want the most, so you can give it to them before your competitors do :)


See the Live Version

To download the app (it's in python), click here.

To install the app, simply unzip it in the directory that you want it and alter the settings file appropriately. It's all fairly intuitive, but I'll go over it quickly...

web_root = (the URL of the the installation location)
admin_user = (the admin password for the feature voter itself, default feature_admin
admin_pass = (the admin password for the feature voter itself)
db_host = (wherever your mysql db is, usually localhost)
db_name = (name of your mysql database)
db_user = (username for your mysql database)
db_password = (password for your mysql database)

the feature_header and the feature_footer are whatever you want to go before and after the feature voter table in HTML... and example is provided.

After setting that up, just go to your base url and then admin.py in order to set up the database tables that the app will need, then point your user at your base url + features.py/

The Python Conspiracy

Python produces some really beautiful code sometimes. It's powerful, and even better in nerd currency, Google uses it. It is, however, driving me completely nuts. Pull my hair out nuts. Stryker's son in X-men 2 nuts, and it's all because of one thing: mod_python. In what universe is it ok, that you have to restart the web server to make one little fix? I suppose this wouldn't be so bad if I had my own server to host stuff off of, but since none of my readers seem to click on my ads...ever, I am currently stuck with a more cost-effective option: shared hosting.

Then again, perhaps mod_python was written by admins as a way of extorting nerd-treats (Mountain dew, Snickers bars, etc). This could explain the last e-mail I got from my admin:

"Dear Palantar,

We thank you for your patronage, but regret to inform you that we cannot at this time restart the Apache server AGAIN as we are feeling very tired due to lack of nerd-treats (Mountain dew, Snickers bars, etc). Please feel free to send us a lot of them. "

Or I could just be paranoid...