I’ve got so many bloody projects on the go that they’ve all stopped!

Here’s a list for future me to read to feel the future shame..

06 Nov *edit* made some progress!

1. Intense Debate Commentluv
   • I need to split up the css so it’s in a separate file
   • I need to add a check for existence of jquery at the start and load it if not already loaded
   • I need to pretty up the extra url field
   • I need to hide the existing url field on a logged out form and populate it with the value in the one I added with the script
2. Premium Support page
   • Create the different charge bands
   • Create paypal buttons with IPN url
   • Create said IPN receiving script
   • Integrate it with the comluv affiliate plugin for paying referral site
3. Premium Extras
   • Create different charge groups
   • Create paypal buttons
   • Create IPN receiving script
   • Integrate said script with affiliate payment
4. Referral contest
   • Work out the prizes
   • Type up the description post
   • Set up a single area for entries

That’ll do for now, there’s more but I’m getting depressed

I won a free premium membership to WPMU Premium with the 2.0 version of Commentluv and let me tell you, it was one of the best prizes I have ever received! The plugins, themes and support forum were pivotal to getting The ComLuv Network up and running.

Having an account there is pretty much a must-have for anyone considering starting their own blog network on the WPMU platform, the support is first rate and the extra plugin and themes are what makes WPMu such a great platform to work with. My favorite plugin is the Supporters plugin which opens up the ability for you to create your own Typepad style blog network with users becoming “supporters” for your set price subscription which will allow them to have access to premium plugins using the premium plugins plugin (try saying that with a mouthfull of cheese!) and the premium themes plugin.

I’ve got all three (and more) running on The ComLuv Network and they’re already getting me subscription payments that are sent to my Paypal account every month, all I have to do is keep the site growing and provide the things that people want and it should start paying for itself and maybe make some profit before Christmas!

If you’re familiar with WordPress then it’s just a small hop, skip and jump to upgrade to WPMu so you should take a ganders at their site and enter their contest to be in with a chance to win a years premium membership worth $419

All you have to do is visit this page and follow the instructions. Simple!

phew, I have managed to get back to the pc after a little while away and just in time (well, close) to announce the winners of the PacktPub contest.

All someone had to do was visit the PacktPub website and choose a book they want to win, link to it in the comments and post about the contest on their site.

First winner is Dominique Goh from http://www.dominiquegoh.com/ who wins a WordPress Theme Design book by Tessa Blakeley Silver

Second winner is Kelly from http://www.myqute.com who wins the WordPress for Business bloggers book.

well done you two! I’ll send your email addresses to packtpub tomorrow (just time for you to change your mind about which book if you email me quickly) and they will send you your books as a PDF attachment soon after.

The great CommentLuv contest is going well, 67 people have registered their sites to take part so far! I had to rewrite the contest page at commentluv so it doesn’t load them all until the user presses a button.

There are an ever increasing amount of comments being made every day, amazing to think it’s only been live for 4 days now!

3 people have won (1 person won twice!) already and there are going to be at least another 10 prizes to go out before 22nd Nov

I want to see if the contest page or a new one showing the current prize can attract some prize sponsors.. I put a link to buy any of the gadgets that I stock in my ebay store under each prize in the prize list and they are getting some pretty good clicks. I’ve sold more than the usual amount of memory cards in the past week and I’m sure it’s the contest doing it.

My idea is to code a widget that shows the current prize and who has donated it that can be displayed on the commentluv blogs that want to be part of the contest. I link it to a page on CommentLuv.com for the prize details including links to purchase the product at the sponsors site.

Given enough time for the contest to run, it could generate some good traffic and maybe more sales…

Maybe I can convince one of my suppliers to go with the idea and make a really good prize donation like an Asus eee PC or other fancy electronic gadget?

What do you think? I’d love to hear your opinion

The Contest did start and after my host managed to kill a nasty process eating thingy on the server, we have our first winner!

Witchypoo not content with winning the sneaky quick contest has continued rampaging through the contest blogs and leaving great comments, she ends up back here and wins again!

Look how the win appears in the comment.

The next prize will be available tomorrow but don’t rest your keyboard yet! the more comments you make on the day before the prize is available then the more chance you have of winning!

claim instructions are sent by the system to the email address registered at commentluv.com so now is a good time to make sure that you can receive emails from commentluv.com. You can do a lost password routine and not click the link sent to you to make sure you can receive emails from my server.

I see a lot of bounces come back from peoples mail boxes saying that it’s full, if the claim email doesn’t get through to you then you can’t claim. Check it today!

I spent the entire day (minus a 2 hour trip to the haberdashery <- don’t ask!) coding the final pages and scripts for the contest. I have the prizes up and descriptions entered. I was originally going to do 1 gadget per day for a whole month but I neglected to work in how much it would be to post them all!

I’ve had to drop it down to 2 weeks worth of prizes and threw in some cash prizes too. It will work with all sites that registered for the contest (including blogger and typepad). Prizes will be awarded to the commenters on those sites depending on a complex algorithm worked out by monkeys. Commenters need only to register their url at commentluv.com and enter a profile description to qualify and then they can go off and comment on all the registered sites and maybe one of their last blog posts will come back as a winning notification.

it will look something like this…
JoeBlog’s last blog post…CommentLuv Winner! Comment author has just won a prize
The heart box will show the details of the winner if it gets won.

I’ll get some instructions up today and set it to publish at midnight on commentluv.com.

keep an eye out!

I’m doing some testing with live data for the CommentLuv contest, there may be some extra bits added on the end of the pull down box for debug info for qualified commenters (those with a CommentLuv account and profile entered).

While it’s doing it’s thing so I can see the stats of how many and where etc, it will be doing a dry run for the winners. This little dress rehearsal will choose the winner in the same way it will be done when the contest goes live but instead of returning the notification, it will prepend a dot (.) to the post title.

There are 2 dots to be found and they only appear on the last blog posts of a winner who is qualified and commenting on a blog that is registered for the contest. If you have a last blog post that gets ‘chosen’ for this dry run then CONGRATULATIONS! you win a $20 Amazon gift certificate. You need to contact me so I can arrange to send you the prize (after I confirm the data in the database).

You can see a list of blogs who have registered for the contest here

it’s only for today so there’s not much time left!! get commenting!

teehee! I have created a monster!! Today I put the code together that does the choosing for the upcoming contest that will be run on ALL CommentLuv enabled blogs (T&C apply).

Here’s a hint of how it’s going to go…

Any blog with the latest version of CommentLuv can register to take part. The prize goes to one of your readers! When a commentluv.com registered member comments on one of the blogs that has registered to take part then they have a chance that instead of their last blog post coming back, a winning notification will be in its place. Kind of like Willy Wonka’s golden ticket

As long as that comment gets submitted and approved (more details about how do deal with spam in the future) then the user can click their notification link and claim their prize.

There will be many many prizes, over $1000 dollars worth of cash prizes and gadgets like iPod speakers, noise reducing headphones from Vmoda, flash memory cards and more.

The purpose of the contest will be 4 fold…

1. Encourage blog owners to have the latest version of CommentLuv working and set with their CommentLuv.com member ID
2. Encourage commenters to register at CommentLuv.com and validate their URL and add some information to their profile
3. Promote my new ebay shop (that’s where the gadgets come from!)
4. Put the $350 WPMU contest prize money back to the folks who helped me win it and giving CommentLuv enabled blogs the chance to run a contest with great prizes for their readers at no cost to themselves (well, a post about you being in the list of blogs participating and how your readers can qualify by registering their URL with CommentLuv.com and entering a profile description would help!)

OK, so now you know something is coming… I still have to do these things before we can go ahead..

Code the registration page for blog owners.
Code the prize claim form.
Write up the rules and how-to’s
Write all the prize descriptions and upload images.

All people have to do to be in with a chance of winning is comment on the posts of CommentLuv enabled participants. This should really encourage the visitors of all CommentLuv blogs to get out there and comment some more! (spammers will be banned!)

Let me know what you think!..

stay tuned!!

A huge thanks to all those that voted for CommentLuv in the WPMU plugin contest. CommentLuv won the peoples choice awards!
US$250 from the team at Bloglo.co.il
US$100 fromTrent Adams
WPMU DEV Premium yearly account

In the spirit of the way CommentLuv gives something back to the blogs community members, I have decided to use most of the cash prize money as the fund for a great CommentLuv giveaway!

The particulars are still being arranged while I collect the money from the prize donors and set up some code and pages to administrate the contest. This should be around the beginning of next week…

the best bit is, to be in with a chance to win you just need to be a CommentLuv.com member and make comments on CommentLuv enabled blogs (latest version 2.5.4). A random comment will get a prize winning notification URL instead of their last blog post and as long as that comment is published with the link then BOTH the owner of the blog AND the comment author win a spot prize of real cash money!!

rules and yadayada will be published near the time the contest will start..

thanks again for voting for CommentLuv. It had nearly 50% of the total vote at the end! awesome.

Congratulations to Yan from thoushallblog.com for winning the 100$ contest for the beta testers!!

He qualified by being a beta tester who provided feedback on the new version when it came out and leaving a comment on the contest post. He was allocated some numbers and if one of them matched the bonus number drawn on the UK lottery today he would get the prize.

here’s his comment allocation

Congratulations Yan, your allocated number 2 came up as the bonus number and you win the 100$.

Let me know you know on this post and I’ll wing your money off to you!

and the results of the national lottery

More contests on the way!

Stay tuned for more contests to do with commentluv where just being a registered member and commenting on an ACL blog could win you a prize.