Updated Predictions

Ok folks, here’s where we are today.

First, the good news:

• For the first time in history, There has no cage. All of There, from the “www” site, to the build machines, to the qa clusters, to the educational projects, are running “in the cloud”. This got finished this week, and it’s a big deal for us, both financially and technically. It’s also muscularly a big deal, since it’s one less check I have to sign each month).
• SamSyn got Club “reservations” to work. This is not the cause of the delay in getting ThereIM up.
• SamSyn also got “restore” your nametag color working, along with “change your nametag color” (which we will not be introducing at this time as a feature). This took longer than expected because, well, it was implemented in a strange way (there are a few things like that in There). And, no, if we ever did introduce “Change your Name Tag Color”, we would NOT be giving you a refund for your old team clothes since your had changed your color.
• SamSyn’s polishing off “Restore your Look” to make sure you look just as you expected when you come back. I have to remember to remind him to make the code “fix” some of the poor Avatars who “somehow” ended up with horribly distorted looks.

Next week, now that we’re out of the cage (we needed to make sure we were out so we could avoid being charged for another month), we’ll build the production “cluster” (a tiny thing, in comparison to the past) in the cloud. IF everything goes well, towards the end of the week, or the week after we’ll be asking a small number of folks to come into ThereIM to test things out.

DO NOT INDUNATE THE BLOG WITH REQUESTS TO BE FIRST. Requests, hints, begging, or threats to “Be First” will be translated in my head to “Please make me last, in fact, let me in several months after you open”.

One more thing. Initially, at least, ThereIM will be Free. Do NOT assume it will always be Free. In fact, it will probably be $10/month, but we’ll forget to charge you, just so people can’t complain we “raised the price”, if we do later.

That’s the news for today. Sorry we’re late. Lots to do.