October 3, 2007 :: The roommate section is back to normal. Thanks for being patient! We're going to be re-developing your profile area, but you will still be able to use it to access your running ads, and to edit or delete them. Also, you should be seeing some changes in the left sidebar.

October 1, 2007 :: We are fixing some unexpected bugs in the roommate section. If you created a roommate ad today, and saw an error page, don't worry. Your ad was created, and you will be able to add photos to it as soon as we're done with the updates (should be within 24-36 hours). Thank you for your patience.

I'm proud to announce that when you post your ad on iHomeConnect.com, the charity that you specified to receive our donation, will reflect immediately on PostforChange.org.  

Some of you have been asking us when the PostforChange option will appear on the other ad posting sections, and I promise you, it is coming shortly! 

Today, we remember 9-11.  We remember the

• Anguish
• Courage
• Resolve
• Unity
• Faith
• Heroism
• Love
• Character
• Liberty

of those who fought, bled and died on this day.  And we honor those who continue to fight for that which we remember.  We pray to God for peace that will one day come.  We look within ourselves to overcome day by day.  We can and will improve our lives, not just for the betterment of ourselves, but for the entire world.   We remember.

I'm excited to announce the beta launch of PostforChange.org.  Post for Change is a completely user-driven, online foundation where you choose where the funds go.  The 'funds' come from iHomeConnect sponsors, and a portion of these funds is dedicated to charity donations.  When you post an ad on iHomeConnect, you will see the Post for Change section where you can choose what charity will receive our "5-cents worth".

Have you ever wondered why online companies rake in so much money, yet don't bother to give any of it away? 

Heck, I'm no wiz with words or public relations, but when I see a need, I do my best to fill it.  Our goal for Post for Change is to provide an easy way to give online, without asking you (the visitor) for money.  Money is taken out of iHomeConnect sponsorships.  At first glance, 5 cents may not seem like much, but let's say that people post 1 million free ads in a year (all it costs you is a few minutes of your time).  That's $50,000 for the betterment of humanity!!!  And just imagine how much good we could do if we acheived that number every  month!  I don't know about you, but I get excited when I think of all the possibilities that can come out of Post for Change.

Thank you for your continuing support of all our endeavors!  We hope the world will benefit from this latest development. 

Well guys, you asked for it and you got it - a completely re-designed ad posting process focused on you, the user!  

I have to admit, I've never been overly happy with the way the site functioned.  With the old system, you would have to create an account, then login and click a button which would then take you to the roommate ad creation form.  And to draw out the process even longer, we had to manually approve each ad.  Whew!

 The new system is sleek and features advanced Spry technology and AJAX to speed up the process by over 150%!  Oh yeah, and you can add up to 12 photos - free!  (did I mention that already?).  It also features hidden, background "scammer" detection software that catches 99% of all scam postings, so you can snuggle in your bed without worrying about the bank seizing it.

 And just for the record, we plan to re-vamp all our posting areas one by one to the current roommate area standards.

 iHomeConnect now has the potential to become the go-to market for all your roommate needs so use the site, tell everyone you know (SEND EVERY FRIEND A LINK NOW!), send us feedback and ride a llama.

If you take a look at the iHomeConnect homepage, you'll see a new Quick Search.  We developed this with two users in mind:  1) those of you who are already familiar with the area you are planning to move to, and 2) those of you who would like to browse by city, yet aren't quite sure how to spell it or perhaps don't remember it all.

All you have to do is start typing a city, and after the first 2 characters, it will show you cities that potentially match your desired city.  You can either click on a result, or press 'Enter' on your keyboard, and it will automatically load the full city entry and it's corresponding state into the search field.  You can also browse listings by your county.  Pretty neat, huh?

And for those of you who still love to search within a radius of a target zip code, just click the 'Switch to Zip Code search' link next to the big Quick Search button!

I think we've got a crowd pleaser, folks. 

And this is just the beginning… more updates and new features are coming down the pipe!  And all free, of course!   (yes, we're a bit nuts)

Bug list for June 11:

• Member's name does not show in navigation bar when posting ads
• Quick search county drop-down does not work in Firefox
  (a more new-and-improved) Quick search on both homepage and in-header dropdown are currently in development)
• Only basic HTML tags should be allowed in an AD/listing's description (no img tags): b, i, u, ul, li tags only allowed
• Advanced search pages: Javascript error recorded on both search form and results
• Homes for rent search should only search homes for rent (exclude apartments)
• Roommate Detail page: Female gender should be 'straight' instead of 'straig'
• Upon successful sign in, keep user on the page they are currently on instead of redirecting them.
• AD Poster's Username needs to appear on the "contact ad poster" page
• Listing detail pages: 'Print AD' does not work
• Report misuse: error
• CAPTCHA is faulty; implement a new one
• All contact/forward/misuse forms: Now that we're using AJAX for verification, eliminate ASP verification (unused code)

Developments are underway as we've marked out with a fresh re-design, which is by no means finished. Currently, Ted is on a well-needed vacation, and when he returns on June 16th, we will begin work on some new and exciting functionality! (on a side note, before he left for vaction, we completed the Google and Trulia feeds, which is already generating increased traffic to your listings.)

 I'd like to hear your thoughts and ideas on what would make iHomeConnect a better site for everyone. Please post your suggestion as a comment to this post, so one, we can track it better, and two, so everyone can see milestones that we make in the development of iHomeConnect. Thanks for supporting iHomeConnect!