I've been busting my ass on a new project for some time now, keeping it under wraps for some time. Instead of announcing it and setting a timeline, I've decided to take my time and full mature this product before launching it.

I've had a helluva time learning about standards compliancy and UI design. I'm really aiming at creating the perfect product from the start, which is a difficult task.

One of the most nitpicking issues is how the templating engine for the site; I'm torn between making a completely powerful templating engine that is hard to use or a less-powerful templating engine that is easier to use ... for now I've gone with the latter; some of the data outputs in a standard format for all accounts that you cannot modify. But I've left a lot of CSS classes in it so you can customize some of the data that gets output.

I've also been doing a lot of reading on UI design ... this article on consistency has been a huge boost, although what it states is simply obvious, it's motivated me to pay attention to every last detail.

Column Two has been a big boon for me ... it focuses on usability, accessibility, and other important things you should consider.

As for the product development, I've really taken things up a notch in terms of compartamentalizing my functions and writing cleaner, more commented code. I gave Borst a quick look at some of the new scripting and he was impressed with the formatting/commenting.

I'm hoping this new site will be more financially successful than Tabulsa. As much as this is my baby and has been a great personal boon for me (giving me a sense of accomplishment), it has been a financial failure. The turnover for paid account has been more than abysmal; this is entirely my fault and it's a lesson well-learned on the pitfalls of offering too many free features.

Another problem with Tabulas is that its infrastructure is inherently weak. I've talked about this before, but I really feel that Tabulas requires a complete overhaul in its templating and styling engine (moving to standards-compliant default templates and a better CSS parser on its admin end), but this is close to impossible with so many people using customized layouts and such.

I would tackle this problem, but it's turned somewhat into a Catch-22. I'll soon be out of college and I have to legitimately worry about how I'm going to make a living. At this point, for the amount of hours I put into Tabulas, I'm just not seeing myself cutting a living; I can barely pay off server fees on a monthly basis as-is. This makes it very discouraging for me to try to revamp such a critical component ... I just don't see it being a very cost-effective use of my time. If I spend another few weeks overhauling the templating engine, is it gonna convince people to buy more paid accounts? Probably not.

I'm really hinging a lot on the success of the new site; hopefully it will be a financial success (the pricing on it's pretty 'steep' compared to Tabulas, with pricing from $28 --> $100/year for an account) so that I can come back to make Tabulas much better ...

But as much as I gripe about how Tabulas doesn't "pay off," I still love working on it; I feel that I've built a solid product that I can continue to develop; people will all accept STANDARDS COMPLIANCY IN THE FUTURE WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT! muhahaahahahahahahaahahah

victory shall be mine :)