| HOME >> Updates & News >> News >> Old News >> BASIC Guru Online Old News -- 2000 |
| Major Tutorials Addition--Unofficial News--Archives Addition | |
| Posted On: December 30, 2000 | 4:33 P.M. CDT |
| The first topic in this news item is very important. I've come up with an idea, which will make entering all those codes in the tutorials into your calculator much easier. The only problem is that it'll take a lot of effort on my part. To make sure that what I'm going to do is worth the effort, I need feedback from all of you. What I want to do is have the option to download a calculator file version (83 and 83+) for each code in all of the tutorials. This way, you won't have to worry about making mistakes while entering code and you don't have to spend the majority of your time entering that code. You can spend that extra time learning more topics. The only thing you'll need is the TI-Graph Link software and cable (to send it to your calculator). Now, whatever your comments are please tell me by clicking on the "Discuss" link below. If it's either to tell me that this is a great idea or that it's a terrible one, PLEASE TELL ME!! The second topic deals with BASIC Guru Online hosting unofficial news from you. Have you ever wanted to announce something new about your site? Has your site released a highly anticipated program and you want to get the word out? Well, if you guys want it, there could be BASIC Guru Online Unofficial News, where you can post whatever news you have. Even if it's just to announce a new program you've released and it's now in ticalc.org's archive, that's fine. However, before I get the page up and running, I'm going to need some news to post. If you have any news you would like to let everyone know about, send it to news@basicguruonline.com. Once again, PLEASE send any comments about this idea, using the "Discuss" link below. The last topic deals with a feature that I'm thinking of adding to all of the program profiles. I am thinking of adding a "NOMINATE ME" button somewhere on ever program profile, which will nominate that program for the upcoming POM poll. So now, the question is: Would you rather dictate which program's are nominees in the POM by using the "NOMINATE ME" button, or would rather the 5 programs with the most downloads for that month be the nominees? For the last time, PLEASE send any comments about this topic, using the "Discuss" link below. |
|
| Discuss | |
| Hits pass 3,000--Current Weekly Poll--Future Site Update | |
| Posted On: December 11, 2000 | 5:33 P.M. CDT |
| Wow, it's been a long time since I last did one of these...almost 2 whole months. The last time I wrote a news item, was when the site reached the 1,500-hit mark and just got the new domain name: basicguruonline.com. But anyway, on to the new news. As the headline indicates, the site has now received over 3,000 hits. I think this is a remarkable feat to accomplish in only 4 months for a specialized site. Other sites can get 3,000 hits easily because the main focus of the site is for all types of TI-graphing calculators, but this site mainly focuses on the TI-83 and TI-83 Plus. It is evident, however, in the increasing hits and involvement in the polls that more and more people are learning about BASIC Guru Online everyday. Next up is the current weekly poll that asks what grade you are in. I am pretty shocked to see that a little over 20% of the voters are in middle school or earlier. I highly doubt that an elementary school kid would have a graphing calculator so I think that pretty much all of the votes are by middle schoolers. I'll be even more shocked if even half of the people who voted "Middle school or earlier" aren't in the 8th grade. There is really no need to buy a graphing calculator any earlier than that, I feel. A regular TI-30X would suffice. Almost 70% of the voters are in high school, which is a figure that I pretty much expected. It's usually in high school, and most likely college, that you'll need a graphing calculator. My final topic deals with an update that I'm planning to finish within the next week. It's kind of hard to explain though. What I want to do to every page on the site is something similar to what Yahoo! or ticalc.org do in their categories. Let me just use my profile page as an example. At the top of every page (beneath the title and subtitle, but above the main text, and in between two lines) there will be a sort of hierarchal line. As I said, it's hard to explain, so I'll show you. For my profile page, the "line" will read:
|
|
| Discuss | |
| Hits pass 1,500--Program Ratings--Domain Name | |
| Posted On: October 16, 2000 | 9:59 P.M. CDT |
| It's been exactly one week since my last news item. I actually could've written the first topic about 3 days ago, but I wanted to wait and consildate everything into one big news item. As of right now, the number of hits to the site stands at 1,551. It actually took longer for the site to go from 1,000 hits to 1,500, than it did from 500 to 1,000. It took about 3 weeks, give or take a few days. Anyway, I'm glad that the site has even gotten this many hits. It just means that it's getting out to the public! My next topic is something that I'm really happy that I was able to implement. It's something that I suggested to ticalc.org, but they refused to respond to my suggestion. But that's okay, because it's at BASIC Guru Online! If you don't know, it's the program ratings and comments. This allows the users, you guys, to give your input on how good a game actually is and leave your comments. Every program in the Archives, is set up to be rated from 1 to 5 stars, and each already has a current rating. This way, visitors wanting to download a program will really know how good the program actually is. I'm also excited about the last topic. BASIC Guru Online, now has a new domain: basicguruonline.com/. Now you can acess the site, by just typing in that URL instead of having to enter all the "geocities" stuff. It should make things much easier and make my site even more official. I'm going to have to go back to all those major search engines and change the web address. | |
| Discuss | |
| FAQ finally created | |
| Posted On: October 9, 2000 | 4:57 P.M. CDT |
| It's been a while since I've had some big news to tell you about. Well, as the title indicates, I have finally finished the FAQ. It currently contains 45 questions, most of which I have been asked many times. What's really weird is that once I started creating the FAQ, I started receiving lots of questions that would be answered in the FAQ. This made me really want to get it out quickly. However, that didn't happen for a number of reasons. At the end of September I decided to make the Site of the Month and Program of the month polls to add more interactivity between the you and me. By the way, those winners will be announced on October 14th (the date was moved from the 10th). I also received a couple of members during this time period, including Brandon Green, the newest of the new members. Brandon, an ex-member of SiCoDe and a current member of xCoderz (formerly BasiCoderz), submitted a lot of his games that he's made for both program groups, including one for the TI-82. These games increased the Program Archives significantly. Brandon also submitted 7 tutorials that he made for SiCoDe and now wants to add to the BASIC Guru Online set. These tutorials are very advanced and will most likely added in a different section of the tutorials that I will be called "Member Submitted Tutorials." Now that the FAQ is finally complete, I'm going to move on to creating the program rating system for all of the programs in the program archive. This way, users can get an idea of what other users think of the program and how good it actually is. Once that system is complete, I'll hopefully be able to resume making more tutorials. If you haven't already done so please vote in both the Program of the Month and Site of the month polls, which are located on the Awards Page. Also, if you have any more questions that you think should be added to the FAQ just tell me. | |
| Discuss | |
| Hits pass 1,000--Customer Service Poll--FAQ | |
| Posted On: September 23, 2000 | 8:39 P.M. CDT |
| This news item is a combination of three news items that I want to talk about. First, I'm proud to say that BASIC Guru Online has now past the 1,000-hits-mark. It was exactly two weeks ago that I wrote a news item talking about how the site surpassed 500 hits. If it took one month to get the first 500 hits, and then two weeks to get the next 500 hits, could the next 500 come in one week? I hope so. Now on to the second news. If you've ever asked me a question, you received asking you to vote in the BASIC Guru Online Customer Service Poll, which asks three questions about how I respond to your questions. This poll is very important because it is instant feedback that I can receive from you. I try to respond as quickly and accurately as I possibly can. The final news deals with the FAQ that I'm currently making. I have amassed all of the questions that you guys have asked and organized them into several sections. I'm not quite sure when the FAQ will be finished because I have 48 questions to answer. It all depends on how much other stuff I have to do with the website like updating polls and responding to questions. Hopefully, it'll be done within the next week. | |
| Discuss | |
| Special Tutorial Finally Completed | |
| Posted On: September 20, 2000 | 7:27 P.M. CDT |
| It's about time!! I finally finished a tutorial. It's called Special Tutorial. The reason it is special is because it was not my idea. The idea actually came from one of BASIC Guru Online's members, Ben Grunwald. He actually submitted a game that he thought would be good to use in one of the getKey tutorials. If I did include into one of those, there would have been a whole lot to explain in just one paragraph, so I decided to make a tutorial solely for it. Thus, Special Tutorial was created. It teaches: the Use of Ans, Continual Motion, and Collision Detection. It actually turned out pretty good and there should be something new you learn. Check it out!! I'm once again taking a little break in order to update my Maze program. It should only be a one day break because what I want to do, isn't that big. The next major project that I'm planning for BASIC Guru Online is an FAQ, so submit those questions!! If you have anything to say, just click on "Discuss" below. | |
| Discuss | |
| Hits are soaring | |
| Posted On: September 14, 2000 | 10:17 P.M. CDT |
| It was just fived days ago that BASIC Guru Online broke 500 hits and since then the amounts of hits have been increasing greatly. In the last week and a half this site has received almost 250 hits. I am also really happy with the voting. This fourth weekly poll has been voted in more than all the previous ones combined. I am reluctant to even change the weekly poll because the current one is doing so well. I don't know what it is, but I'm glad it's happening. Right now there are 11 members (including me) and 17 programs in the program archives. I hope that both will increase soon. As you might have noticed, there hasn't been a tutorial released in a while. This is due to the fact that I've been working on the HTML aspect of the site (adding all these cool features). I will start making a tutorial as soon as I have finished adding all the features. I have a free weekend coming up too, so that will give me some time. | |
| Discuss | |
| BASIC Guru Online Hits top the 500 mark | |
| Posted On: September 9, 2000 | 11:35 P.M. CDT |
| The number of hits on the BASIC Guru Online site have passed 500. I consider this a pretty big feat in just one month of operation. Putting my links in all those calculator-related websites and in all the major search engines really helped in bringing in more visitors, I think. I have been adding more features to the site to make it interesting for all those returning "customers." Pretty much every time you return to the site, their is a new feature. I'm extremely happy with the way things are going and I hope that this good trend continues. If you have some friends who want to learn programming for the calculator, tell them about the site. If you would like to send any congratulations to me, I would really appreciate that. It'd make me feel even better! :) Also, for about the last week or so, a lot of people have been voting in the polls. I receive roughly 20-30 votes for all three polls a day. This is a far improvement from before when I used to just get 5-10. Thanks for voting in the polls and thanks for visiting my site! Become a member today! | |
| Members Page Completed | |
| Posted On: September 4, 2000 | 9:29 A.M. CDT |
| The Members Page is now complete!!! Now you can become a member of BASIC Guru Online and receive special perks, including updates & news via email. If you have a website of your own and include it in the sign-up form, a link to it will be added in the Links Page (as long as you link back to BASIC Guru Online). Since I am done with the creating the members page, I should return to creating tutorials. The process might be slowed even more if I receive a lot of applications for membership and/or poll votes. Become a member today!! | |
| The Ultimate Maze 2000 released | |
| Posted On: September 3, 2000 | 2:17 P.M. CDT |
| I finished creating the game that I took a break from making tutorials for. The game is called The Ultimate Maze 2000 and is obviously a maze game. It is compatible for both the TI-83 and TI-83 Plus: . I know I said that I would begin to start creating the next tutorial after I finished making this game, but I've started a new endeavor. I'm in the process of creating the BASIC Guru Online Members Page. There you can read information on what being a member will do for you, sign up to be a member, or check out the list of the current members. I'll try to create a new tutorial after I finish this project, but you never know what idea I might come up with next. | |
| Tutorial 25 Finally Created | |
| Posted On: August 26, 2000 | 10:48 A.M. CDT |
| Tutorial 25 has finally been created. It actually only took 3 days to make, but there was never time to start until 3 days ago. School has started and with all the homework, it's hard to find time. I'm now going to take a short break from making tutorials. I'll still be updating the site a lot. I will post the new weekly poll tuesday evening and update the results page. You can still email me if you have tutorial suggestions, questions about tutorials, or anything else. I'm just taking a break from making tutorials. I'm going to go back to making calculator programs. Thanks for all your repsonses in the polls! | |
| Poll Results Page Created | |
| Posted On: August 23, 2000 | 5:31 P.M. CDT |
| The Poll Results Page has just been added to the BASIC Guru Online site. Now you can check out other people's opinions on the polls posted on the home page. Just click the "Results" button, and it'll send you to the results of that particular poll. Although the number of hits on this site has increased, the poll results, for now, will only be updated on a weekly basis. If more people vote, the polls will be updated every other day. So, please vote!! Since a new weekly poll comes out every week and the poll results are updated every week, when you go to the "Weekly Polls" secion of the Results Page you'll find the results of the previous poll. And one more thing. Please vote in all three polls, not just the first one. Thanks!! | |
| Mini "Overhaul" Completed | |
| Posted On: August 16, 2000 | 6:26 P.M. CDT |
| The overhaul has now finished. It really actually finished yesterday because I decided not to add the feature that I was going to add today. The biggest feature, I think, are the 3 polls added to the home page. These allow me to get instant feedback from you, which I can analyze and make the site better. The first two polls are fixed polls, meaning that they will never change. Those polls will be there for the life of the website (which I hope is a long time). These two polls ask you questions about the site. The third poll is a weekly poll, which obviously will change on the weekly basis. These questions don't necessarily have to be about the website, but the first one is. If I get enough votes, I'll create results pages for the polls which will probably be updated daily. Please vote! Another important feature added in the "mini overhault" are the anchor links at the top of each major page that has many sections. These links allow you to be able to quickly navigate to a section in a page. I think this will be helpful, especially when you want to get to the bottom of a long page. This is also helpful for me because important info that's at the botton now shouldn't get overlooked. The final feature that I added was the tutorial submission section of the tutorials page. Now you can email me any tutorials that you would like to see added to BASIC Guru Online. Your submissions are greatly appreciated. Well that concludes this news update. When anything else comes up where I feel I need to tell you something, I will post another news update. | |
| New Features To Be Added | |
| Posted On: August 15, 2000 | 1:57 P.M. CDT |
| Overhaul of website begins! Actually it's not really an overhaul because I'm keeping the basic design of the website the same (the two navigation bars will stay the same). I am just planning to add a whole lot of features to the site so the tutorials may be delayed a little while longer. Check the Updates Section for all of the recent additions to the site. | |
| No Recent Tutorials | |
| Posted On: August 15, 2000 | 9:20 A.M. CDT |
| I don't know if you've noticed, but a new tutorial hasn't been released in a while. This is because I've spent most of my free time "beautifying" the site. I've added many new features to its basic design when I created it. All of the new features are listed in the Updates Section. I have also been advertising BASIC Guru Online, trying to get it on other TI calculator-related websites' Link pages. I spent an entire day doing that. All the sites listed in the Links Page, also have links back to BASIC Guru Online. Tutorial 25 should be released within 2-3 days. School starting has slowed the tutorial releasing process. Sorry for the delay. | |
| Tutorial 25 Finally Created | |
| Posted On: August 26, 2000 | 10:48 A.M. CDT |
| Tutorial 25 has finally been created. It actually only took 3 days to make, but there was never time to start until 3 days ago. School has started and with all the homework, it's hard to find time. I'm now going to take a short break from making tutorials. I'll still be updating the site a lot. I will post the new weekly poll tuesday evening and update the results page. You can still email me if you have tutorial suggestions, questions about tutorials, or anything else. I'm just taking a break from making tutorials. I'm going to go back to making calculator programs. Thanks for all your repsonses in the polls! | |
| Poll Results Page Created | |
| Posted On: August 23, 2000 | 5:31 P.M. CDT |
| The Poll Results Page has just been added to the BASIC Guru Online site. Now you can check out other people's opinions on the polls posted on the home page. Just click the "Results" button, and it'll send you to the results of that particular poll. Although the number of hits on this site has increased, the poll results, for now, will only be updated on a weekly basis. If more people vote, the polls will be updated every other day. So, please vote!! Since a new weekly poll comes out every week and the poll results are updated every week, when you go to the "Weekly Polls" secion of the Results Page you'll find the results of the previous poll. And one more thing. Please vote in all three polls, not just the first one. Thanks!! | |
| Mini "Overhaul" Completed | |
| Posted On: August 16, 2000 | 6:26 P.M. CDT |
| The overhaul has now finished. It really actually finished yesterday because I decided not to add the feature that I was going to add today. The biggest feature, I think, are the 3 polls added to the home page. These allow me to get instant feedback from you, which I can analyze and make the site better. The first two polls are fixed polls, meaning that they will never change. Those polls will be there for the life of the website (which I hope is a long time). These two polls ask you questions about the site. The third poll is a weekly poll, which obviously will change on the weekly basis. These questions don't necessarily have to be about the website, but the first one is. If I get enough votes, I'll create results pages for the polls which will probably be updated daily. Please vote! Another important feature added in the "mini overhaul" are the anchor links at the top of each major page that has many sections. These links allow you to be able to quickly navigate to a section in a page. I think this will be helpful, especially when you want to get to the bottom of a long page. This is also helpful for me because important info that's at the botton now shouldn't get overlooked. The final feature that I added was the tutorial submission section of the tutorials page. Now you can email me any tutorials that you would like to see added to BASIC Guru Online. Your submissions are greatly appreciated. Well that concludes this news update. When anything else comes up where I feel I need to tell you something, I will post another news update. | |
| New Features To Be Added | |
| Posted On: August 15, 2000 | 1:57 P.M. CDT |
| Overhaul of website begins! Actually it's not really an overhaul because I'm keeping the basic design of the website the same (the two navigation bars will stay the same). I am just planning to add a whole lot of features to the site so the tutorials may be delayed a little while longer. Check the Updates Section for all of the recent additions to the site. | |
| No Recent Tutorials | |
| Posted On: August 15, 2000 | 9:20 A.M. CDT |
| I don't know if you've noticed, but a new tutorial hasn't been released in a while. This is because I've spent most of my free time "beautifying" the site. I've added many new features to its basic design when I created it. All of the new features are listed in the Updates Section. I have also been advertising BASIC Guru Online, trying to get it on other TI calculator-related websites' Link pages. I spent an entire day doing that. All the sites listed in the Links Page, also have links back to BASIC Guru Online. Tutorial 25 should be released within 2-3 days. School starting has slowed the tutorial releasing process. Sorry for the delay. | |