Blog

Welcome to our blog (we will add site updates and general thoughts) - don't expect volumes of regular updates though!
(send comments to suggestions@mynightoff.com)

• 27 Dec 2015
• Email problems - solved
• Hi everyone, emails appear to now be reaching their intended destination (even Hotmail!). Do drop us a line if you're still experiencing problems and thanks for your patience. Best wishes for many nights off in 2016. Best, Mike & Stuart.

• 20 Dec 2015
• Email problems (continued)
• The email server we've been using over the past few weeks has been working as expected. However, Hotmail and Live email addresses have been consistently bounced. We've just received an email to confirm that they will start to allow emails through (though no guarantees and can take up to 48 hours to fully work through the system). If you have a Hotmail account do let us know whether emails are making their way through to you. Thanks for your patience. Best wishes, Mike.

• 29 Nov 2015
• Email problems
• Hi folks. As many have noticed, our system for sending emails has been offline for past couple of weeks (it unfortunately happened while I was on holiday too!). Our email service provider seems to have blocked the site from sending emails. I've set up a new email server and it seems to be running smoothly at the moment (the site is working through sending c10,000 email which have been queued so you'll probably receive a few out of date messages!). I've also noticed that HOTMAIL and LIVE email accounts seem to be bouncing back. Sorry for the inconvenience. Best wishes, Mike.

• 13 Nov 2014
• Hmmm ... well that didn't quite work as expected!
• Sorry about the outage over the past day or two - thought everything was working again but clearly didn't quite press all the right buttons. Mike.

• 9 Nov 2014
• Back online
• Our web hosting company put through a security upgrade to our hosting platform in the past couple of days. This unfortunately knocked the site out for a few days. Everything now back up and running. Apologies for any inconvenience. Mike.

• 5 May 2014
• ... Our other site ...
• As a bit of fun, I run www.planpot.net during the Football World Cup. Like mynightoff.com you run your own league, you pay nothing to the site and it does all the admin for you. It's been run in the past for friends and colleagues but thought it may be interesting to widen it a little further. Take a look at the Rules (http://www.planpot.net/core/therules) to see how it works. Drop me an email to "admin at planpot dot net" if you're interested (may have to limit the number of leagues to keep things ticking along smoothly). Mike.

• 30 Jan 2014
• Review of our site
• Don't usually cross post to other sites however this write up of mynightoff.com raised a smile -> click here Check it out, it's why we created the site in the first place (thanks Mat). Best wishes, Mike.

• 4 Sep 2012
• System Update - Email glitch
• We experienced a small email glitch over the past 48 hours or so with no emails being issued. Same problem as we experienced in May 2011 - looks like I didn't manage to fix it as permanently as I'd thought! Systems all now running smoothly. Mike.

• 31 May 2011
• System Update - Email glitch
• We experienced a small email glitch a few days ago. You may have seen a warning message when you logged saying your email address was blocked (the technical reason is that the site needs resetting every time we reach 40000 emails sent - victim of its own success!). All now resolved. Mike.

• 20 May 2011
• 15 minutes of fame!
• We have been contacted by a freelance journalist, Catherine Butler, who is writing a feature for Prima magazine. The article is about finding an extra hour in your day and she is looking for a case study of women aged 35+ who have been able to pursue a dream/ start a hobby etc as a result. Catherine is after a 10 minute phone call. If you think you can help then get in touch with your Circle Administrator who has Catherine's contact details or drop Mike or Stuart an email and we will pass on details.

• 1 Mar 2011
• New Feature - Gifting Credits
• Thanks for the feedback (little link on the left), the "gift credit" feature was the most voted for.
  
  Now available on the diary page.
  
  Mike.

• 1 Jan 2011
• Happy New Year
• Happy New Year to all our users. As you will see from the Mynightoff homepage we broke through the 10,000 hours of baby sitting during December (since we started measuring 2 years ago). Thanks for all your support. Enjoy your nights out in 2011. Mike and Stuart.

• 8 Aug 2010
• New Trial Feature - We want your feedback
• We have received many great ideas from you in the past. However, whilst very welcome, this has caused us a bit of head scratching to decide which ones would be best to take forward. I'm pleased to say that we've now added a "feedback" button to all the pages within the site.
  
  You can view all the previous ideas sent, vote on which ones you think are the best and also add your own suggestions.
  
  I can't promise to develop all the ideas however all ideas are welcome.
  
  We look forward to your contributions.
  
  Best wishes, Mike.

• 3 Feb 2010
• New Feature - Credit History
• The credit history page now has a drop down so that you can select to see more than 5 entries at a time.
  
  This came from a member's suggestion. If you have any suggestions then please do drop us a line.

• 16 Jan 2010
• New Feature - Change circle name
• Circle administrators can now change the name of their circles - click "Admin", "Policies" then change "Circle name used in correspondence".

• 8 Oct 2009
• New Feature - Avatars UPDATED
• Spotted a small problem that affects only Internet Explorer when uploading avatars
  
  This has now been corrected.
  
  If you have any problems uploading an avatar then please do drop us a line
  
  Mike.

• 6 Oct 2009
• New Feature - Avatars added
• Avatars are little images that represent who you are - these images can be a picture of you, a cartoon, caricature etc - and will show next to bookings and chatbox comments you post.
  
  The image can be in JPEG, PNG or GIF format, the file you upload must be under 2Megs (to save our server from going a little crispy) and the site will automatically crop/resize it for the site.
  
  To upload an avatar, once logged in, go to "My Details" and click "Edit".
  
  As usual, drop us a line if you have any comments.
  
  Best wishes,
  
  Mike.

• 24 Sep 2009
• New Feature - iCal support added
• We have now added iCal support to bookings.
  
  Simply change the setting in the "My Details" section to start receiving these. iCal files allow you to import the bookings into your calendar software (eg Google Calendar) and keep track of bookings.
  
  If you have any questions or spot any issues then do drop us line.
  
  Mike.

• 19 Sep 2009
• New Feature - CIrcle updates by email
• We've just implemented an "update by email" service to all circles. The site will automatically send you an email summarising when new members join your circle, there are new bookings or there are new comments in the chatbox.
  
  These email provide a summary of what has been happening in your circle. You can set these emails to be delivered daily, weekly, monthly etc - just click MyDetails and Edit to change.
  
  Mike & Stuart.

• 4 Aug 2009
• New feature - Auto award credits
• Over the past few months, we've been working on a few back end improvements to the site - for example, introduced an email queuing system which sends out emails in batches (this has improved the responsiveness of the site).
  Today, we have introduced another change which should help some circles.
  A week after the date of the babysit (i.e from when "Awaiting Award" is shown in the diary), if it hasn't already been awarded, then the site will automatically award the credits to the sitter (the booker's credits will reduce accordingly). If you subsequently need to amend the award your Circle Administrator is able to make any changes to the credit bank.
  We have noticed that some booker's forget to award the credits after a booking and hopefully this improvement will save some time.
  Mike.

• 23 May 2009
• New design - * update *
• Thanks for all the comments you've sent through on the new design.
  In summary I think it would be fair to say that you like the new design (colours, new features etc) however the diary section could do with some TLC.
  We've spent a bit of time over the last few days trying different possible formats and think we have found one which, whilst simple, provides the right level of information..
  Give it a whirl and, as always, drop us a line with your thoughts.
  Mike & Stuart.

• 18 May 2009
• New design
• As you may have already noticed, we put through a major upgrade to the site this weekend. This has evolved the look and feel and also added a few new features such as:-
  Users can now add more information about themselves (if you want to).
  You can see what's been updated since you last logged in.
  Easier to find and add book reviews (if you buy books from amazon then please do click the "buy from amazon" link next the the books - we earn a commission that helps to fund the site).
  As always we'd welcome your feedback.
  Regards, Mike & Stuart.

• 13 May 2009
• Bookings missing - update
• As suspected yesterday, our hosting service provider has confirmed that there was a hardware failure within the systems that hosts mynightoff.com. The site was rebooted from the most recent daily back-up. Therefore, information entered into the site between 04:00AM on Friday 8th May to 5:15PM on Saturday 9th May will have been lost. (this includes bookings, invitations etc). We would ask users to check their accounts for any data discrepancies and re-enter information that may have been lost. Thanks for your patience. Mike & Stuart.

• 12 May 2009
• Bookings missing
• We have received reports from some users that, over the last few days, bookings have mysteriously disappeared from the site. Having checked through the site it appears that the culprit is a web server issue. We're currently investigating this with our service provider however, at this stage, suspect that the site was rebooted on Saturday 9th May with an earlier copy of the site being brought back. Our apologies for any confusion caused. Regards, Mike & Stuart.

• 23 Apr 2009
• "In the Press"
• www.mynightoff.com has made it into the press once again. We are featured in the May 2009 edition of Prima Baby magazine in an article titled "Meet the cost-clever mums!". Thanks to Cheryl for agreeing to doing the interview.

• 6 Apr 2009
• Bug fix : Accepting a booking
• Sorry if you have been trying to accept a booking for your circle over the last couple of days. It looks like another gremlin crept into the system that was causing an error. Hopefully this is all fixed now so it should be back to business as usual. Mike & Stuart

• 5 Apr 2009
• New Feature : Change default baby to child (or ankle biter if you prefer!)
• We've put through a few more small updates.
  1. Circle organisers can now change how the site refers to children. It's currently "baby" and some older children may object to this! Organisers can enter free form text which will be used as a prefix throughout your circle (including email notifications).
  2. Circle organisers can also change the default number of credits which are shown when a booking is made.
  3. When you book a nightoff the starting time is now shown as 18:00 (ie 6pm) as opposed to 06:00 (ie 6am). There have been a surprising number of bookings at 6am!
  There are more feature updates in the pipeline .
  Best wishes
  Mike & Stuart

• 26 Mar 2009
• Server Down
• Well it was going to happen sooner or later - someone with a little too much time on their hands decided to flood the site with web requests (often referred to as a bot attack). This knocked the site out in the early hours of Wednesday 25 March. On a positive note, we're looking into ways of better protecting the site from such attacks going forward. Our apologies for any disruption caused by the outage. Best wishes, Mike & Stuart.

• 13 Mar 2009
• New features : Work in progress
• Ok, we admit it, the redesigned calendar needed a bit of work! We've listened to the feedback and made a few more changes to the diary that will hopefully make it clearer to use (like adding in a key and sorting by date as opposed to by status &date).
  What do you think? what could we do to make it better?
  Best wishes,
  Mike & Stuart

• 4 Mar 2009
• New features : Work in progress
• I'm making a number of subtle (and not so subtle!) design changes to the site - this will be more of an evolution over a period of time.
  Today I've changed the diary page to now include a static calendar for the next three months (this will automatically change each month). Hopefully this will help when planning your nights off.[edited 8 March - since had a rethink - removed the three month calendar and included a neat popup box when booking a night off]
  As usual, do let us know what you think.
  Best wishes,
  Mike.

• 21 Feb 2009
• New feature : Username and password reminder feature added
• You can now retrieve your usernames and passwords directly from the site (under "Home" -> "Forgotten details").
  This will send an email to the email address supplied with all your login details.
  Though we like hearing from the users of the site, this should cut down on the amount of administration!
  Mike

• 19 Feb 2009
• New Feature : BookClub Launched (only experimental at this stage)
• We pleased to announce a brand new feature.
  We like reading a good book and guess you do too.
  To share the thoughts of our users we've started the MyNightOff bookclub.
  Click on "BookClub" then "Review a Book" to search for a book and review it. You can also flag whether you own the book and give it a star rating.
  Please don't include any book spoilers and note that everyone who has access to the site can read your review (so don't include any personal details). As usual, given our policy on protecting your details, only your preferred name along with a unique reference number is shown next to your reviews.
  One final point, if you decide to buy one of the books reviewed please do consider clicking the "Buy from Amazon" link - we earn a small commission payment for each book bought to help us fund the site.
  Happy reviewing.
  Mike & Stuart.
  ps do drop us a line with your thoughts.

• 18 Feb 2009
• More updates
• Since the update in January we've been busy updating the site with suggestions (and from the long list of requested features). Some of the changes are highlighted below :-
  1. Sitters can now add comments as well when accepting a sitting.
  2. Clicking on the table headings in the Circle Details tab of the MyCircle section will sort your circle by that heading.
  3. Changes baby sitting to babysitting throughout the site!
  4. Fixed some other minor bugs.
  

• 18 Jan 2009
• "In the Press"
• MyNightOff.com has made into a number of online and offline publications.
  We list below a few that we've spotted.
  
  • MoneyWeek: Top item in an article entitled "Cut the cost of child minding". link to Money Week
    
  • The Sunday Telegraph: Link to cached version of Telegraph page
    
  • Book - How to live for free: We've also made it into print. See this book by Stephen Giles -> link to amazon
    
  • The London Paper link to the London Paper
    
  
  We're also listed in numerous forums.
  

• 18 Jan 2009
• New site launched with new features
• Hello, As you may have already spotted (or have noted from our email at the time), we updated the MyNightOff.com on 4 January.
  The main changes were to the backend (we moved servers and made a fundamental change to the platform we use).
  Since the relaunch we have a number of great suggestions (thanks everyone) to make the site even better.
  Some of these changes are :-
  1. Internationalisation - The administrator to each circle can now set your local time. This means that when we set a booking tomorrow really does mean tomorrow to you (as opposed to being linked to GMT).
  2. Credit History - You asked for it, you got it. You can now view the history of awarded credits within your circle.
  3. Bugs - a variety of gremlins had crept into the relaunch. These have been appropriately banished.
  4. Blog - this blog. We're likely to use this area to inform you of changes to the site (as opposed to sending out mass emails).
  Lastly, do drop us a line if you have any comments on the site.
  We always look forward to hearing from our users.
  Best wishes for 2009.
  Mike & Stuart