After 5 trips abroad in the span of the past year (May 2010 - May 2011) we decided it is time to really get down to work...

Although I may not have time to be on the forum very often these days, the good news is that my partner and I, along with our web-development teams and other helpers, are B"H working full speed ahead.

I would like to use this "locked" thread to post weekly updates of our progress to our beloved community:

We would be happy to hear your feedback. Please post your comments on the thread over here, or write to eyes.guard@gmail.com.

To help us continue our holy work and finish the web-development, please donate whatever you can on our newly designed donation page over here (anonymous and recurring credit-card donations are now possible!)

We urge everyone to be patient, but within the coming few short months, the new GYE websites in English, Yiddish and Hebrew will be launched. They will be much more professional than the current site, and have many new and advanced features to help us in our recovery. Once this new framework to help tens of thousands of Yidden will be in place, we hope to launch a major advertising campaign to spread the word all over the world be"H.

G-d bless you all!

• We completely re-did our handbook (see chizuk e-mail #1044) and we also prepared it for Hebrew translations.
• We worked with our designers and web programmers and are making great progress on the English website.
• We tested a few Hebrew translators and chose the best one.
• Additionally, we put together other articles, stories and FAQ from our website to translate into Hebrew and Yiddish.
• We found another, less expensive Hebrew translator for regular translations, and we hired him for two months. He already sent us back about 30 articles translated.
• We are editing all the translations (we have some native Hebrew speakers on our team)
• We even started putting up a "thin version" of the website in Hebrew and "Yiddish".
• We also found someone who is helping us send receipts for all past donations, and making order of all our contact info, which contain many hundreds of names and phone numbers from the 5 trips we made over the past year.

1) We worked this week with the Chafetz Chaim Heritage foundation to help them prepare for their big Tisha Be'Av event. They are doing a big push on “Internet Dangers” this year.

2) We worked many hours this week with designer and programmers on the English website:
• The new chat-room feature is close to completion.
• The new chizuk e-mail system is well underway.
• The new advanced "Content" system has been designed and is being implemented into the new site.
• We're making great progress on the Hebrew website.
• The Handbook is now being translated into Hebrew - to be ready in a month be"H
• We are starting work on the Yiddish website.

3) Hashem is sending us a lot of siyata dishmaya and good shlichim. For example:
• The owner of iVelt.com - a huge Yiddish forum, is helping us set up a Yiddish forum for our Yiddish network
• Another Yiddish writer, who discovered our website this week, read our Yiddish handbook cover-to-cover in one day, and he is eager to help us with translations, free of charge. He already translated about half of "The GYE in a Nutshell".

4) Also, with a banner now on www.theyeshivaworld.com as well as as on www.vosizneias.com we are B"H getting about 500 hits per day (up from the usual 250/day).

1) On the new English website:
  - The home pages of both Prevention & Treatment are almost finished
  - We designed the new content category web-pages and sent them for implementation
  - We did extensive testing of the new Chizuk e-mail system and found many issues which are being fixed/adjusted
  - Now that our handbook was redone, we set it up as a book that people can purchase hard copies at this link.
  - The new donation page underwent a lot of work this week and many revisions, it should be ready by mid-next week. It will include credit-card and phone donation options and will generate receipts automatically.

2) Advertising:
  - We got a great banner deal with Arutz Sheva (50% off). We found a sponsor to cover 6 months of the year ($1500).
  - Vosizneias.com is giving us a free banner.

3) Hebrew website:
  - We made serious progress with the Hebrew website. You can see it at guardyoureyes.com/heb/
  - We added Testimonials, Haskamos, GYE in a Nutshell, Links, Hotline, Forum - all in Hebrew!
  - We found someone who is willing to lead a phone-conference in Hebrew.
  - We reviewed the translations that are underway from the handbook (they are B"H very professional).

4) We also had a strategic meeting with members of SA in Israel to coordinate our efforts to help people in these areas. (They called us because many English speaking people are coming to their groups through GYE.)

1) English web development:
- The Prevention home page is up (not fully ready): guardyoureyes.com/live/
- The Treatment home-page is starting to take shape (nicer graphics): guardyoureyes.com/live/breakingfree
- The Kosher-Isle is almost ready: guardyoureyes.com/live/kosher-isle
- There were lots of delays and bugs with the donation page, but 95% was fixed: gye.mediamaxgroup.com/live/donate (feel free to test it  ;D)
- The "Phone conference page" guardyoureyes.com/live/tools/12-step-phone-conference will hopefully be finished by tomorrow
- The registration system is nearly complete

2) Hebrew Web Development: guardyoureyes.com/heb/
- Many Hebrew articles were edited
- 4 new categories of the Hebrew website are well under way: (Q&A, Wives of Addicts, General, and 12-Steps)
- We added sign-up to Hebrew (and Yiddish) websites

3) We also consulted with the CEO of a "Search Engine Optimization" on how to build the website in the best way for search engines to find us. And we scheduled a phone confernece next week with our development team and these experts.

4) We also updated our handbook again this week, and we made a professional looking hard-copy available for purchase at this link for under $8. It can be shipped anywhere in the world, and you can even order up to 15 copies at a time to Israel for only $8.35 in shipping and handling costs!

5) We started an ad campaign on Arutz 7 for the whole year.
We have banners also running now on YeshivaWorld and Vosizneias.
Our traffic hit an all-time high today, at 645 hits (normal used to be 250/day).
Yasher Koach to all the sponsors who helped pay for the ad campaigns.
They are helping us save lives!

1) English web development:
• The home-page was updated with nicer graphics: guardyoureyes.com/live/breakingfree
• The 12-Step Program section was added in: gye.mediamaxgroup.com/live/12-step-program
• The Kosher-Isle is nearly done: guardyoureyes.com/live/kosher-isle
• The donation page is fully functional now, with recurring credit card donation options: guardyoureyes.com/live/donate
• The "Phone conference page" gye.mediamaxgroup.com/live/tools/calls was completed (the conferences just need to be added in).
• The inside pages of the phone conferences are complete. Here’s an example of one of them: guardyoureyes.com/live/component/zoo/item/the-finding-happiness-group
• The new registration system was worked on heavily and bugs are being ironed out.
• We worked on the “Welcome Letters” for people who write to us for help, and for “wives of addicts”, as well as an anonymous “chain letter” e-mail about our work that we send when someone wants to help someone anonymously.
• We edited the videos that we have from last year's parlor meeting and narrowed them down to the most important parts.
• We edited and uploaded Rabbi Twerski’s talk in Yiddish at the recent dinner in Monroe over here: www.yideotube.com/users/GYE#2050

2) Hebrew Web Development: guardyoureyes.com/heb/
• We edited new translated articles
• We translated the videos from the parlor and put Hebrew subtitles onto the video and uploaded it. See www.yideotube.com/#2055

3) We also had a meeting with experts in "Search Engine Optimization" this week (on how to build the website in the best way for search engines to find us). Turns out though that they are not the right people for us, but they will try and help us find the right people for the job.

1) This week was the 4th Birthday of GYE and on 22 Tamuz we launched the following features on our new website: guardyoureyes.com/live/breakingfree
• The phone conference page, guardyoureyes.com/live/tools/calls
• All the detail pages of the phone-groups as well (here's 1 example: guardyoureyes.com/live/component/zoo/item/windows-of-the-soul-group)
• Our therapist referral system: guardyoureyes.com/live/therapists
• The Kosher Isle system: guardyoureyes.com/live/kosher-isle
• The e-books download page: guardyoureyes.com/live/ebooks

2) We also polished up and launched a thin version of the Hebrew website and the Yiddish website.

3) We got two new filter-gabai-volunteers who are willing to go down to people's houses and help them install filters. They are also willing to take phone-calls on our special "Filter Hotline" coming up soon. One of the volunteers lives in Kensington (between Boro-Park and Flatbush) and the other one lives in Monsey. They are both computer technicians with a lot of filter-knowledge, B"H. (This is just a start, we hope to have volunteers one day in every Jewish community!)

4) We finished editing the videos with Hebrew sub-titles and uploaded it to an intro page on the Hebrew website over here: guardyoureyes.com/live/intro/
(This is for PR to help us spread the word about the Hebrew network, which is slowly starting to grow and take root.)

5) We designed sets of new animated banners in many different sizes for Vosizneias.com, Arutz Sheva and YideoTube. We now have ads running on:

• YeshivaWorld


• Vosizneias


• Arutz Sheva


• Yideotube

6) The new registration system was finally completed (after a few weeks of work and bugs) and it was uploaded to the live-website.
It can be seen here: guardyoureyes.com/live/component/gyeuser/register

7) A lot of progress was made on the Hebrew translations of the handbook. It is almost half way completed.

This week's updates:

1) GYE's Filter Division:
- We worked a lot on building up our filter team this week.
- We set up a special Google-Spread sheet with all our filter gabai contact info.
- We spoke with ID Tech Solutions and they are willing to give us service of 3 technicians in Lakewood and 4 in Brooklyn, to help people install filters. People can drop off their computers and get filters installed for free!
- We spoke with 3 different Kosher Phone suppliers in the U.S to make sure we have the correct info on them to share with our community (also on the spread-sheet).
- We made a flyer with all our filter volunteers and our filter hotlines and services... Someone in Lakewood and in Brooklyn wants to spread it around!

2) We uploaded all our Shmiras Ainayim Shiurim of the past months (close to 60 shiurim) for people to be able to download (see chizuk e-mail #1066)

3) Web-development:
- Along with the new registration system, the chizuk e-mail system and the forum bridge were all uploaded now from the development site to the "live" site. We spent time testing and fixing these features.
- The developers are working hard on the "content system", which is very specialized to meet our requirements. They hope to be finished with this in the coming week and then we can start entering hundreds of articles into the many different categories.

4) Hebrew website:
- We spent many days editing the Hebrew translations of the handbook, which are about 3/4ths done.
- Many features of the English website homepage were copied over to the Hebrew website so articles can be entered and categorized. Check it out here: guardyoureyes.com/heb/

5) One of our new filter technician volunteers got us free advertising in the Torah-Times in NY. He also found for us a print shop that will print flyers for us for free. So we designed a new ad/flyer. See here. Help us spread it around too!