Before You Depart:
Preparing For The Unexpected

Survivors have to be strong, especially if they have to handle all of a deceased loved one’s business without the benefit of a service like YouDeparted.

When my uncle died last year, his estate was a mess. His insurance papers were “somewhere” in the house. His bills started to pile up, because the executor of his estate, my mother, couldn’t get into his house to find them, and his will, which named her as executor, was in the house, buried under piles of paper and clutter. She didn’t even know the name of his lawyer, who could have cleared up a lot of the confusion if only he’d been contacted.

A year later, Mom is still being dunned by bill collectors, real estate companies, the State of Indiana, the funeral home, the Veteran’s Administration, and various utilities. She gives out the same information over the phone six or seven times a day, and that’s down from the dozens of times a day it was just a few months ago.

If my uncle had utilized a service such as YouDeparted, his executor’s job would have been made so incredibly easier, and my mother, his sister and executor, would not be bombarded with confusing questions and requirements and even abusive creditors wanting money for debts that are not even hers.

Take my advice, everyone. Make sure your survivors don’t have to endure this kind of treatment. Sign up for a YouDeparted account today. It’s so easy, and everything your executor and your survivors will need will be right here in one place.

Survivors have to be strong, true, but if we can help make their lives a little bit better, why not go for it?

Greetings!

We now offer the ability to upload 100MB of files to your account.  You can insert pictures into your entries, attach videos, pdfs, documents, audio files and more.

We spent the morning looking at the various file types one can upload to a server. We have most of the common ones now, jpg, gif, avi, xls, doc, etc. I was asked how come you have to check each file type uploaded? For example, many sites lets you upload any type of file.

We have to add what is called a mime type for each file so we know which application it uses to load. Though many sites let you upload files, our site lets you view them, send them as email attachments and become part of the pdf. So, we check for what the file extension is when you upload and match it up to the correct mime type. The application we match to the file lets you download the file and view it properly.

You may notice that we have upgraded the design of YouDeparted! We are excited to present a YouDeparted.com that looks great! A few things might not look right at the moment as we implement the new design across the site, so please bear with us as we are implementing a beautiful new design.

-Nick

P.S.  We are very close to official launch!

There are just about two weeks left in the YouDeparted.com beta test. Our testers have been wonderful! We’re still taking applications for additional testers, but not for very much longer. If you are interested, I recommend applying soon.

Recently, readers have left us nice comments on our posts, and we appreciate what you have to say! As time goes by, we plan to start posting helpful advice related to our site. Guest bloggers will be invited to post interesting topics, and we will of course still use the news to tell you what is happening here at YouDeparted.com. In order for more people to be able to see Before You Depart, we welcome you to share!

We’ll be launching soon!

-Nick

Greetings from YouDeparted,

Our beta test has just begun and we are already getting some great feedback. We have decided to offer more rewards to express our gratitude for your help:

Cash rewards:

1. $500 to the best beta tester (finds the most bugs, provides the best feedback)
2. $300 to 2nd place
3. $200 to 3rd place
4. $100 to 4th place
5. $90 to 5th place
6. $80 to 6th place
7. $70 to 7th place
8. $60 to 8th place
9. $50 to 9th place
10. $50 to 10th place
Free Accounts:

Testers will be given free accounts ranging from 1 year to lifetime, with the length depending on quantity and quality of your bug reports and feedback.

Just a few more weeks of beta testing then we launch! Apply now while you still can!
We expect to be finished with the beta period in a few short weeks, so if you are interested, we recommend applying to be a beta tester ASAP. To apply, visit http://www.youdeparted.com/cgi-bin/you/contact.cgi and send us a message with “Beta Tester” in the subject line, and a few sentences why you would like to beta test.

Take care,

The Team at YouDeparted.com

We are just about ready to go live! Soon, you will be able to start storing information and instructions for your family and friends that will be sent to them after you pass away. We are very excited about our new service and we have received a very positive and enthusiastic response. It may seem kinda morbid to store information that will be sent out after you die, but it will greatly benefit those left behind!

We have completed our first version, and now its time for beta testers!

We are looking for individuals interested in testing our service. If you would like to try out YouDeparted.com, you will be eligible to get a free 1 year account. We are also offering a $250 cash prize to the top beta tester. Interested individuals should contact us with “Beta Tester” in the subject line.

After a beta test period of a couple of weeks, we are going live!

As we are nearing programming completion, and enlisting security professionals to conduct audits on YouDeparted, we have realized a simple truth. We can and will take every possible precaution to make YouDeparted.com secure, but there is no way to ensure 100% security indefinitely.

At first this may seem like a major problem, but when you think about it, there is no such thing as 100% security anywhere in the world. Banks, credit agencies, medical record companies and every other organization that works with sensitive personal information cannot guarantee 100% security. In the physical world, we can take every precaution to keep ourselves safe from hazards, but there are still risks that we must take in order to live our lives, such as driving, flying, and even walking across the street.

At YouDeparted, we are taking every possible precaution to keep our member’s data safe. The only way for us to guarantee 100% security would be to never create a YouDeparted, and that would be a disservice to you and us. YouDeparted will be among the securest sites on the web and we will continually keep up to date on the latest emerging security threats. The benefits of becoming a member at YouDeparted will far outweigh the minor risks, just as the benefits of eating good food far outweigh the minor risks of choking, or the benefits of living outweigh the risk of dying!

For the last several days, Collin and I have been carefully testing every page and function on the site? When YouDeparted goes live, we want to be sure our members are rewarded with an excellent product? Inevitably, as time goes by we will make upgrades and changes to the site based on feedback from our members? Our vision is the creation of a product that will not only be incredibly useful, but also very easy to use and attractive.

Here is a helpful feature we just put on the site today: A guide to creating strong passwords and a tool that checks the strength of your passwords!

After a nice relaxing period over the holidays, we are hard at work again. We will launch soon, and look forward to our first members!

We are confident that YouDeparted will be of great service to its future members and we have been working around the clock to make sure no detail is overlooked.

We are working on implementing a security system as strong as the one used by the US Government to send classified documents so that no hacker will ever be able to gain access to any of our member’s personal information.

On a more personal note, we are in the middle of our first winter storm up at Lake Tahoe.  When we aren’t working on YouDeparted.com you can bet we’ll be skiing!