I'm excited to say that we've finally launched the beta version of UrbanDrinks.com, a happy-hour website focused on Portland, Oregon.

This has been a side-project I've been working on since early July using Ruby on Rails (in fact, it's what my RubyQuiz post was all about). I've learned a lot so far about the Google Maps API and designing a database to handle all of the time ranges and associated happy hours, as well as just polishing (er... maybe "sanding" is a better term) my Ruby skills. I've also had the pleasure of pulling my hair out dealing with Internet Explorer CSS bugs.

I have to thank Guilhem Vellut for his wonderful Google Maps Rails Plugin. This plugin made the Google Maps portion of the project a thousand times easier. Of course, I should also thank the people who responded to the DayRange RubyQuiz and the Rails and Ruby developers in general. They really do make web development fun.

The site is still under development, so there could be some bugs. Definitely let us know if you find any or if you have any comments or suggestions. We also have an UrbanDrinks blog where we'll keep you posted on site updates and our opinions on various things related to happy hours. Enjoy!