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Staff Blogs 
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ArticleLive 2005.2 released!
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It has been a pretty busy couple of weeks recently.
We've just released an update to ArticleLive 2005 that fixes a couple of issues.
The main addition is paging for categories and for search results. Instead of showing all articles in a category (or for search results) it now limits them to 5 per page and adds the paging at top/bottom....
Apart from that there are a couple of bugfixes to make note of, for more info see details at http://www.interspire.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5146
Enjoy! |
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TrackPoint Screenshots and Information
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If you'd like to know more about TrackPoint and receive an email when it's been released (with a 30% release discount), please go here:
http://www.interspire.com/trackpoint |
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Trackpoint!
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Well, it has been a while since I've blogged in here :)
On top of everything else, we've been busy building a new product and it looks pretty exciting.
It lets you track people coming in to your site. What's so good about that?
It tracks sales, campaigns, pay-per-clicks from search engines - so you can see how effective a marketing campaign is for you.
On top of that, you can see what people are searching for to get to your site (and when they buy - maybe you need to run another pay-per-click campaign?), and also who's referrering traffic to you (maybe you should run a campaign on their site too!).
So it's an all round ROI (return on investment) tracking tool - pretty sweet :)
We'll be releasing a beta pretty soon so if you want to be part of it (existing Interspire customers only!) please contact us...
Enjoy! |
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Recommended Web Hosts
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We've recently added our recommended web hosts page, with a list of web hosts we have personally tested our products on. This list will grow as we test more reliable services, that adhere to our strict guidelines:
http://www.interspire.com/recommended_hosts.php |
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ActiveKB 2005 Beta, etc...
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Hi all,
I've just posted about the beta release of ActiveKB 2005: http://www.interspire.com/forum/showthread.php?p=22048. Once the initial beta is done, we'll be offering existing customers a downloadable version to install and trial on their servers.
Also, we've posted an important announcement for users of the ASP/ASP.NET versions of our products at http://www.interspire.com/aspinfo.php, so make sure you read it if you're an existing ASP/ASP.NET customer or are considering purchasing! |
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FastFind 2004 will no longer be free!
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As of march 1st 2005, FastFind will no longer be offered as a free product. So if you haven't already, make sure to download your copy now! |
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Holiday break details
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Hi everyone,
Just a quick post to let you know that the office will be closed from 23rd December until 3rd January 2005. Support will continue as usual, however if you have any sales questions, please use the forum/email as your phone calls will be diverted to our answering service.
Finally, I just wanted to take this chance on behalf of everyone here at Interspire to wish you a merry christmas and a safe holiday break. See you in early 2005! |
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ArticleLive End User Guide
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We've had quite a few requests for this, and it's finally been completed. You can now get both the branded and un-branded versions of the ArticleLive End User Documentation.
To get the freely available branded PDF, go here:
http://www.interspire.com/articlelive/documentation.php
You can also find the unbranded Microsoft Word format version in your clientarea. Enjoy  |
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We've moved!
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Well, we've finally moved to our new office in Rozelle, Sydney. While there's lots of boxes that still need unpacking, we've semi settled in, and should be cranking shortly.
Ill post some more info, and some photo's as soon as I get a chance. In the meantime, please take note of our new phone number, fax and address if you plan on contacting us using any of those methods. |
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ActiveKB 2005 Screenshots
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Hi everyone,
Me and the rest of the team are busily working away at ActiveKB 2005, which we're planning to release by the end of the year. We've finished the first template for the front end and I've just put together the collapsable, cross-browser tree view for the 2nd template that we're working on, so I thought I'd post a couple of screenshots:
First Template:
http://www.interspire.com/files/akb_2005_tpl1.gif
Second Template (work in progress):
http://www.interspire.com/files/akb_2005_tpl2.gif
Also notice the customizable icons for each category, category descriptions and categories can also be password protected amongst the 30+ new features that we've added! |
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Introduction
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I suppose it is time to introduce myself!
My name is Brendan Wovchko and I've been part of the Interspire for only a few weeks, but am loving it! I have about 7 years experience in web application development and... |
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A warm welcome to Brendan!
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I'd like to extend a warm welcome to Brendan Wovchko, who's taken on the role of international sales manager as well as first level technical support. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.A, Brendan brings much needed experience with sales and customer service during U.S business hours, when our offices are closed.
Welcome aboard Brendan |
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ArticleLive PHP 2005.0.1
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Hi guys,
ArticleLive PHP 2005.0.1 has just been uploaded into the client area. It is a minor bug release, and although upgrading is optional, I do recommend it. Some of the bugs couldn't be included in the changelog because they were too small, but here's the changelog entry:
***********************************************
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* Changelog for ArticleLive version 2005.0.1: *
* *
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*** Bug Fixes ***
- Added ability to search all articles types instead of just full page articles
- Fixed problem in control panel regarding approving content without permission
- Improved Mozilla browser compatability for templates
- Fixed .HTACCESS file to work with PHP CGI version
- Various other small bug fixes |
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New Help Ticket System
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It's been a long time coming, but we've finally implemented a new help desk ticket system, which should now help us provide more efficient support and service. You shouldn't notice a difference on your end, but on our end, things are quite different.
The integration of this new system was triggered with the likely hiring of a new team member, who is located in the US. Ill have more information regarding our new team member in the next few days! Keep an eye out :) |
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ArticleLive .NET 2005
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Hey everybody,
Just want to say that ArticleLive .NET 2005 has been out for a little while and now that the couple of reported bugs have been fixed up it's running superbly. I recommend everyone update their site, including the DevEdit version. Download the latest files from the client area.
Till next time... |
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Checking back in...
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Hi everyone,
Just thought I'd add my weekly post. The release of ArticleLive went great last week and of the dozens of customers for the PHP version since release, I'm pleased to announce that only a handful of teeny tiny bugs were reported.
I've just finished fixing these bugs, and I'll be updating the zip later today. I'll also upload a PHP demo of ArticleLive to the site to take the place of the ASP.NET demo.
We're also busy working on ActiveKB 2005 and FastFind 2005 -- some of the things we've added to the apps are quite amazing, such as customizable skins for ActiveKB. I personally like the idea of a Windows-helpish-looking skin which I came up with 
Before I go, if you're thinking about coming to Australia or are already here, head up to Surfers Paradise for a couple of days. I went for a 5 days mini-holiday after releasing ArticleLive at the end of last week and the weather, beaches and nightlife are great! |
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Profiling Code
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This blog is rather technical ;)
Profiling code is a tedious process. This simply means working out how much time and processing power code takes and whether there is an easier / better / more efficient way to do things. This doesn't just affect code, but also memory too. |
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SendStudio 2004 End User Guide Complete
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The SendStudio 2004 End User Guide is now available. Thanks to Joe for all his hard work on this, it's a very detailed 68 page document.
You can get the Microsoft Word version, to rebrand, from your client area (Click on User Guides in the left menu) or the PDF branded version from here:
http://www.interspire.com/sendstudio/documentation.php
Cheers :)
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ArticleLive 2005 Released!
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Hi everyone,
Just a quick note to let you know that we've just released ArticleLive 2005 for PHP. The ASP.NET release for ArticleLive 2005 will be uploaded later today.
For those who signed up to the ArticleLive PHP notification list, expect your email within 2-3 hours. For those of you who want to order or learn more, follow this link:
http://www.interspire.com/articlelive/ |
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Now that's what I call customization!
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Because I wasn't involved with the development of ArticleLive for ASP.NET I didn't realize how powerful it was. About 3 months ago we had ArticleLive for PHP about 40% done, but due to some design issues we had to scrap it and start again.
Guess who decided to take up the task of building ArticleLive PHP from scratch? That would be me. Anyway, after 3 months of coding and testing I've just put the final touches on the fully-tested-complete-with-all-templates last beta release. For the beta testers, I'll be posting the updated files in a couple of minutes.
I've got to give credit to Ed+John for planning the modular layout of ArticleLive so well when they started developing the ASP.NET version a good 9 months ago. Basically, for the beta version everything was done except only one of the four release templates were "PHP'd" -- i.e. had their panels done, etc. 3 were still not done. Until this morning that is.
It took me an hour to setup 3 templates for ArticleLive from scratch because:
1. It's so modular and flexible that adding the panels was copy-paste-tweak-test
2. The code is fully OO -- everything from the rendering engine to each panel is extended from a set of PHP base classes that keep naming conventions, etc exactly the same
That made me realize... if it's so easy to customize, where's our technical documentation for all the hardcore developers that need a content CMS?
So... before release and over the weekend I'll be working with John to build extremely detailed tech spec's about ArticleLive so that if you want to customize it it's simply a matter of consulting the tech doco and looking up the part you want to change, etc. It will include class references, details on templates and variables, etc.
Anyway, I'm off to work on a couple of new templates for the ArticleLive 2005 (yep that's right -- 2005) for ASP.NET and PHP next week. Ciao! |
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ArticleLive PHP Beta Testers Required!
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Just a quick post. If you're a current Interspire customer and are interested in helping to beta test ArticleLive PHP for a 50% discount when it's released, checkout my forum post: http://www.interspire.com/forum/showthread.php?p=17988#post17988 |
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RSS Feed
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Hey all,
As you can see now, we have an RSS feed for the blogs.
It was pretty simple to do, and comes in handy for the lazy (or busy!) people like me who don't have time (or forget) to regularly check a website for updates..
Since RSS is basically XML (using particular tags) it didn't take too long to do and the script itself is only 50 lines long so it's a pretty tidy one.
It doesn't look at comments - just the main blogs page.
Anyway, enjoy!
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ArticleLive PHP Testing Has Begun
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Hi everyone,
I know there's about 750+ of you waiting for ArticleLive (based on the requests for it we've received via our site), so I just wanted to let everyone know that we're well into our internal testing procedures.
As you may know, the front end comes with quite a few customizable layouts, but they pretty much share the same panels. Well, the first layout is complete and it's the one we're testing on. The *great* news is that other layouts are already built in ASP.NET (they're HTML based) so we just have to copy them over, make a few tweaks and all the layouts are done, so we're pretty much 95% complete. The installer also has to be built but that's easy.
Anyway, long story short, by the end of the week we'll be offering public beta testing via the forums, so if you'd like to be the first to get a look at ArticleLive for PHP, keep an eye on our forums.
Until then... back to testing |
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Monday Morning Memo - A Great Read
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I subscribe to quite a few newsletters, as Im sure many of you do, one of the few that I really look forward to reading, is WizardAcademy's Monday Morning Memo's written by Roy H. Williams. An advertising related newsletter, with a great mix of advertising / business tips as well as entertaining phylisophical people stories.
I recently had the chance to see Roy H. Williams in a seminar here in Sydney, and I must say, it was one of the most entertaining and eye opening experiences, and it was just an "intro". So if you haven't already, go checkout his work!
Current Memo (Dont forget to go through the Archives)
Subscribe to the Memo here
One of my favourite Memo's |
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Does My Workload Ever End?
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Quite simply, no, it doesn't. Not many of you will know this, but I'm leading development of ArticleLive 2005 (yes, the PHP version will be released as 2005 and the .NET version will have an updated released as 2005).
As a software company, it's *extremely* hard to find talented developers who can start an application and see it all the way through to completion. Although we've had a great hit/miss ration of 5:1 (5 we've hired have been great and are still with us, 1 we had to let go) ArticleLive for PHP seems to be one of our most in demand products.
Anyhow, you'll be pleased to know that we're on the home stretch in terms of development. As I mentioned, we started from scratch, probably about 6-8 weeks ago. I had already developed a templating system for FastFind that's now commonplace in all of our PHP apps, and the ArticleLive control panel was fairly straight forward and took about 2 weeks.
Now we're just putting the finishing touches on the front-end's first template -- should be done by Monday. After that it's just a matter of building the other templates, which is a copy-paste operation and a few changes. Then, testing and building the installer so ArticleLive 2005 for PHP isn't really that far off.
On top of this I'm heavily involved in building ActiveKB 2005 in parallel with John, whose working on the ASP and ASP.NET versions, so we're busy as hell but progress can't be made without effort, right?
Anyway, that's my ramblings for this week. Time to chain myself back to my desk and code. Ciest La Vie! |
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SiteCenter Template Repository
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What's a repository? Well, I summoned the google define: feature and found a few humourous outcomes...
1. a facility where things can be deposited for storage or safekeeping.
2. a person to whom a secret is entrusted
3. a burial vault (usually for some famous person) .. what the?!!
The SiteCenter Repository is a place that we will try to moderate the submission of new templates made by you, the community... I'll be testing and correcting any templates that are submitted and hopefully we'll be on our way to have as many SiteCenter templates as you can handle.
Here it is - http://www.interspire.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=152
Please read Eddie's "Read Me First" post for the repository rules of engagement... |
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Multi-Database Development
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The new application we're working on is going to be a little different than most of the others. As Mitch mentioned before, it's more on the marketing side of things which is different for us. It's coming along in bits and pieces and coming together nicely. We've pretty much got one section done, now we're onto the second section (there are about 4 distinct areas we have to complete).
From my point of view, it's different because I've made it compatible with multiple databases (so far MySQL + Postgres), it has a custom database layer which will make things a lot easier if someone else wants to build a layer for another database :) With a quick perl script I can convert the database from one to the other, that one will come quite in handy ;)
Databases are my thing, so this is pretty exciting for me (yeh yeh, I'm a total geek). I only had 2 or 3 things that I had to change to get it running in both which is awesome. Fortunately I knew about them before I got too far so I was able to adapt the code pretty quickly.
I'd like to start getting our apps (the PHP ones :P) working with Postgres because I don't see a lot of quality applications supporting it, though there are a lot of people wanting the support for it in various apps.
If anyone wants more info let me know and I'll post something else about the differences I'm finding.. (that should encourage me to blog a bit more too so I don't have to be hounded to do it! :P). |
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ASP vs. ASP.NET
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There's a lot of debate on which is the best web development language/technology and the truth is that there is no simple answer. But I will say that while leading development of both the ASP and ASP.NET version of ActiveKB at the same time I've noticed a HUGE difference. It's taken about 3 or 4 times longer to build the control panel for the ASP version than it did for the ASP.NET version.
I should probably mention that we used some of the code already written for ArticleLive .NET so that reduced development time, but still, the difference is enormous and would be so even without that existing code. If you ever need to choose between ASP and ASP.NET, I strongly recommend going with ASP.NET.
To be honest, ASP.NET is a little more tricky than ASP to get started and sometimes to modify but you'll find that it's insignificant if your project involves more than a few days worth of work. |
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ActiveKB 2004 coming along nicely
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It's been a while since I've posted -- mainly because I've been working with John to develop ActiveKB 2004. This is just a quick post to let you know that we've basically finished the ActiveKB 2004 control panel and in the coming week will be starting on the new front end design.
ActiveKB 2004 has been written from scratch because there are just so many new features (check the ActiveKB news forum for a list of them) -- the feature that I'm most excited about is the customizable skins for the front end. For example, you can have your knowledgebase look like the current skin in ActiveKB 1.5, or you can choose a skin that looks like Windows help, as well as a few more that we're planning.
Both myself and John are busily working on ActiveKB 2004 (I'm doing the PHP version and John's doing the ASP and ASP.NET versions). We should have a release date in a couple of weeks time.
Ed and Chris are also working on a new application. I can't give too much away, however I can say that it focuses more on the marketing side of things. Watch this space for more info as they progress. Ed (along with myself occasionally being dragged in for user-interface design and database schema layout help) is designing the layout and Chris has just started developing the backend. |
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Sendstudio 2004
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Yay, it's finally done!
SendStudio 2004 is out there! Check out the demo - http://www.interspire.com/sendstudio/demo.php
It has been a long haul to get it finished, but we're finally there.
There are a bunch of new features including full Mozilla support, scheduled sending and it is a lot faster..
Let us know what you think of it!
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ArticleLive 1.1.0 available
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ArticleLive .NET 1.1.0 is now available. This update fixes some bugs, in particular the problem with too much ViewState being generated and making the site a bit too slow for people with slower internet connections.
To update your installation you should follow these instructions:
http://www.interspire.com/support/articlelive/index.php?ToDo=view&questId;=2&catId;=2
You can download the latest version of ArticleLive from the Interspire client area.
Remember to contact support@articlelive.com if you have any problems.
John |
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Make your own SiteCenter Templates...
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Ok due to popular demand, I've created a guide on this exact topic. It should be very easy to follow & hopefully you will all be creating tons of new template designs for SiteCenter.
You can view it here - http://www.interspire.com/whitepapers
I can now say that I am no longer alone in the quest to create SiteCenter template designs - kinda makes one feel special... |
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We Goofed: News on Product Name Change
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Hi all,
As I've explained here: http://www.interspire.com/forum/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t;=3592 -- we've goofed. Made a mistake. It happens to all of us.
Nothing major. We forgot to check the Australian trademark registry when we renamed WebEdit Platinum to SiteBox and it appears that SiteBox is a registered trademark here in Australia, so we've changed the name of SiteBox to SiteCenter.
All customers will receive an email shortly encouraging them to update to SiteCenter, but if you've already rebranded then it shouldn't be an issue. Anyway, I just thought I should post and let everyone know just in case you get confused when you come to our site |
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New SiteCenter web templates!
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This is officially my first blog post, only because Eddie's been bugging me to post one for a while 
Well, ive started creating new templates specifically for SiteCenter and they'll now be in our templates section. There's two new ones up now, which you just need to download, and drop into your templates folder in SiteCenter. Ill be aiming for about 5 or so a week, so keep a lookout!
http://www.interspire.com/templates
(Bottom left on the navigation)
Enjoy! |
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Payment gateway switch up and running
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Just a quick note following Mitch's blog, we're successfully up and running with WorldPay.
Id also like to express my utmost dissapointment at PaySystems lack of professionalism in dealing with this matter. There was no pre-warning, no emails, nothing, simply an email after 2 days of down time stating that they no longer provided the payment system we were using. Lucky for us, we had a WorldPay account already setup and just waiting to be integrated, not so lucky for the hundreds of other merchants who don't. |
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Slight glitch with our payment gateway...
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Hi everyone,
It's a busy time at Interspire HQ this morning. PaySystems, our payment gateway provider has decided that they're out of business -- as of yesterday.
Basically this means that we had to find a new payment gateway. We've gone with World Pay, and I've just finished integrating everything into our eCommerce platform.
We need to wait 24 hours for World Pay to clear the integration, so until then we can still accept orders via PayPal. Tommorow we should be ready to rock and roll with WorldPay seemlessly integrated into our site.
On behalf of everyone here at Interspire I want to offer my apologies for the problems with ordering over the past 2 days, however it really was beyond our control and we've done everything we can to rectify it as quickly as possible. |
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Wraping Up Another Week
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Hi everyone,
Just a quick end-of-week post. FastFind has been available for a week now, and we've received quite a bit of positive feedback. It's averaging 500+ downloads a day, which is quite amazing.
Both myself and John are busy working on the PHP and ASP/ASP.NET versions of ActiveKB. It's pretty much a complete re-write, because version 1.5 was very procedural in terms of design and implementation, where as ActiveKB 2004 will be 100% OO code with a more robust implementation.
Ed and Chris will be releasing the final bug tested version of SendStudio 2004 in the beta forums for final testing today, so it should be released next week sometime. After Ed and Chris's initial testing phases with the beta team, I had the "final" round of internal testing, and only came across a few minor bugs -- so from what I've seen, and from my research, SendStudio 2004 will be hands down the most powerful email marketing solution available for download for SME's.
That's my speil for the end of the week |
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FastFind 2004 Released
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Just a quick note to let everyone know that Interspire FastFind 2004 has just been released, and is currently available as a FREE download. To learn more, go to http://www.interspire.com/fastfind |
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Sendstudio update..
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We're almost there!
It has taken a while, but SendStudio 2004 is almost ready.
We'll be going beta very soon, with little or no bugs reported (well I can hope can't I?) it won't be long before it's released.
The new design looks really good, new functionality is in there and it's a lot quicker - I hope everyone is happy with what's happened in the last few months :)
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FastFind 2004 Screenshots
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OK guys,
Well you guessed the product name, and development's complete (just have to do some testing, build the site and do some documentation) so I thought I'd share some screenshots with you:
Screenshots #1 - Indexing in Progress
The screenshot above shows FastFind in the process of doing a test crawl and index on fastcompany.com -- as you can see, a progress bar makes it easy to see how long it will take.
Screenshots #2 - Searching
This screenshot shows the front end -- what you would add to yours or your customer site -- the search page. FastFind generates simple and advanced mode search HTML code, and you can specify your own search page templates, but if you don't specify templates you get the FastFind default templates, as pictured.
Screenshots #3 - Popular Search Terms
This screenshot shows one of the 4 reports available from the FastFind control panel. Reports available are:
View Popular Search Terms
View Terms with no Results
View Most Visited Search Links
View Recent Search Terms
Screenshots #4 - Settings Page
As you can see, there's quite a few customizable settings that you can change. You can set the crawl depth, specify which file types to index, and also patterns in URL's to ignore. For example if you didn't want FastFind indexing your personal blog, you specify /blog as one of the URL keywords to ignore, and any page on your site that bas /blog in its URL wont be indexed.
Oh yeah, and it will also be cron-able i.e. you can schedule the spider to run whenever you want to update your search content, for example, every 2 weeks.
Anyhow, time to start on documentation. It's 5pm Sunday here so we'll begin testing in the office tommorow. As always, your comments are welcome
Oh yeah, and me or Interspire are not affiliated with FastCompany in any way -- I simply setup the FastFind test to crawl FastCompany.com because it's got a deep information hierarchy. |
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*Secret Product Details*
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Hi all,
We're not revealing anything about "Project X" as we're calling it, however I can tell you that I'm 1/2 way through developing it, and it will be launched within 2 weeks.
It has a similar interface to all of our 2004 products, in that it has an installer, control panel, etc. However, project X is language packed, driven by customizable templates (like ArticleLive) and will add value to any web site.
If you're wondering what it is, then here are a couple of clues:
1. Every web site needs this feature/functionality
2. Its name is Interspire Fast**** 2004
3. Nearly everyone would use its type of functionality everyday is some form or another
4. A popular company that offers this sort of functionality will be going public soon
Oops, I think the last clue might give it away, but oh well Keep an eye on our forums as I'll be selecting a handful of people to beta test next week before we release. |
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Interspire.com hits 10k Alexa mark :)
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Well it's been about 2 1/2 months since the new interspire.com website, and we've cracked our first 'traffic' goal, of 10,000 Alexa. Wohooo!! Next goal, is 5,000 Alexa by the end of the year... lets see how we go :)
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For those that don't know, Alexa is a traffic ranking application, (recently bought by Amazon) that uses the Alexa toolbar to track millions of users website visits. The ranking shows your popularity amongst all the other websites in the world (or more like the number of websites other Alexa users use). So, a 10,000 Alexa means the 10,000th most visited site on the web. Its not the most accurate tool in the world, but it is a great help.
See www.alexa.com for more info. |
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Custom Panels section of ArticleLive KB online
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G'day folks,
Good news for anyone into customising ArticleLive, we've started releasing the occasional custom panel in the the ArticleLive KB. Keep an eye out and you're bound to see some interesting stuff.
http://www.interspire.com/support/articlelive/index.php?ToDo=browse&catId;=7
Let me know if you find a problem with any of them :)
Now it's time for all good little programmers to go to bed. And that'd be me. Later... |
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ActiveKB 2004 Bugs+Features
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I didn't want to post this in the forum (mainly because it would attract unnecessary commentary), however I thought I'd post it here in my blog -- the official ActiveKB 2004 bug and feature list:
Bugs
1. Rework the way the glossary works and make sure it doesn�t �glossarize� words in tags, etc
2. Backslashes are stripped out in WISYWG editor
3. PHP: You shouldn't have to enter a MySQL password when installing/setup
4. PHP: Check if magic_quotes_gpc is set and work according to that
5. ASP: Ability to choose which mail library is used. For example, CDONTS, JMail, ASPMail, etc
6. ASP/ASP.NET: Add the option to use a full database path, instead of the full virtual one
7. Make sure all database tables and fields are lower case
Features
1. 2004 look and feel
2. Language pack both front end and back end
3. Mozilla support
4. Easily changeable skins for front-end
5. Multiple administrators, each with customizable permissions
6. Ability to manually choose related articles when creating a new article. If not chosen, use default SQL query to get related articles
7. Ability to add a question/comment that the user submits as a new article from the control panel
8. Search engine friendly URL�s
9. Ability to add keywords and descriptions that would appear in the meta tags for each article
10. Ability to choose keyword based search or full text search from admin/front end
11. Move the stylesheet from the index.php file to its own .CSS file
12. Add the ability to password protect certain categories
13. Actually have a glossary on the front end like SitePoint now has for glossary words
14. Add an image manager to the WYSIWYG editor
15. Ability to enter a "weight" field for question. Just a number and they will be sorted by weight before anything else to display more relevant questions at the top
16. Ability to attach up to 5 files to each article
17. Add "advanced search" to search by category, date created, etc
18. Add another field to the required contact fields with the subject
19. Ability to notify admin via email when a comment is posted
20. Ability to add a description to a category and have it display
21. RSS feeds
22. Version with DevEdit integrated |
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ArticleLive .NET KnowledgeBase is online
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ArticleLive .NET has a knowledgebase, and now there's a fair bit of useful information in it. You can view it a http://www.interspire.com/support/articlelive/.
If you think of anything that might be useful in the KB let me know and I'll see what I can do. I'll continue to add stuff so keep an eye on it.
Till next time...ciao! |
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My Ramblings for Tuesday
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The SiteBox release has gone well. It's been rolled out to 200+ of our existing customers and I've had about 50 feedback emails. All have been positive, which is a great thing. I even managed to snatch up a couple of testimonials from the emails, so thanks :)
On another note, myself and John will be starting on the development of ActiveKB 2004 next week. I will be commencing the planning as of tommorow, and it should take me about 5 days, so I should have the structure, flow chart, new feature list and bug list all sorted and finalized by Sunday sometime -- ready for development next Monday. I'm predicting that development will take 6 weeks with another 2 weeks for testing.
We've also decided which *new* product we will be developing later in the year, however that's still under wraps so I can't tell anyone yet. Keep an eye on our forums over the next couple of weeks however, as we're going to be posting hints there
Anyhow, I better get back to it before I give anything away.
- Peace out. |
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ArticleLive .NET with DevEdit is out!!
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Hey everyone, just letting you know that we've released a version of ArticleLive .NET with DevEdit integrated as the WYSIWYG editor. You can purchase the new DevEdit version or upgrade your existing version by going to http://www.interspire.com/articlelive/ and clicking "Buy Online" on the left.
Hope you like!
Also, ArticleLive .NET is up to version 1.0.5 so if you have an earlier version I recommend you update using the latest from http://www.interspire.com/clientarea
That's all for now. L8er peoples... |
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*** SiteBox_Is_Done ***
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Phew. 6 months, 4 days and 4 hours ago (literally), I started planning for what would become SiteBox 2004. Today, June 20th, I can proudly say that we've just uploaded the zips and updated the live site with details on SiteBox 2004. The release is official.
If you've been following our progress, then you'll know that the release is about 6-8 weeks overdue, however this is because of our new rigerous testing procedures... and also because it was one killer app to write. It contains about 27,000 lines of new code when compared to WebEdit Platinum. It also contains 620 new files (most of these are template images, etc).
If you're an existing customer then we will be rolling out the upgrade emails tommorow. However, because I appreciate those who read my blog, I'll let you in on a little secret:
If you can't wait for the upgrade email, login to the client area and you'll have a fresh copy of SiteBox 2004 waiting there for you (if you ordered within the last 6 months that is)
The second piece of good news is that I wrote an integrated upgrade wizard so you don't have to fiddle with databases etc. Go to the install guide at http://www.interspire.com/sitebox/html/installguide and read appendix G -- upgrading from WebEdit Platinum.
Anyhow, it's 4pm here. Time to relax, hit the gym and then prepare the release email! |
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Hey, I'm the new guy
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Hello Everyone! My name is Eric... just dropping in to say I'm the one who is developing the PHP version of Article Live.
I'm sure you will spot me around the forums more and more over the next few weeks... feel free to say hi.
- Eric |
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ArticleLive PHP info
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Hi guys,
Development of ArticleLive for PHP officially commenced last week. We've hired new staff to work with John on the conversion from ASP.NET to PHP in fully OOP fashion. We're also considering moving our minimum PHP version requirement from 4.1 to 4.3 as it's been stable and released for 18 months now.
Finally, SiteBox will be released no later than Wednesday. Maybe even tommorow, depending on how we go with the little things that need to get done before the release.
Peace out. |
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SS2004 new design
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The new SS2004 design looks pretty funky compared to the previous one.
It'll be a lot like the ArticleLive design, so that should give people an idea of how we're trying to get it looking.
The last thing after that (apart from more testing) is to get the WYSIWYG editor working with Mozilla.. it's there mostly but a few little areas need fixing (the fun bits that take forever to get working properly!)..
No more functionality, just tidyups and consistency checks. The fun part of the job is making new stuff work, the not-so-fun part is making it look nice :)
I'll be posting some screenshots in here & in the forums when the new design is finished
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SiteBox is good to go!
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Finally finished updating the documentation today after 4 long days of typing it up. Eek! I've finished everything, the testing has been done, I've implemented feedback from beta testers and fixed reported bugs (as well as bugs we found when testing), so now we're just waiting on Joe to finish the templates
Once the templates are done we'll run a few more final tests. I did want to have everything ready by tommorow, but it might be mid next week sometime now. We've decided to keep the price the same for the release of SiteBox 2004.
More from me re: the release in a couple of days |
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Web definitions in Google
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Did you know that you can look up web definitions in Google? Next time you go searching for the dictionary, try this instead: "define keyword" in Google. It'll search a number of different sources to find a definition for that keyword, similar to their news functionality.
Cheers :) |
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Moment of truth
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Well a few of you asked, and they're finally up. Yup thats right, our photo's! Take a look: Meet the staff
Now, its your turn! Yup, we're looking to setup a meet our customers section, so i'd really love if you guys could send me some details about yourselves and a photo!
Just some basic information:
Name:
Company name:
State / Country:
What you do for work:
Hobbies:
Things you love:
Things you hate:
Time using Interspire products:
What do you think of us?
Other comments:
Photo:
C'mon, dont be shy people! Email me, or post a comment below.
Cheers :) |
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SiteBox 2004 Beta
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The Sitebox 2004 beta went out last night. The response so far has been very, very positive. In fact, it's been more than I expected. I knew we were onto something when we decided to offer 3 different editing modes (simple, advanced, site builder) but the response even from current customers has been great.
For those of you reading my blog entry, have a look at the SiteBox site: http://www.interspire.com/sitebox -- It's not live, but if you have any feedback I'd be happy to hear it!
All being good, SiteBox 2004 will launch and replace WebEdit Platinum next week sometime. WebEdit Professional will also be known as just "WebEdit" after the launch, thus stopping the "whats the difference between pro and platinum" questions that we get quite a bit of
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SendStudio 2004 Beta coming soon
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We've been quite busy as you can probably tell, SendStudio 2004 Beta is almost out. Its looking quite good, and has a ton of features, so keep an eye out.
I just thought Id steal some of the credit for all of Chris's hard work :) But im sure he'll post to let you know the nitty gritty details.
Cheers :) |
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ArticleLive .NET has made much progress
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The last time I posted about ArticleLive .NET things weren't going all that well, luck seemed against us, but now we're back on top of things.
We have release ArticleLive (a little while ago) and things seem to be going much better. The first developers to install and use ArticleLive reported a few small bugs which have been fixed up, but we've decided to put a little more effort into it and do another full retest of the application just to make sure we've ironed out 99.99% of the bugs.
Well, I'll keep you all posted on how we're going. |
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SiteBox 2004 alpha coming Friday
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We've just finished all bugs+features for SiteBox 2004 after 4 months of "16-hour-a-day" product development. More information in this forum post: http://www.interspire.com/forum/showthread.php?p=13145#post13145 |
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My ramblings for the day
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Gee we're a hard working bunch. I fronted up to the office exactly 13 hours and 4 minutes ago and I'm still working. To be more precise, I'm editing the newsletter that we're about to send out to our 20,000ish subscribers.
Our newsletters have all been merged into one for 2 reasons:
1. To save us the 20-or-so hours it took us every month to design and author 6 different newsletters.
2. To make our content more relevant to our readers. We've found that by focusing our efforts on just one newsletter, we're able to come up with a better end product containing more relevant and interesting content. Go figure.
The ArticleLive ASP.NET guys had a couple of hitches with licensing today, partly due to some issues with our eCommerce platform (which I developed), but they're smoothed out now, and hey, things always go wrong when you least expect it, right?
Anyhow that's enough rambling from me. Time to put my head down and finish the little tweaks to SiteBox 2004 so that it's ready for a beta in just over a week.
Peace out. |
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The ArticleLive release is not without a *hiccup*
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Bad luck comes at the worst of times, and ArticleLive is the latest victim. The Interspire team went all out to build ArticleLive as the best article/news/blogs/pages management system on the market. We did it; the power, flexibility, and simplicity is unmatched, yet at the long awaited release of the first version (ASP.NET), luck wasn't exactly on our side.
First of all, the database on our web site didn't like the 2.7mb installation file, which it corrupted, making it inaccessible to our valued customers.
Second, to make things worse, the licensing system on the web site started generating keys that were incompatible with the ArticleLive application.
Things couldn't possibly get worse...right? Sometimes things happen and there is just no explanation, and it can't get much worse the most recent files of the project mysteriously being overwritten with 2 day old ones.
Yes, about 2 days worth of work was overwritten, and our only theory is that those pesky Martians stole it. Now, we do have backups, but luck wanted to kick us while we were down. The development installation was running on MS Access at the time, and the old code worked perfectly with MS Access, the new code contained all the SQL Server compatibility changes and recent bug fixes. The old code worked while we were running on MS Access and the changes were so minor that no-one spotted the faulty code for a day and a half, so it was then transferred to the backups, overwriting the only other copies of the latest ArticleLive code.
So now we have some not so happy customers, totally within their rights to be, and they're waiting for their recently purchased ArticleLive release. It�s about 9pm now, don't think I'll be out of here anytime soon  |
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Reseller area coming...
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Just a quick post to let everyone know that we're working on a reseller area for the site. Basically, it will contain information on how to sell our products to your customers, content to use for your brochures, suggested prices, etc.
One of the biggest problems we've found was that people are unsure about how to integrate the rebrandable aspect of our products into their client proposals, so I'm going to work up some documentation with actual freelance developers and small design firms in mind.
Last but not least, on Monday I'll be jumping back into SiteBox 2004 development. That's right, you heard it here. WebEdit Platinum will be renamed to SiteBox 2004 when the next version is released. We did this because people were getting confused over WebEdit Pro and Platinum, plus they're no longer really similar: SiteBox includes a complete site builder and 3 editing modes where as Pro's a simpler solution for smaller, less complex sites.
Anyway, enough from me. Back to the reseller area. If you've got any ideas for the reseller area, post me a comment... ya hear  |
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All this work, finally worth it. ArticleLive .NET is done
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Yes, yes, yes I know you're all waiting on the release of ArticleLive .NET, and if not .NET then at least the PHP version. Well, the wait is over. We've been slaving away day and night, going insane, designing, coding, tweaking, testing and trying to keep the guys upstairs off our backs, and now it's ready!!
The ArticleLive application was built from the ground up with the intention of being used to create and manage a content driven web site, or to be used as the base for a more custom web site built to suit your own needs.
The ArticleLive application sports an unbelivably powerful template system, which is very easily extended to support any additional pages on your site. It runs from flexible permission based security, which can be customised to secure a totally customised web site. The 2-tier architecture allows you to modify the web interface (beyond the capabilities of the templates) without touching the core functionality, or you can modify or add core functionality without affecting the web interface. You can even create a backend to support just about any data source other than MS Access and SQL Server (already supported).
Well those are some of the coolest features, in my humblest of opinions. Hopefully I'll continue to post my ramblings here so keep an eye out. |
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The new Interspire.com is complete!
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Phew! I started the new Interspire.com site from scratch 2 weeks ago and today it's finished. Just have to put the finishing touches on it. The site has too many new features to name, but here are a couple:
- Client area to manage orders, download products and get license keys
- Integrated shopping cart built from scratch by yours truly
- Automated license upgrades via the site
- Immediate payment via PayPal and credit card
- Order multiple products in the one order
- More content on the site with a focus on useability
If you're reading this then you'll know that all of our product sites now redirect to Interspire.com... which was mine+Ed's idea from late last year. We've just been so busy with things that we haven't had the time to do it. I finally made the time and I must say I'm happy with the results!
Here's a quick list of projects we're working on:
- Me: New Interspire site, SiteBox 2004 (the new name for WebEdit Platinum)
- Chris: SendStudio 2004
- Ed + John: ArticleLive 2004
- Jorgen: DevEdit cross browser compatability
- Steve: ActiveKB ColdFusion MX
- Joe: More templates and support
Soon to come:
- Chris and John will be collaborating to build ArticleLive for PHP and *maybe* ASP (we're still trying to decide if ASP is dead in the water).
- I'll be focusing all of my efforts on SiteBox 2004 for the next month and then get cracking on WebEdit Pro 2004 with Ed and Joe
Well that's my end of week post. Time to finish touching up this site before it goes live.
Peace.
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SendStudio developments...
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SendStudio 2004 is coming closer to release. I've just built a database mapper so you can import records straight from another database instead of having to export them and then import them in . Nice and easy.
Still a little way to go but we're over the major hurdles (I hope!) and it's a lot lot faster now thanks to some code re-writing and some tricky SQL
I think people will be surprised with the improvements... |
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What a week it's been...
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This is officially my first true blog! After much coding, screaming, pulling, punching, we're close to releasing ArticleLive .NET. I must admit, this is by far the easiest to use and most powerful app we've built, and im not just saying that. It looks quite pretty, and has a very easy to use interface. One thing we realised early on, was that more often than not, the developer(s) cant see into my brain and vice versa. We've learnt to communicate a lot better now, John (and Co) and I, so things are starting to look like they're on track. Moral of the story, buy more RedBulls |
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Welcome to our staff blogs!
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Welcome to the Interspire staff blogs. Every couple of days we will be posting our thoughts on various topics, including programming, development, sales, marketing and of course, our products
We will also be posting details on upcoming products, problems we've tackled and won when developing, etc. You'll notice a comments link under this post. If you have any comments about our posts, then feel free to share them! Leave your email address if you'd like us to get back to you. |
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Interspire Newsletter
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The Interspire newsletter is published monthly, and contains information on new and upcoming products, as well as members-only product discounts and special deals.
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