In this weblog we write about our products and our experiences while designing, implementing, supporting, promoting and using them.
More Filtering Options
31 03 2009, Michiel van Vlaardingen in FlexListsToday we worked on extending our filtering options to other parts of FlexLists. Starting today you can now also select which items to show on the widget by configuring it on the 'Publish' tab. You could for example show a list on your website with priority 1 items only by entering 'priority:1' as a custom filter and putting the code in your site. Furthermore the printing option will now print the current selection as you see it, instead of the whole list. So you can quickly compile a list using a search query and print just those items.
An other thing we added is the option to hide the time on the date/time fields. You can hide it by checking the 'Date Only' checkbox in the field properties dialog. (available through the 'Fields' tab)
Finally we fixed a few issues with the date picker and optimized the loading of the list data a bit to be on your screen even faster.
Safety First: Daily backup
23 02 2009, Michiel van Vlaardingen in PicturePushAlthough we store all your photos twice at PicturePush, this might not be enough to handle small or larger disasters. Therefore we decided that we want to keep your photos even safer. Starting today, all photos uploaded by pro-members will be backed up daily to Amazon S3. It's a very reliable service to store data. It uses multiple datacenters to spread the data, so we feel that we will be able to recover your photos in almost any event. So if you want your photos to be really really safe, upgrade to a pro-account.
20.000 PicturePush signups!
07 02 2009, Michiel van Vlaardingen in PicturePushToday photo sharing site PicturePush reached the 20,000th signup. The site doubled it's member base in just over 8 months. Member number 20,000 received a free two-year upgrade to pro-membership to celebrate.
With this occasion I have taken the opportunity to write something about our current state of affairs and plans for the future:
The site started in 2006 and has now grown to hosting over 1.3 million pictures taking up over 2 Terabytes of storage space. All of this using 2 storage/web servers and a database servers which together process the 54 million requests each month. Most of these requests come from Poland, The Netherlands and the USA.
Currently the main focus is on increasing reliability and availability. The recent outages have emphasized the importance of this effort. An important step is the addition of very reliable backup for pro accounts which will become effective in the next few days.
In 2009 PicturePush will further focus on it's pro-members by introducing more options for publishing and copyright protection. All members will profit from an ever increasing effort in improving usability and the integration with mobile and social platforms.
New Upload Page
30 01 2008, Michiel van Vlaardingen in PicturePushA lot of our beginning users were confused about the difference between the normal upload and the multi-file upload. Furthermore the installation of Java for the latter, posed a problem for some. Therefore we have tried to integrate the two into the new upload page. It is based on swfupload. We hope it is easier to use and more clear what exactly is going on. If you have any problems, or liked the old ones better, please tell us.
Protect your images
28 01 2009, Michiel van Vlaardingen in PicturePushFor PicturePush pro members there is a new feature: add a copyright string to your images. You can set the text to show, and on what format of images to show it, in your profile.
We also improved the effect of the 'Downloadable originals', from now on it does not only hide the download link, it actually completely disables downloading of the full size image for anyone but you.
We hope this improves PicturePush for those users that care about the protection of their most beautiful images. Please let us know what you think.
Updates for PicturePush
24 01 2009, Michiel van Vlaardingen in PicturePushToday was a day for some updates on PicturePush:
- A short introduction text is shown on top of your gallery
- Larger thumbnails on the gallery index page for each album
- Choose your own cover thumbnail for each album
- Make comments on your photos private or just for friends (pro members only)
28 10 2008: Customize FlexLists web export layout
20 08 2008: PicturePush Milestone
04 08 2008: Timezone detection
21 07 2008: Change of plans
07 07 2008: Photo Printing
27 06 2008: Changing the locks
20 06 2008: Account Limits
04 06 2008: Archives
02 06 2008: Top request: password protected albums
01 06 2008: Pretend to be a new user time after time
01 06 2008: Downtime expected for FlexLists
09 05 2008: FlexLists Update
07 05 2008: Towards BloxDB
04 03 2008: Really beta software
01 03 2008: Spin Faster
01 03 2008: Clone Your Lists
14 02 2008: Delete Comments
30 01 2008: Progress
28 01 2008: VoteLists cleaned
04 01 2008: Growing pains
11 12 2007: Guest Passes
05-12-2007: Advertising
22 11 2007: What's Next?
16 11 2007: Unexpected downtime :(
27 10 2007: New Skins
23 10 2007: Windows Hosting
18 10 2007: More Support
12 10 2007: More Cleaning
11 10 2007: Time to clean up
09 09 2007: Start Your Own PicturePush?
27 09 2007: Track your Changes
26 09 2007: Attention to Teamspinner
18 09 2007: Fresh Design
20 07 2007: Xinu tool
16 07 2007: Screen Space
13 07 2007: Did it make you angry?
06 07 2007: Tag everything
05 07 2007: Win a Canon Digital Photo Camera
13 06 2007: PicturePush Uploader Beta
22 05 2007: Photo and Video Categories
05 05 2007: Do YOU get FlexLists?
30 04 2007: Better FlexLists Lists
26 04 2007: Redesign : part 1
19 04 2007: PicturePush Milestone: 41148
18 04 2007: Comming Soon: PicturePush Upload Tool
30 03 2007: Structuring CSS Files
23 03 2007: Unexpected Downtime
16 03 2007: User Interface Tuning
13 03 2007: Book Suggestions
12 03 2007: Improved PicturePush Search
12 03 2007: Sharing VoteLists
09 03 2007: VoteLists again
09 03 2007: How does a nerd promote a cool, feature rich, non marketed website?
08 03 2007: PicturePush Milestone
01 03 2007: Something Extra
24 02 2007: Doubles
22 02 2007: Expected downtime
17 02 2007: Remove the Ads
16 02 2007: Comments
16 02 2007: Broken Special Characters
31 01 2007: Oh no... forgotten...
30 01 2007: My case for using plain PHP
25 01 2007: Pictures first
21 01 2007: WebDAV support
29 12 2006: Speeding up PicturePush
25 12 2006: List the lists
24 12 2006: FlexLists updates
20 12 2006: Effective website monitoring
09 12 2006: Consyn Form validation
22 08 2006: Small Annoyances
18 08 2006: Simple Project Management with FlexLists
17 08 2006: Moving pictures
07 08 2006: More on PicturePush
31 07 2006: Adding AJAX with the Consyn Framework
24 07 2006: Improving PicturePush
13 07 2006: What has been keeping us busy?
02 06 2006: We are still moving
05 04 2006: Tight schedules
30 03 2006: No specs?
27 03 2006: Moving Labs starring E-lab and 2Vi