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Januari 2004 issue.
For the previous issue, januari 2003, click here.
Dear user,Please accept our best wishes for the new year: welcome to 2004.
Thank you for using a Doldersum.com software product, we appreciate your ongoing support. We would now like to inform you about the ongoing developments of the applications, in which you have placed your trust, during the last year and our new plans for this year.
(By the way, readers that aren't familiar with our products, might find themselves wondering about which applications we're writing here. If you are such a reader, you may find links to the mentioned products on the left side of this page. These will take you to the product information pages, where all details on the various applications can be found. In case of any questions, please feel free to contact us).
We'd like to bring following items to your attention:
- Free Update Notification service - changed from "opt-out" to "opt-in".
- Implemented product enhancements for MCBase.
- Our new "music resources" link page, for MCBase users.
- Implemented product enhancements for PictureBook.
- Implemented product enhancements for SQLBox update.
- Implemented product enhancements for TGrab.
- Awards that our software products received over 2003.
- The Product Knowledge Base.
- Participate and become an affiliate!
- Finally.
Up until november, we could send our users Free Update Notifications (FUN service). As you'll know, these were short text emails, in which we informed our users about the availability of a free downloadable update of a software product for which you had purchased a license with us.
You will also be aware of the increasing burden that spam (unwanted commercial email) is imposing on the internet. In an effort to combat this burden, the Dutch government is now in the process of accepting new communications legislation, that states that the sender needs (written) proof that the recipient actually wishes to receive the (type of) information that the sender wishes to send.
At Doldersum.com, it was always assumed that a customer would want to receive a notification for a free downloadable update of the product for which he/she bought a license, so we had implemented an "opt-out" mailing list: you were in, until you cancelled. Early november, with the new legislation coming up, we reversed that: we informed all users (who were on the mailing lists at that time) about the change and what steps they would need to take to make sure that they would keep receiving the notifications. We were quite pleased to see that most of the users signed up for inclusion again.
Now, if you are a user of one of our products and you would like to receive our free product update notifications (again), please visit this page. This is our User Address information form. This form can now (also) be used to add your name to a product related mailing list again.
By the way, we would like to emphasize, that we do seriously welcome this new legislation. We consider spam to be a serious problem and will work to keep the number of our outgoing notifications down to a minimum.
Please find below the most significant product enhancements, implemented into the MCBase application, during 2003:
- We have added functionality to check for the presence of a default printer (or at least a printerdriver) on the user's computer. Having at least a printer (driver) selected as the default on the computer system is required, since information is retrieved from that default driver for rendering the previews for all the printjobs. If your system did not have a default printer driver available, then this should generate one or more error messages. (This is added as a configurable option in the application's Preferences dialog).
- We also added functionality to check for the maximum overall memory load (i.e.: system resource load). MCBase will now monitor the overall memory load during initialization and will issue a warning when a maximum limit is reached.
(Since this limit is lightly to differ per machine, this has been implemented as a fully configurable option in the application's Preferences dialog. It's default setting is a value of 85% maximum overall memory load - if this load is reached, a user will be notified that his system is about to run out of resources. The user is then in control and can correct the issue, before their system runs into trouble).
This updated MCBase application, release V3.5 (V3.5.1.49) has been released on june 7th, 2003 and can be freely downloaded from the MCBase for Windows download facility.
As per the 7th of september, we have introduced a first try-out of the new "Music Resource Links" section on our website, as we mentioned in our previous newsletter.
On this "Music Resource Links" section, we are trying to provide some links to possibly interesting music resources on the internet. These contain links to, for example, sites that provide discographies, sites with song lyrics or other sites that might prove to be interesting for record collectors in general.
For the time being, this new website section is only accessible from the "MCBase Online Support" page. This is the page that the MCBase program is invoking, when you select the "online support" function (the "globe"-icon on the toolbar, for example). All registered users have received information on how to proceed with this first experiment per email notification. Nevertheless, if you have any questions about the music resources links, or wish to contribute potentially interesting links, please contact us.
Please find below the most significant product enhancements, implemented into the PictureBook application, during 2003:
- Added functionality to check for the presence of a default printer (driver) on the user's computer. Having a printer (driver) selected as the default on the computer system is required, since information is retrieved from the default driver for rendering the previews for all the printjobs. If your system did not have a default printer driver available, then this should generate one or more error messages. (This is added as a configurable option in the application's Preferences dialog).
- Added functionality to check for the maximum overall memory load (i.e.: system resource load). PictureBook will now monitor the overall memory load during initialization and will issue a warning when a maximum limit is reached. (Since this limit is lightly to differ per machine, this has been implemented as a fully configurable option in the application's Preferences dialog. It's default setting is a value of 85% maximum overall memory load - if this load is reached, a user will be notified that his system is about to run out of resources. The user is then in control and can correct the issue, before their system runs into trouble).
- Updated PBToolkit to V1.3 (full: V1.3.2.6). This update consists out of the implementation of a new utility function to PBToolkit: "PbBatchImport". Using this utility function, users are now able to import a batch of images in one go. After import, these new entries will then use the image file's name and date as the PictureBook image description and date - you can alter these afterwards, if preferred. The help file has also been extended with information on this update.
This updated PictureBook application, release V1.6 (V1.6.2.42) has been released on august 30th, 2003 and can be freely downloaded from the PictureBook download facility.
Please find below the most significant product enhancements, implemented into the SQLBox application, during 2003:
- Added functionality to check for the presence of a default printer (driver) on the user's computer. Having a printer (driver) selected as the default on the computer system is required, since information is retrieved from the default driver for rendering the previews for all the printjobs. If your system did not have a default printer driver available, then this should generate one or more error messages. (This is added as a configurable option in the application's Preferences dialog).
- Added functionality to check for the maximum overall memory load (i.e.: system resource load). SQLBox will now monitor the overall memory load during initialization and will issue a warning when a maximum limit is reached. (Since this limit is lightly to differ per machine, this has been implemented as a fully configurable option in the application's Preferences dialog. It's default setting is a value of 85% maximum overall memory load - if this load is reached, a user will be notified that his system is about to run out of resources. The user is then in control and can correct the issue, before their system runs into trouble).
This updated SQLBox application, release V1.2 (V1.2.1.12) has been released on june 30th, 2003 and can be freely downloaded from the SQLBox download facility.
Please find below the most significant product enhancements, implemented into the TGrab application, during 2003:
- TGrab's "Select folder & filename basis" dialog did not show any image files that already exist in the active folder or directory. Functionality for showing this info was only rudimentary implemented in this dialog, since this wasn't in the initial scope (the dialog's primary function was to focus on the creation of new filenames and their storage location for any new images that TGrab would make in it's session). The "Select..." dialog has now been extended to include functionality to show the images files that already exist in the active folder. (As such, it can now also more suitable to be used as a preview option).
- Added the "Windows Metafile" (.WMF) and "Win32 Enhanced Metafile" (.EMF) file formats to TGrab. (For your information, the .WMF format is the Windows 3.1 Metafile, with "Aldus" header). These formats can be selected from the "Select folder & filename basis" dialog, accessible through the "Select" button in the "General settings" group.
- Added an option in the "Preference" dialog, to switch the inclusion of an auto-incrementing number in the captured image's filename on or off. By default, this option is switched on: this means that the captured image's filename has an incrementing number inserted at the end. This allows the user to use on-topic filenames and also prevent a previous image from being overwritten: they just get numbered in sequence of their creation. This feature can now be switched off, to facilitate users who need to have only a single image file, that get's updated on each new image capture (overwriting the previous image).
This updated TGrab application, release V1.4 (V1.4.1.7) has been released on august 16th, 2003 and can be freely downloaded from the TGrab download facility.
In the past, we were proud to receive various awards for our software products. In 2003, our products were further honored with 4 and 5 star awards.
MCBase received following awards:- in march: 4 star rating from UKWares.
- in december: 4 star rating from Download32.com
- in december: 5 star rating from BrotherSoft.com
PictureBook received following award:- in march: 4 star rating from UKWares.
- in december: 5 star rating from BrotherSoft.com
SQLBox received following awards:- in march: 4 star rating from UKWares.
- in december: 4 star rating from Download32.com
- in december: 5 star rating from BrotherSoft.com
TGrab received following awards:- in march: 5 star rating from UKWares.
- in december: 5 star rating from Download32.com
- in december: 5 star rating from BrotherSoft.com
The Product Knowledge Base, as introduced in our previous newsletter, has been frequently visited since it's introduction - we're quite pleased to see that the Knowledge Base is beginning to fulfill it's purpose of providing our users with background and trouble shooting information on the application of their choice. The text files, that make up the Knowledge Base's sections (one file for each application), have all been updated between may and the end of november (2003).
If there is a specific topic that you're looking for, that should be included in a product's Knowledge Base file, please contact us with your details.
Please note, that our utility "RCheck" (the Resource Checker) has been slightly updated (to version V1.1). RCheck now shows physical memory, overall load, memory in use and memory available amounts. RCheck is (copyrighted) freeware, so please do feel free to install this small utility on your system: at times, you might find it very valuable to have it at your disposal.
If you're an experienced user of our software product(s), you might want to consider the possibility to earn some money from your expertise? By becoming an affiliate (or reseller) for our software, you will have the opportunity to sell our products and earn some money. Let's assume, that you would like the opportunity to sell the application of your choice from your own website (or any other sales effort) for a profit (currently, set to 20% of the sales price). What would you have to do, in order to accomplish that?
- First, you would need to apply for an affiliate account with one of the available systems. Currently, two systems are in place for this approach, but we'll focus on them later.
- Once your affiliate account has been approved and setup with these systems, you can make your product affiliation selections. (Depending on the affiliation system of your choice, the system may need an application's author to approve your selection).
- When your affiliation request is finalized, you will be sent information of how to send in orders for a product to the system of your choice. You can now go forward and setup your marketing effort and/or website to accept orders.
- When all is in place, the affiliation system will then apply the mentioned share (20% for our applications) for each sale generated from your website (or other sales effort) to your affiliate account. They will also see to it, that you receive payment (payment intervals may differ per affiliation system).
If you need help or if there are any questions you have on the affiliate system or it's options, please feel free to contact us or the contacts at the affiliate system of your choice.
Some notes:
- Due to the amount of spam (unwanted commercial email) and email viruses floating around the internet and their potential danger, we have installed spamfilters on all our email accounts. In the near future, these "per account" spamfilters will be replaced by a system wide spam filtering system. Should you experience trouble with sending us your email message, please feel free to use our email form to notify us.
- We're looking at the possibility of adding the ability to alter certain application appearance properties to all of our programs. We are currently investigating which properties might be interesting to control, when looking at an application from a user's perspective. If you have some specific items you'd like us to look at, please let us know?
- As always, we would want to encourage you again to inform us of any product enhancements that you would like to see implemented in our programs. The same goes, of course, for suggestions on new applications: if you have a software requirement that you would like to see fulfilled, please drop us a note with your ideas and perhaps we can build you an application for it.
Wishing you all the best,
Harry Doldersum,
http://www.Doldersum.com