Archive for: June, 2009

PamFax server update released

Today our team of highly skilled engineers compiled and released an update for the PamFax server platform with the following changes.

Server changes
Bugfix: Issues with some special characters not showing in cover page (like “{“)
Bugfix: Occasional issues with pending faxes not being sent after payment
Change: Removed the ugly gray placeholder image in PamFax while it is loading images
Change: To improve performance the fax preview has been limited to show max. 5 pages
Feature: Added support for multi-page cover sheets (you can type longer cover page text spanning multiple pages)
Feature:  Re-added the tooltips to the PamFax application (yeah!)
Feature: Added affiliate links support for our future affiliate program

There is no PamFax application update locally required, these are changes we made on the PamFax server side. When you start PamFax you will see the version number (lower left corner) as: 2.0.9.x

PamFax introduced in Japan

Our partner in Japan, Fusion Network Services Corporation, have started their campaign to introduce PamFax in Japan. We have jointly worked hard to prepare the launch by localizing the entire PamFax system in Japanese. Fusion is also a Skype partner and provide Skype with the local Skype-In numbers in Japan.

Fusion plan several marketing activities over the next months to introduce the PamFax solution to the market.

Further information (in Japanese) click on image below.

Our thanks to the professional team at Fusion for preparing this important launch with us.

PamFax: 13 countries with improved rates

We have made changes in the zone allocation of the following countries:

From zone 2 to zone 1
Singapore, Israel, Aland Islands, Malaysia, Finland, Chile

From zone 3 to zone 1
China, Czech Republic, Hungary

From zone 4 to zone 1
Venezuela, Cyprus, Argentina, Estonia

Faxes to all the above countries now have a page price of €0,09 (or €0,06 for PamFax Pro subscribers).

Working on improved Skype video recording in Pamela

The team is currently working on revamping the video recording module in Pamela. It is a feature requested and used a lot and the 1.0 version we have currently has some limitatons. We have addressed some of them in Pamela 4.5 but are still not happy with the results.

So, we decided to re-write the entire module from ground up based on DirectX. This is a Windows subsystem which allows for easy access to audio and video components in Windows.

The engineers have created a first test application which works flawlessly already. The CPU usage is between 3-5% and thus really low. The output file is WMV format which is compressed and a lot smaller then the current AVI. There will also be no more requirement to select a codec or install one so the trouble with this will be gone too. We are testing this internally and plan to release this in Pamela 4.6.

The inital results are very promising. I will keep you updated as the development progresses.

Oh, you may ask yourself when we plan to release this module? With a bit of luck it should be out second week of July.

New PamFax Server Update released

Based on feedback and system logs we have compiled another PamFax update to address some issues found since the last update.

The new server build version is: .8 (In the PamFax application you will see the version as: 2.0.8.15). Note that we did release a new application version which fixes a scanner issue in Windows but we are not pushing the version to the existing customers. You can update easily by just downloading the installer package from www.pamfax.biz.

One major workflow change we made is that when you install PamFax for the first time you are asked to define a password for direct PamFax portal access. In the past we’ve learned that asking for then when users access the portal creates confusion so we added this to this release. This way PamFax users will always have a password to access the portal. Users that did not have a password will be asked for at next start of PamFax.

The changes we made today are:

Feature: A fax to multiple recipients can be canceled/deleted in the PamFax Portal
Feature: Define PamFax password on first start

Bugfix Mac: Skype language detection in PamFax Mac could hang PamFax
Bugfix Windows: When sending a document via “Send To”, via printer driver or Office toolbar the upload could fail

Bugfix: Added improved support for right to left languages on cover page
Bugfix: Minor IE8 issue fixed when cancelling/deleting faxes from the PamFax Portal
Bugfix: Upload button broken in IE7 and IE8 when clicking “back” on number entry page
Bugfix: In PamFax for Facebook clicking on “Send Fax” triggers “Launch Application” dialog instead of sending the fax

We also added the usual minor fixes and improvements. As we have more and more users submitting multiple recipient faxes we added a function to the portal which allows you to cancel these faxes at once. Till now you had to delete each individual number which could be a very tiresome task.

New PamFax Server and application update released

Last night we released a server and application update for PamFax 2.0 (bringing the version number to 2.0.7.15) with the following changes.

Server
Bugfix: Faxes paid for later were sometimes not sent
Bugfix: Resending faxes from portal
Bugfix: Rmoving numbers from list of updated pricing numbers
Bugfix: Improved sending faxes to high volume of recipients
Bugfix: Fax inbox now also shows name of sender instead on “unknown” and the number
Bugfix: Fixed issue when multiple recipient list contained a blocked number
Change: Multiple recipient sending increased from 400 to 2.000 numbers
Change: Upgraded document conversion servers for improved quality of fax documents
Language: Improved Arabic language support in converter systems
Language Italian, Spanish, Polish and Japanese translations updated

Application (Windows)
Bugfix: Proxy connection is now recognized correctly
Bugfix: Updated scanner driver as not all scanners were recognized correctly
Bugfix: Reset of cached web files on setup
Bugfix: Updated setup translations (Spanish, Italian, Polish and Japanese)
Bugfix: Fixed issue with Skype toolbars

Application (Mac OSX)
Bugfix: Fixed issue with folder naming

Note that if you have the issue with the scanner driver not recognizing your scanner, you will need to download the PamFax application manually and run the installer. We are not pushing an automatic application update with this new version.