The new year at PamConsult starts with a new employee: Dennis. As this is the second Dennis in our team, we have to figure out how to distinguish them both 
Dennis formerly worked for companies like German Telecom. He will do customer support and administration of our company’s infrastructure from our development office in Ebstorf, Germany.
Welcome in our team!
Today we have upgraded our company website www.pamconsult.com to a complete new design:
This new design fits into our CI that we are applying to all our websites. We hope that every user feels “like home” and knows how to use it when he gets to one of our websites when they all look similar and all navigation elements are at the same place.
Do you like it? Leave a comment…
Due to a problem in Microsoft’s Media Center Gallery database, mceWeather disappeared from the Media Center’s “Gallery” menu in some european countries.
Now it’s back and you can start it again easily from your Media Center “Gallery” menu even without installing:
If you like this plugin, try to convince Microsoft to add it to the Media Center Gallery in the USA. We never were able to convince them (like back in 2006 when Chris Lanier tried as well)…
We have just updated our chat bot PamBot on the servers. We have fixed the error message in Wikipedia requests (like “what is skype”) and were able to improve the conversation flow a lot. The bot is now able to react better on what you have said in your previous message. So there is a kind of “brain” which keeps the previous messages to be able to refer to those messages from you.
Additionally, we have fixed the games in PamBot: try it by typing LUCKYSLOTS, WORDPLAY or BLACKJACK.
Have fun with Pamela
The PamConsult Team grows again: please welcome our latest two new employees with me. They will both extend our team in our development office in Ebstorf, Germany.
Matthias is a developer who worked in web development before. He will be part of the web development team and will work on projects from our customers as well as on PamFax, the websites, etc.
Tobias is a new apprentice who will learn software development in the next 3 years in our company. Through his existing knowledge, he will also help developing our products and projects.
So, welcome!
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
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.
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.
On February 19, 2009 Philips announced their new 2009 line of LCD TVs. The 8000, 9000 and Cinema 21:9 products will be shipped with a Net TV module built in. This provides easy, configuration and PC-free internet access with your remote control.
Internet with remote control on TV/Media Center/Wii are things we have been working on for years and thus we are proud to say that Ebay and Philips have selected us to provide an Ebay channel on the new sets.
Based on our mceAuction technology we have adapted the Ebay content to work seamlessly on the new Philips systems.We will provide the channel via our Jaast brand.
We will be providing the Ebay channel on all new Philips Net TV enabled devices!
Ebay navigation on the TV is very simple, the same intiutive way of browsing Ebay as with mceAuction on Microsoft Media Center and Jaast on Wii.
The 8000 series are connected via wire compared to the 9000 series/Cinema 21:9 which are connected via WiFi.
Picture of initial Net TV launch at IFA 2008 (note the Ebay logo is missing).
You can download the Philips Net TV – Feature Press Release.
Beta 2 of the new mcePhone 3.0 got improved a lot in the last days. We tuned the video calling functions, the installation process and lot more. Just give it a try and post any feedback via our contact form.
