Vincent wrote an excellent review on the PamFax service. The review was published end of May, right after we upgraded our platform to PamFax3. At the time the review was written we were still sorting out some technical post-migration issues.
Vincent mentions that the PamFax service has variable speed, this is something I’d like to clarify. After the lauch of PamFax3 we indeed had some performance issues, but these were related to the new hardware environment in which PamFax3 operated. As a result we did not see the anticipated performance stability compared to PamFax2.
This issue was quickly resolved and we have since not had any performance issues, fax delivery is fast and reliable.
We are also looking at how we can improve our online communication strategy and extend it beyond the occasional product announcement. Point taken!
We’d like to thank Vincent for his review and, especially as he is a web designer, for the positive feedback on the user interface and usability.
Link to the article: http://www.vincentroman.com/blog/review-of-the-online-service-pamfax
Written by Dick on 13. August 2010 in category PamFax
I’m sure this went mostly unnoticed as Skype 4.x does not show the online users that predominantly anymore – but Skype exceeded the 20 million online users mark a few days ago.
Congratulations to Skype for this achievement (I’m sure many millions will follow!).
Jean-Mercier has an interesting blog site where he grinds the numbers on Skype. You will find information about the online user growth, analysis on the quarterly results numbers and much more. Definitely worth taking a look at http://skypenumerology.blogspot.com
Written by Dick on 11. November 2009 in category General News
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)…
Written by Christoph on 20. October 2009 in category Jaast Digital Home Solutions,PamConsult
In our efforts to re-brand all our websites in our new corporate design, we have now updated PamNews.com to a new and shiny design. We hope that this makes it easier to find all information you are looking for.
Want to see how the blog looked before the update? Here you are:
Any comments are welcome.
Written by Christoph on 1. October 2009 in category General News
On our search for a good file server and centralized backup solution, I stumbled across Windows Home Server. The description sounds very good and seemed to be the perfect solution for our office: this server system automatically backs up Windows clients over night and has a unique data-storage system, which makes it possible to add and remove different harddrives to the storage, making it larger without the hassle of moving files from one drive to the other. It’s a kind of software raid (stripe).
It also comes with a handy administration console, which can be accessed from every client machine. This console can be extended easily with addins by third party software developers. As some TapiRex customers already asked about a Windows Home Server console addin for TapiRex, it was a good point to get started trying this new Windows Server operating system.
So I tried to find it in the MSDN Subscriber downloads, as we have several subscriptions to MSDN Universal, which theoretically includes all Microsoft operating systems and all other software. As I was unable to find a download there, I googled the web and found out that Microsoft decided not to make Windows Home Server available in MSDN Subscriber downloads. Urgh. So we pay lots of money to not be able to get access to a Windows operating system to develop new addons for it. What a decision…
So I just ordered a Windows Home Server license from eBay, which was delivered quickly and did only cost around 90 Euros.
Installation
When installing the Windows Home Server incl. Power Pack 1 (which is based on Windows 2003 Server) on one of our servers in our server rack, it stumbled upon our 3Ware RAID controller, which is installed with 2 x 160GB harddrives as system drives in a mirrored array to speed up the operating system. I was able to load additional drivers for that controller from an USB stick, but when the system rebooted after the first installation step, it has forgotten about the driver.
Googling for this issue, I had to find out that this is a bug in the Windows Home Server installation 
. As the text-based setup does not have access to a USB stick to reload the drivers, I had to go out to buy an external 3.5″ USB disk drive, as the setup only accepts additional drivers from the A: drive. Do you remember 3.5″ disks? It was not that easy to find a disk to store the driver to get past this installation step. These disks have gone so rare here in the office 
. Previous installations of Windows 2003 did not have this problem…
But after that, setup was pretty easy. I was able to install all hardware components and to setup the Drive Extender. After setup, you have to install a small client connector software on every client machine that should backup to that Windows Home Server, which was pretty easy as well.
In-day-usage
The good thing is that the backups worked pretty well. Also, some of the available plugins from third-party developers are very useful.
But there also were some problems:
Delays in accessing shared folders: we experienced some delays in accessing shared folders on the server. Every employee in the office has some drives mapped to shared folders on the file server. This includes a personal folder and some general folders for everyone. While browsing in these subfolders on these drives, there was sometimes a lag of several seconds that makes it impossible to work with it fluently. For example, we store our downloads company-wide in a folder on the file-server. But the “save file” dialog in the webbrowser sometimes hung up for up to 20 seconds before it was able to show the folder and save the file. Once the data transfer starts, it’s fast and reliable.
Bug in drive’s size-calculation: When you map shared folders on the Windows Home Server as local drives, Windows XP and Vista are unable to show the correct drive size. After searching the web and asking some experts in Windows Home Server forums, I found out that this a known bug in Windows Home Server and that you can’t do anything about it:
Popups on all client machines: when you have the client connector software installed, all warnings from the Windows Home Server or one of it’s clients is shown on every client machine. So every user gets popup messages like “Computer X does not have virus protection installed”, “Backup on machine Y was not sucessful”, and many more. I was not able to find a way to customize these popups so that there are not shown to our apprentices for example.
So, after nearly 2 weeks in production, I am currently installing Windows 2008 Datacenter on that server machine, as the problems shown above disturbed our daily workflow that much that it was not worth it. We will install Windows Home Server as a VMWare virtual machine instead to do some software development on it. A PamFax addon is also an idea for it. What do you think?
I will report back how this all worked with Windows 2008. Does anyone have a different suggestion for a solid and fast file server operating system + client backup possibilities?
Written by Christoph on 15. January 2009 in category General News
Due to the summer holiday season the blog has been a bit quiet, but don’t be fooled. We are working hard on major projects that will launch after the holiday season is over.
First of all we are currently finalizing a major PamFax overhaul. This is neccessary due to the many changes and new features added since lauch in August 2007. Those areas that were not yet using our latest platform architecture have been ported to that. The result is more flexibility for future enhancements and a slight increase in performance on the user side as well as improves server utilization.
Most importantly though we have sort of silently launched the new PamFax credit packs and the Pro Plan. These are available via the new store at www.pamfax.biz/shop. The packs provide you with a significant discount and the Pro Plan also makes faxing really attractive. The Pay As You Go prices have been lowered as we were able to negotiate better rates due to the increased volume. Keep faxing and we’ll try to keep pushing the prices down!
With the mentioned platform update we will also make available a new function for business users called the PamFax Business Control Panel. Very similar to the BCP you have at Skype, our BCP allows you to create a group and add Skypenames to the group to provide them with PamFax credit. We also provide the owner of the group with a set of tools to control the account, auto top up users, add/remove users and a lot more. This is a great function for companies using Skype with PamFax. And the good news, using the PamFax BCP is totally free!
We are working on a new Pamela for Skype release (4.5) which has two main new functions. One is a call scheduler which allows you to schedule Skype calls and Pamela will remind you of them automatically. Never miss a call anymore! The other function is automatic conference call manager. Ever needed to join or initiate a conference call and either the time zone or other commitments did not allow you to be at the PC? Well, now Pamela will help you with that. So, stay tuned for more news as the release date comes closer (yes, I wrote a post few months ago saying the same but we want to make sure the new release is as solid as possible).
Our Pamela Call Recorder product already has an update made public. Version 4.5 can be downloaded for free from www.pamcorder.com. Pamela Call Recorder is available in Skype under the tools menu and then Do More (just like PamFax). We’re going to release a minor update shortly with an automatic version check module facilitate an auto-update function. This is important as we want to inform people when there are new releases.
We at PamConsult wish everyone a relaxing holiday season and you will hear from us again shortly.
Written by Dick on 20. August 2008 in category PamFax
ct, a famous german computer magazine just printed an article about our software Pamela for Skype 4.0. And we are just preparing the next version 4.1 of Pamela with cool new features! Keep an eye on this blog for updates.
Click the image to read the full article (in german):
Written by Christoph on 25. January 2008 in category Pamela for Skype
We released PamFax final today!
SkypeJournal wrote up a nice article on the release here.
Thanks to all beta users, testers, translators, etc. in making this a cool release!
Written by Christoph on 19. December 2007 in category PamFax
I just found this in Garrett Smith’s blog about PamFax: “[...] For the first time in a few months, I am excited about something related to Skype. This extension will make my day (and thousands of others) a little easier and will serve as another tool for business users“.
Thanks about these nice words 
. I hope more users and other bloggers will read this as well…
Written by Christoph on 19. September 2007 in category PamFax
I am just coming back from Prague, where PamFax was announced as the winner of the Skype Mashup Competition 2007!
This competition honored the best mashup of Skype’s API with other API(s). The Mashup Cup was presented to Dick and me by Paul Amery and Sten Tamkivi of Skype at Skype’s Developer and Beta Tester event last night in Prague. Read the complete announcement from Skype. Photos of the event will follow.
We are very proud to win this competition after being awarded as “Most innovative buyer’s applicatuion 2005″ by eBay Germany and getting the “eBay Star Developer Award 2006” from eBay USA.
Thanks for this honor and all the congratulations.
Written by Christoph on 15. September 2007 in category PamConsult,PamFax
