We started with PamFax for Windows in 2007, added Mac OSX and Linux last year and now will soon add PamFax for Android.

Why Android? The main reason is the fact that the OS is open and allows for access to local data. This means that PamFax for Android is able to access PDFs and other documents stored on the Android device.

Development is currently ongoing and we hope to have a beta ready in June with the target to launch PamFax for Android in July. PamFax for Android will support Android 2.2 which has just been released.

You may ask, what about iPhone or Blackberry? As iPhone does not allow access to local stored documents we are focusing on the area of application integration on the iPhone platform. An example is a document management/storage application or an application which takes a picture of a document and then can send this as a fax document.

On the Blackberry side we are starting the investigation to see if a PamFax application makes sense. The fact that Blackberry targets the same market as we do with PamFax might make offering a PamFax application an interesting option.

This time it was much longer than we had even dreamt of, but this was caused by a few server settings which our hosting partner fixed.

Thanks for hanging in during the upgrade process. I know some of you had a hard time when PamFax was offline.

Let me explain a bit why this update was so important and complex.

It all started last week when our hoster updated our server park to a full load balanced cluster. This was needed to cope with the increase in traffic we have had the past year. PamFax3 is much more efficient when it comes to scaling up so we decided now is a good time to put new hardware in as we need to do the upgrade anyway.

Then after the upgrade there were settings to be checked, etc. This took time. Then on Monday late afternoon (European time), we took PamFax offline. The team started to convert the databases and migrate users data to the new system. This is a huge amount of data so it took time. We unfortunately had to take PamFax offline to do this.

We did the databse conversion with the help of Amazon EC2 cloud servers, we had up to 15 running at a time!

After this we upgraded the core systems. These being the various modules PamFax consists of. PamFax3 is a complete new development and not a mere upgrade as the version number might imply.

Based on our experience and close monitoring of the PamFax2 system, we started designing PamFax3 back in summer last year. We wanted to have a very modular and scalable system which is able to process a lot of data and grow with us. We designed the system from scratch with these and other requirements in mind.

So, after the usual birth pains we’re now up and running. Thank you for hanging in during the upgrade process, I know it was not easy for some of you. I still hope you will forgive us this time as we do not do updates regularly (last one was PamFax2 in April 2009). We designed PamFax3 in such a way that we do not anticipate having to take the system down anymore!

You may now ask, what does PamFax3 offer? Well, first of all blazing fast fax delivery. In addition we redid the PamFax Portal design to be easier to use. There is also a new login/sign up screen. You can now login with your OpenID, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and a bunch of other accounts. In addition many small improvements and features were added. The PamFax BCP was renamed to “My Company” to make the company group faxing capability a bit clearer.

Last but not least, in June/July we will also be adding a new client application of PamFax for Android.

For partners we now have the PamFax API, this allows you to fully embed the PamFax functionality easily and quickly into your application or device. We already have a few project going and plan to announce them soon. If you are interested to join, let us know. The same faxing cost model applies to the API as when using PamFax – however no additional charges are made when using the API.

We are very excited to have PamFax3 and hope you will enjoy our efforts. We’re back now with a very powerful platform and based on it we have many plans and ideas for new stuff. Stay tuned!

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!

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.

4.5 has some new features and changes which I will describe in this post.

The new version has two new main functions: Call Scheduler and Auto Conference Call Manager

Call Scheduler: This function allows you to schedule Skype calls and Pamela will popup a reminder at the preset time before the call is supposed to happen. The call scheduler has several options like recurring calls (great for those weekly/monthly calls). When a call notification is shown you can easily click on an icon which initiates the call for you.

Conference Call Manager: With this tool you can remotely start conference calls, bookmark conference calls or join calls. The situation of use would be where you are to start a conference call but need to attend other business. In this case you can define that when a particular Skype user calls you that Pamela creates the conference call (and you can record it also). The same works for outbound calls, you call a collegue and Pamela will create the conference call for you. You can also click on a call button and Pamela will automatically create a conference call with all people you have defined in the group.

In addition we have done major redesign of the birthday section which now shows a list of all past, current and future birthdays of your contacts. Those that do not have a date set in the Skype profile do not show obviously. New is also the option to customize the standard birthday chat greeting message before sending it.

We’ve had requests from people who installed Pamela on another computer, to be able to import older recordings. This function has been added to 4.5 and you can now easily import recordings into Pamela.

The video recording component, although not yet there where we want it to be, has been improved. Many had issues with Pamela unable to locate the Skype video, this has been fixed. Stay tuned for more development here.

The sound options in Pamela have been simplified as the configuration in 4.0 was very technical and many could not figure out how that worked.

The audio engine in Pamela has been updated and performs better. We have also achieved considerable performance improvements when starting Pamela.

Furthermore icons have been updated for better clearity. Menus have been resorted so they are more logical. Some settings regarding default setting of various options changed based on user feedback.

If you are a current Pamela user (not Call Recorder!), you can upgrade for free by downloading the latest version. To do that open Pamela and click on the Help menu and then “Check for update”. Download the new 4.5 version and run the installer. There is no need to uninstall Pamela for the upgrade.

We hope you enjoy the features of Pamela.

- In the next three days, Dick and myself will be in Athens, Greece at the Skype Developer Days 2008. This is a great yearly event and always a great opportunity to meet the Skype staff and a lot of interesting people working with Skype. After Prague, Czech Republic back in 2007 and Tallin, Estland in 2006, we are really looking forward to visit Athens this year for this event.

- TapiRex updated: We finally managed to update TapiRex to version 1.7.2. This update fixes some problems like the error message after wakeup, reverse lookup in Canada, …
Just download and install the newest version from the downloadpage.

We also started an experiment with Open Source: the next version of mceTapiRex has been published as Open Source. We have uploaded the complete source code of the current development version of mceTapiRex V2 to CodePlex: Open mceTapiRexV2 on CodePlex. We hope that many developers join us to develop this very nice TapiRex plugin to the next stage. If this works well, we can start thinking of making other components of the TapiRex system open source…

Horst will do customer support for all products (Pamela, PamFax, Scendix Software) and will also be our “face” on fares and exhibitions. Some of you might already know him as he already worked from time to time for us at Cebit and other fares.

Michael is a PHP develeoper who will add his experience to various projects we are currently working on.

In Facebook, you can now see your fax history with status of your latest faxes and even start a new fax very easy. If you want to see if a fax was delivered, it’s now only one click away:

In Salesforce.com, the integration goes much further: You not only have the fax history embedded in Salesforce, but you also have the ability to start a fax from any Contact, Account, User or Lead! So no more copy&paste to send a fax to one of your contacts, as PamFax starts with name and fax number prefilled and you only have to select what you want to fax and then send the fax.

And another integration is currently in development: A Windows Vista sidebar gadget. With this gadget, you have your latest faxes and fax status right on your desktop so you can check their status very easily. As with the other integraton tools, you can simply access your PamFax Portal or start a new fax with a single click. This will be available shortly.

Enjoy this new faxing comfort and please let us know what you think.

We see the user base growing as well as the number of processed fax jobs/sent pages.

We are constantly monitoring the system and customer feedback and apply the learnings to new releases. We have done a lot to provide better and clearer feedback to PamFax users regarding error situations and how to resolve them. This results in higher success rates and a better customer experience. To be able to provide easier feedback, we have started a poll section of the forum where you are able to easily provide feedback to some thoughts we have. Help us improve PamFax here.

Another topic for us is integration. We think that PamFax users will want to have access to PamFax from other applications as well. So currently development is working on integrating PamFax in Facebook, Salesforce.com and in the Vista Sidebar. The integration will focus on providing information currently available in the Portal in other platforms. This will enable a PamFax user to have an overview of his fax account from multiple locations. Stay tuned for more information.