So what has happened since build 39? Mainly only little tweaks, like the preselection of the root node when opening a map, the map title showing up in the browser title and such things. Besides that of course bug fixes whenever we found one, and some updates to ensure browser compatibility e.g. with IE8. So nothing special, just maintenance.

Mind42 is a project (and kind of experiment) by Irian Solutions which I work for. At the moment I have to work on a lot of other things for my company, so there was no new stuff and is no new stuff in the making for Mind42. But of course it continues to live, and actually the user base grows pretty nice! That also lead to our 3rd server switch in the history of Mind42. New and stronger database server, and a new web-server (nginx instead of apache). I really like our new setup and I think it already pays of with faster response times and less downtimes.

Besides that I’ve done a new project which is publicly available. It started as an idea within Irian, but ended as a semi-private project of mine: Spaaze. It’s a virtual corkboard where you can organize all kinds of stuff. I use it on a daily base to keep track of all kinds of information I stumble upon during a day in the web. This means that when i stumble upon youtube videos (1 hour long google tech talks) or links I want to read later, or I hear a song in the radio look it up in iTunes, … - all this temporary stuff goes into my Spaaze, where I look at it later and then decide wether to keep the item on my corkboard or not. So it’s really a buffer for temporary information which I don’t want to store permanently in my browsers bookmarks and so on. On the other hand I keep track of permanent information in Spaaze. It’s like my own del.icio.us in a visual way, but additionally I keep todo lists in there and some youtube favorites and so on and so on. A screencast of how I use Spaaze is available on the page (which is a spaaze itself). Of course I hope that I can attract users with this service, but at the moment I’m the biggest user of Spaaze myself, and so I develop the features I need.

By the way: Spaaze implements OpenID, so if you have a Google or Yahoo account you don’t even have to sign up. Just sign in and give it a try. Maybe this concept of keeping track of information works for you as well.

Thank you for your understanding.

Update:
The problems are fixed by now. Thank you for your patience.

Du bist Terrorist from lexela on Vimeo.

Since the last post we had build #38 which was a bugfix and enhancement build, and yesterday we release build #39, which introduced some new feature which only the updated server software allowed us to do. All changes can (as always) be found in our changelog, but here comes the good stuff:

We’ve replace the piece of software which did the JPG/PNG/PDF exporting which on the one hand should give us better results (and less errors), and on the other hand more possibilities. Like this we hopefully got finally rid of the exported PDFs which can’t be opened by Adobe Reader (although other PDF applications like Apple Preview still have been able to open them). But the cool new thing is multi-page exporting. Just choose PDF, a paper format of choice and the orientation and you’ll receive an already splitted PDF perfectly suited for printing. Of course it’s still possible to export it in one big PDF, as it was before.

We are still tweaking around on this new piece of the server, so temporarily it could happen that the exported image contains no icons and mind map images, but we are confidendt to solve this minor issues during next week.

Although not mentioned yet, we also have a cool new collaboration feature. Since yesterday all collaborators which are offline while somebody else changes something on a shared map will receive a change notification. Like this it’s much easier to keep track on all the changes in the shared maps. We hope you enjoy these new features.

I think I have to explain this now…

I have a HDTV and of course, ever since I had it, I wanted a source which provides Full-HD to get the best out of it. I don’t have HD cable (since UPC charges ridiculously for a hand full of HD channels), but I have an XBOX 360 (720p gaming), a Macbook Pro running Frontrow (connected via VGA - not full HD), and a Playstation 3. Even when I bought the Playstation 3 I knew that for the (better) half I’ll use it as a BluRay player. And so I do. And so I can experience Full-HD. And I love it.

But I hate BluRays - more precisely the available assortment and pricing in the german market. For new BluRays they charge up to 30 €, and for back catalogue discs they still cost about the double price of the DVD of the same movie. I’m willing to pay a little bit more as an early adopter and I accept the higher resolution as a surplus which I have to pay for. But for me the higher resolution is not worth the doubled price. Therefore I hate BlueRays in the german market.

But thanks to the EU I don’t have to deal with the lunatic german market - I can bypass it. I can buy my BluRays in the UK even before they get released in the german market, for a cheaper price tag. So I did e.g. with Wall-E (great film!) on Amazon UK. There it’s available since November and currently sold for £17 (I admit that this price is a limited bargain, but still…). On the german Amazon it will be released in February for 29€. When I order in the UK I have to pay for the shipping, but no customs or anything. Therefore I love the EU.

I admit I’m a little bit more picky when it comes to movies (compared to games) concerning the available audio tracks. So while it’s perfectly OK (even normal in the meantime) for me to play games in English only, I still like to have the possibility of both audio tracks on movie disc. Nevertheless - If you know where to order, you definitely better of. Thanks to the EU.