WebCards News and Updates

Now Available: WebCards Version 2.6

Today marks the release of the next version of WebCards, version 2.6. Here is a quick summary of the new features available:

• New function to search iTune’s massive library of audio and add an excerpt of any song to your cards
• Assign poems to specific categories
• Assign audio to specific categories
• Social media links on the “card sent” page
• Random images on main page
• Ability to pay for cards at a later date through your member centre
• Caching of search cloud to save resources
• Function to reset admin password
• Edit admin account – change password and email address
• Ability to link audio rather than having to upload
• upport for all audio files, rather than just mp3s

Please take a look at the whatsnew.txt file inside the WebCards zip file for a full description of all the new features and bug fixes.

Download WebCards version 2.6 from your Member Centre now. If you are not a current WebCards member please subscribe today for instant access.

Member Centre Enhancements

Just a quick note to let all our current customers know of some enhancements we have made to our Member Centre.

You can now login and access your download and support area via SSL. Just visit https://www.mywebcards.net/members/ and all your information will be kept securely.

We have also made some changes to our support ticket system and fixed a few bugs. If you still have any problems with it, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

photo credit: BlakJakDavy

Forum Back Online (Again)

I have made a few changes to the forum again and it is back online.

I know from the number of emails I have been receiving that people really like having the forum. I have worked hard to delete all the spam posts and update the phpBB security settings.

From now on, all users will have to manually verify their email addresses and their first three posts will have to be manually authorised by an administrator.

I hope that will be enough to stop the spam bots, but we will see.

Support Forum Back Online

I had to close the support forum for a few days while I cleaned up some of the spam.

I apologise to anybody who saw some of the horrible stuff that was posted, I will try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Unfortunately, I have now had to now enable to registrations and CAPTCHA to try and avoid the problem happening again.

Sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.

New WebCards Website Design

Today I unveil the new WebCards Website design. I hope you like it.

The site should be easier to navigate and the HTML is much more lightweight. The XHTML validates (mostly) to the XHTML Strict specification. Please let me know if you have any problems with the new design or experience any errors. Leave your ffedback over at the forums.

WebCards Example: Immerse in Art

I have added a new example WebCards installation to the WebCards Gallery.

It is an excellent example so please check it out.

I have also added a new forum to the WebCards Forum for you to post your own example of WebCards. I will add all the good ones to the WebCards Gallery.

A Few New WebCards Features

I thought I would share a few of the new features that I have added to WebCards over the last few weeks. I haven’t posted a development update in a while and I am keen to let people know how development is progressing.

1. New mail sending class

I have implemented PHP Mailer into WebCards. This replaces the old SMTP class that was used. I don’t believe in re-inventing the wheel and so decided to include an excellent, well-maintained mail class for sending mail. Sending email is very much the heart of WebCards, it is important that it works. Using PHP Mailer expands the sending methods to include mail(), SMTP, sendmail, Qmail and potentially even Gmail if you wish.

2. Admin profiles

Each administrator has their own profile which includes standard information such as name and email address and the ability to change their email address. This opens up the possibility for user permissions and also enables the implementation of a password recovery feature.

3. Administrator logs

In addition to the email logs, WebCards now features administrator logs. This tracks all activity such as editing images and templates, logging in, deleting cards and also tracks the cron logs when delayed cards are sent.

Please post on the forums if you have any comments or feature requests. Some requests that have been posted on the forums are already being implemented in the next WebCards release.

New service: WebCards Installation

We are now offering paid-for installations of WebCards for US$20.

This is a solution for people who are either not confident with installaing WebCards on their own server or who are having trouble.

We are able to modify the WebCards codebase to accommodate just about any server. We can do this because we are the authors of the project. If we cannot sucessfully install WebCards on your server you will, of course, not be charged. We may also offer free installation in the future in return for allowing us to debug the program on your server.

Please see the listing on the SourceForge.net service listing page for complete information.

If you have any questions please feel free to post them on the forums.

How to Give Something Back to WebCards

Has WebCards been particularly useful to you? Have you seen an increase in visitors since you installed WebCards? Why not give something back to WebCards?

Why not make a donation to help support the website running costs? I have recently revamped the donation page to make it easier to show your support for WebCards. Every penny you can donate counts.

Do you have a WebCards installation you are particularly proud of? Send the link and I will add it to the WebCards Gallery

Site on a new webhost

Just to let everybody know that the site has been moved to a new webhost. I apologise for any database errors you have been receiving over the last couple of days. These were related to moving over the data.

I was getting tired of the constant downtime and the final straw came when I received this email from the old webhost:

Monitored by two third party companies, ChargerTek’s Uptime has hit it’s 200th Day at 100%

Here’s to going the whole nine yards!

Stats can be seen on the ChargerTek Homepage.

An advantage of the new host is the availability of PHP5. I will be posting details of how PHP5 fits into the WebCards plan in the next week or so.