Zoomorama Blog

Problem with our Servers, Tuesday August 26

(en Français plus bas)

We experienced a devastating bug while making an update for our server software. Some zoomoramas have been entirely deleted from our database. That means that we have lost the URL (web address) for your zoomoramas. Since each URL has a unique security code, with more possible combinations than galaxies in the universe, it will be impossible for us to recover them. Sometimes too much security settings has unforeseen consequences.

Our proposed solution is to ask you, with our deepest apologies, to re-upload your zoomoramas. You will automatically recover the correct URL and all will be back to normal.

Needless to say that we have learned our lessons, both in our database structure, and in our backup procedure. We apply these changes in the coming days.

We apologize the inconvenience and ask for your understanding.

FRANCAIS

Nous avons eu un bug dévastateur en faisant une mise à jour de nos logiciels serveurs. Un certain nombre de zoomoramas ont été entièrement supprimés de notre base de données. Cela signifie que nous avons perdu l'URL (l'adresse web) pour les zoomoramas. Puisque chaque URL a un code de sécurité unique, avec plus de combinaisons possibles que de galaxies dans l'univers, il serait impossible pour nous de les récupérer. Nos avons trop voulu sécuriser vos données sur nos serveurs et cela a entrainé ce problème.

 

Notre solution proposée est de vous demander, en comptant sur votre aimable tolérance, de re-télécharger vos zoomoramas effacés. Vous récupérerez automatiquement l'URL originale et tout rentrera dans l'ordre. 

 

Inutile de dire que nous avons appris la leçon, tant pour la structure de notre base de données, que pour notre procédure de secours. Nous mettrons en oeuvre ces changements dans les jours qui viennent. 

 

Nous vous présentons toutes nos excuses pour le désagrément et comptons sur votre compréhension.

Launch Party for Zoomorama.com site in Beta

It has been a long wait, but we finaly launched our new, entirely redesigned, web site in Beta. Now you can share your zoomorama with all your friends, and see how other creative authors are using Zooming to publish their pictures and videos.

Our friends at Paris-Match magazine came to testify how they enjoy working with ZoomCreator. They said it was the first time they did not have to worry about the size of an image, or the format of a video (premium accounts, coming soon), and how easy it was to publish. It was wonderful to have them among us.

But ZoomCreator is much more than simply sharing pictures and video, we are truly becoming a rich media widget creation too. With your great feedback we are working on making ZoomCreator, and our web site, more open and more powerful.

It turns out ZoomCreator is also becoming a fun replacement for Powerpoint presentation ! We did not expect it, but why not. It's true that Powerpoint is not that great for creating free form layouts, and it cannot zoom ! So have fun with it on your computer. Simply go "preview" in the "view" menu, or press F7 ("ESC" to get out of preview mode).

Download the new ZoomCreator to experience the power of zooming, and widget creation.

Here is the video of the party, in 3 minutes (in French). You can see the team at half-way through the video. Thanks for some great work guys ! Missing were our partners in Vietnam, especially Hao, Wai, Long, Nam, and Nhut. We missed them ! They are doing great work and we love working with them. Thanks guys !

Launch in Beta of Zoomorama.com and ZoomCreator

We are proud to announce the Beta version launch of the Zoomorama Web site and ZoomCreator Authoring tool.

The new web site will allow you to better manage your zoomoramas, and to share with the community your creations. Users can subscribe to your page to be alerted by email of any new zoomorama, you can subscribe yourself to a profile, select your favorite profile or zoomorama, send zoomomails to other members, etc...

As for ZoomCreator we have redesigned it and made it even more functional. You can now import your pictures from Flickr directly, align images automatically, rotate videos as easily as pictures, and as always update your zoomorama online with differential updates. You can now also place links inside the page (in the Text box menu you will find the link tool).

Soon we will offer premium account that will enable you to upload your videos directly to zoomorama without having to place them on YouTube. Premium account will also have no limits on the size of each zoomorama, as well as 5Gb of storage instead of 2Gb for free account.

We hope to see you on www.Zoomorama.com soon. Let us know what you think of the new design.

Download ZoomCreator HERE

 

Back to Normal

We are back to normal this morning. Checking into a few issues after recovery but they should not affect our performance.

Thank you for your understanding.

Site down and poor server performances on Feb 26th.

Some of you may have noticed poor server performances today, in addition to some downtime this morning and this evening. This is due to some power outages at our hosting facilities which in turn apparently damaged one of our load balancers.

We are sorry for the inconvenience that may have cause our users. Trust that we are doing everything to make the situation normal again as soon as possible.

Thank you for your understanding. We will keep you informed of our progress to fully recover.

Alpha Launch of Zoomomail

So here is, finaly, the release of Zoomomail in Alpha. Not everything works, and not all we already have working in the lab is included. We learned from the Paris Photo Show that we should concentrate on Pictures first, then offer Video and all the other things we want to share.

But it's a beginning ! Years of working on Zooming, since 1995 with Sony (!), and a lot of technical efforts in the last few months made this possible. The team is in place, from Paris to Saigon, the servers are up and going, and the early feedback is good. We are ready to change the way photography will be perceived for ever, and how we interact with images on the web.

It starts today. I hope you will join us: please go to www.Zoomorama.com and download Zoomomail.