Third Light Newsletter - February 2012

Welcome to the February 2012 newsletter — our bi-monthly update on developments at Third Light, with news about changes and improvements made to our digital asset management software, Intelligent Media Server (IMS). The intended purpose of this newsletter is to keep existing and prospective Third Light clients informed about new features.

Video Guides to IMS v6.0

To help you make the most of the new features in IMS v6.0, we've prepared a series of videos to illustrate how our product solves common media management challenges.

Play video

Managing users and groups If you have a large number of users to manage, IMS v6.0 provides a simple and elegant way to save you time. By offering user groups, you can flexibly separate roles and permissions and still keep your users in orderly and well-defined roles.

Would you like to see more videos? Click for a complete list

Remote Support Access

Appliances only

Having the ability to remotely login to your server provides us with a way to provide a quick and effective diagnosis, so this month we have introduced a new feature to allow you to temporarily open your server to Third Light support staff.

This new feature is available on the Configuration > System Administration page, and offers a simple on/off switch for remote support access. When enabled, Third Light support staff can login to your server as an administrator to help answer your questions. If disabled, Third Light has no access to your site.

This feature is carefully integrated with OpenID, and provides a highly specific, secure and audited way to open your server to Third Light when necessary. By default, remote support is disabled.

When it comes to providing fast and efficient support, we're keen to understand and share information with you to get to the bottom of your questions quickly.

Features and Updates

JPEG Quality Settings

The default quality setting of JPEG images generated for thumbnails and previews has been increased, in line with upward trends in network access speeds. This update affects generated files that IMS creates just after uploads.

Performance Updates

Several intensive functions, including the Picture Desk view, event listing and timeline have been significantly accelerated with a new set of performance upgrades. Additionally, we have streamlined the code used on busy pages like the Console, so that the page loads more quickly.

IMS v6.0 incorporates a suite of speed-enhancing features, which are designed to optimise the page load time and overall performance of busy sites, but for best results (and the best look and feel) we recommend using the latest browser technology you can, such as IE 9, Chrome 16, Firefox 9 or Safari 5.1.

e-Commerce Taxes Update

Third Light's tax rules have been updated for the Quebec PST tax rate changes introduced in Canada on 1 January 2012. Provincial Sales Tax (PST) was increased from 8.5% to 9.5%. If you are trading in Canada, this update ensures your checkout calculations for orders shipped between provinces are accurate.

Bing Translations and Language Packs

IMS v6.0 is now integrated with Microsoft's Bing Translator, providing real-time translations to a wide range of languages. This is a quick way to get started with a translation of IMS v6.0's user interface. You will need to enter a freely-available Bing Application ID code on your Configuration > Site Options > Bing API page, before this feature is activated.

If you generate a language pack to a high standard, it is also possible to export the language pack for use on another IMS server. We have added tools on the Configuration > Themes & Languages > Languages page to allow translations to be exported from or imported to IMS.

Our technical partners in Norway, MarkedsPartner.no can supply a Norwegian translation pack. We hope to announce further translation packs in due course!

New Features In Beta

Geographic Search and Tagging

With a growing number of devices now incorporating GPS receivers, many digital images contain the exact position at which the photographer stood when taking the picture. This has numerous benefits as it provides an opportunity to map, search by proximity and refine search results using geography.

IMS v6.0 is set to include geographic mapping features as standard, including an innovative tagging tool which will populate the country, city and state (where appropriate) of your metadata using the GPS data in your files. This will mean that accurate, textual metadata content will be completed without any keyboard input required. This works well with IMS's V6's intelligent search suggestions.

IMS v6.0 API

We will shortly be releasing a rich API for Third Light IMS v6.0, which will provide programming and integration options for many of the features you see in the product. If you have ever wanted to upload files indirectly from another application, extract copies of files into an intranet page or call Third Light's search engine from another web site, our new API will provide a way to do these tasks.

Early access

Geographic search and tagging functionality and our API project are both currently in beta, so if you have an interest in testing these features prior to release, please email support@thirdlight.com.

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Hardware Renewal and Recycling

Third Light is currently engaged in a renewal project, which involves replacing a previous generation of server equipment with the latest technology. This renewal project allows us to enhance the performance of our services while also reducing our power consumption. That power saving in turn means that we can reduce our environmental footprint and avoid price increases related to the cost of electricity and carbon pricing.

We're working on our renewal project until early summer. As and when equipment is freed up, we plan to offer the previous generation of servers to charities or worthy causes who need the equipment to run Third Light IMS. If you work for an organisation that would benefit from owning enterprise server equipment to run your digital asset management solution, please drop us a note.

Telephone Support

Starting with IMS v6, you can add telephone support to your maintenance package. Telephone support offers a faster way to receive assistance, and is specifically designed for our corporate clients. If you would like to add telephone support to your account, please drop us a note at support@thirdlight.com to discuss pricing. You can extend your existing support and maintenance package with the telephone support option at any time.

IMS v5.3 End-Of-Life Reminder

IMS v5.3 will be retired on 1 January 2013, so there is plenty of time to test IMS v6.0 for 30 days before you make the switch. The upgrade is free. During the upgrade process, you will be given a tailored list of comments and suggestions so that you can check any specific changes that might affect you. Read more about the upgrade process...

Feedback and Referrals

We operate a referral scheme to reward any Third Light customer who directs a new client to us. If you know of a business that would benefit from using IMS, please make an introduction - we'll provide a period of free use on your account if they buy one of our products.

Every feature of IMS is based on your ideas and feedback. We keep a thorough record of all feedback and aim to implement the features that are most requested as part of our development plans. Simply email features@thirdlight.com to send us your comments.

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Third Light Ltd - The Digital Asset Management Specialists

http://www.thirdlight.com/