News
Storage maintenance
02/21/2012 09:40
Unfortunately the RAID storage system of our new servers (migration last december) needs some maintenance. Therefore there probably will be two short outages tonight. One for preparation around 19pm UTC, and the actual hard-drive exchange at about 2am UTC. We sorry for any inconvenience caused by this.
Caution: If you try to use Mind42 using this time have an eye on wether the application really saves your changes. If the server gets unreachable while you are working, a connection warning will show and your changes won't be saved.
Update: The maintenance finished according to plan without any problems and Mind42 is fully up and running again.
Caution: If you try to use Mind42 using this time have an eye on wether the application really saves your changes. If the server gets unreachable while you are working, a connection warning will show and your changes won't be saved.
Update: The maintenance finished according to plan without any problems and Mind42 is fully up and running again.
Webserver migration
12/21/2011 16:33
Today we finished our migration. This hopefully ends the unplanned outages (as reported in November - and the reason for the migration), as well as the planned ones during the last two weeks to actually do the migration.
Our new server is much faster than the old one and should handle the amount of users we currently have more easily. Also we hope to be more flexible in the future regarding infrastructure problems.
Unfortunately it took about two hours longer than planned and we had to shut down Mind42 completely for this last phase of the migration because users still tried create maps and tried to use Mind42 (although there were errors and warnings all over the place). So in the end: Thanks for your understanding. We hope nobody was scared off by Mind42 being completely down :)
Merry Christmas!
Our new server is much faster than the old one and should handle the amount of users we currently have more easily. Also we hope to be more flexible in the future regarding infrastructure problems.
Unfortunately it took about two hours longer than planned and we had to shut down Mind42 completely for this last phase of the migration because users still tried create maps and tried to use Mind42 (although there were errors and warnings all over the place). So in the end: Thanks for your understanding. We hope nobody was scared off by Mind42 being completely down :)
Merry Christmas!
Database migration
12/07/2011 10:43
As mentioned in the last post we are planning a server transition. At the moment we don't have the infrastructure to make this transition without downtimes (but we are moving toward one). So this weekend we are making the first step, and transition our database to a new server. With this step we are actually setting up two database servers which are replicated so that in the future we have an immediately available fallback in case the main server experiences problems.
We have scheduled this transition during the weekend (were Mind42 has less users) to avoid any complications for the majority of users. But this is only the first step, and there will be at least one more downtime when we are transitioning the application itself and shut down the old hardware. Thanks for your understanding.
We have scheduled this transition during the weekend (were Mind42 has less users) to avoid any complications for the majority of users. But this is only the first step, and there will be at least one more downtime when we are transitioning the application itself and shut down the old hardware. Thanks for your understanding.
Recent outages
11/04/2011 11:02
As some of you might have noticed, we had two outages during the last week (both lasted approximately for one hour). We hate it when something like this happens, because in the worst case it means that somebodies hard work is lost due to not being able to save the mind map.
The reason for these outages is simple: we are outgrowing our capacities - again (which is a good thing :)). So we applied some quick fixes which hopefully should help avoiding any further outages, and started planning for a server transition. If everything is working out as we are planning it now, it should be a seamless transition this time (not like the last one where Mind42 was unavailable for at least half a day).
Thank your for your understanding. We'll post an update as soon as we can report more on the upcoming server transition.
The reason for these outages is simple: we are outgrowing our capacities - again (which is a good thing :)). So we applied some quick fixes which hopefully should help avoiding any further outages, and started planning for a server transition. If everything is working out as we are planning it now, it should be a seamless transition this time (not like the last one where Mind42 was unavailable for at least half a day).
Thank your for your understanding. We'll post an update as soon as we can report more on the upcoming server transition.
Updated Terms of Service
08/29/2011 09:13
As part of the sign up all users have to agree to our Terms of Service, and from time to time these kind of things change.
For Mind42 we just did our first ToS change since we went online in 2007. While the new ToS may look a bit more complicated, the idea behind them is easy: Since we, at Mind42's parent company IRIAN, created more and more services in the past, we needed a set of rules that works for all of them, be it a chat (without the need to create an account) or a mind mapping application (with an account and persistent data and so on). We are also preparing a new and easy way to license Mind42 for your own environment, also this possibility is now covered.
If you want to have a look you'll find our Terms at http://mind42.com/terms. Although newly structured we still try to deliver the same message: The rights for your content lay with you. Please use the service only as intended and don't try to break it intentionally. We do our best to keep the service running at all times but there might be planned and unplanned downtimes for deploying updates or other maintenance work.
For Mind42 we just did our first ToS change since we went online in 2007. While the new ToS may look a bit more complicated, the idea behind them is easy: Since we, at Mind42's parent company IRIAN, created more and more services in the past, we needed a set of rules that works for all of them, be it a chat (without the need to create an account) or a mind mapping application (with an account and persistent data and so on). We are also preparing a new and easy way to license Mind42 for your own environment, also this possibility is now covered.
If you want to have a look you'll find our Terms at http://mind42.com/terms. Although newly structured we still try to deliver the same message: The rights for your content lay with you. Please use the service only as intended and don't try to break it intentionally. We do our best to keep the service running at all times but there might be planned and unplanned downtimes for deploying updates or other maintenance work.
SimpleMeet.me
08/10/2011 11:41
Irian, the company behind Spaaze has launched a new service. It's a neat simple and fast chat service: SimpleMeet.me
SimpleMeet.me allows you to easily get in touch with one or more people - no signup or setup required. Just go to http://simplemeet.me, pass your code to your contact and immediately start a chat. Communication made unprecedentedly easy.
SimpleMeet.me allows you to easily get in touch with one or more people - no signup or setup required. Just go to http://simplemeet.me, pass your code to your contact and immediately start a chat. Communication made unprecedentedly easy.
Build#50 - Emails and Chrome
06/22/2011 15:21
Besides some bugfixes (e.g. broken icons in exports) we've mainly focused on e-mails and Chrome for this release.
E-Mails: Some time ago we changed our strategy regarding e-mails. We switched from sending them from our own servers (which weren't trusted very much in the global e-mail network) to a commercial e-mail service provider. Since then, more e-mails than before have been delivered successfully, and we also have been able to statistically analyze the cases where delivery failed. Therefore we've now rolled out a new e-mail validator which checks much more then before, so that we can tell users about problems instead of failing silently.
Chrome: In the past we got some mails about focus problems in Chrome (creating a node using the keyboard shortcut didn't focus the text). I think we got rid of all of these problems with the last Dojo update. Therefore I finally created a Chrome Webstore entry for Mind42. So if you're a Chrome user and want Mind42 to show up with a nice app icon simply go to Mind42 in the Chrome Webstore and install it. Ratings and reviews would be very welcome as well :)
E-Mails: Some time ago we changed our strategy regarding e-mails. We switched from sending them from our own servers (which weren't trusted very much in the global e-mail network) to a commercial e-mail service provider. Since then, more e-mails than before have been delivered successfully, and we also have been able to statistically analyze the cases where delivery failed. Therefore we've now rolled out a new e-mail validator which checks much more then before, so that we can tell users about problems instead of failing silently.
Chrome: In the past we got some mails about focus problems in Chrome (creating a node using the keyboard shortcut didn't focus the text). I think we got rid of all of these problems with the last Dojo update. Therefore I finally created a Chrome Webstore entry for Mind42. So if you're a Chrome user and want Mind42 to show up with a nice app icon simply go to Mind42 in the Chrome Webstore and install it. Ratings and reviews would be very welcome as well :)
Build#49 - IE9
06/15/2011 14:33
This is the first update to Mind42 for quite some time. Long term Mind42 users might remember that I used to blog about every release of Mind42 on my personal blog and that there hasn't been an update in while. Well, that wasn't because I quit working for this project, but because there really wasn't going on a lot in the past. So, ..., now, ..., changes! :)
1. We won't use the blog any longer and removed all references from the homepage. As you probably guessed we'll use this "News" section directly on the homepage for future announcements (including planned downtimes).
2. Also we changed the navigation a little bit. Now the buttons "About" and "Help" are actually sections which feature a second level navigation. This is actually a preparation to add more content in the future (like a licensing info page).
3. Finally we updated our underlying JavaScript Library (Dojo Toolkit) to version 1.6.1, which makes Mind42 compatible with IE 9. While it was working before using the compatibility mode this is no longer necessary.
After this little sign of life (more to come!) after a long period of silence I'm only left with referring to the usual feedback possibilities. In our case that's the mail form (under Help/Contact). So if you have any questions, bug reports or general feedback don't hesitate to drop us a line.
1. We won't use the blog any longer and removed all references from the homepage. As you probably guessed we'll use this "News" section directly on the homepage for future announcements (including planned downtimes).
2. Also we changed the navigation a little bit. Now the buttons "About" and "Help" are actually sections which feature a second level navigation. This is actually a preparation to add more content in the future (like a licensing info page).
3. Finally we updated our underlying JavaScript Library (Dojo Toolkit) to version 1.6.1, which makes Mind42 compatible with IE 9. While it was working before using the compatibility mode this is no longer necessary.
After this little sign of life (more to come!) after a long period of silence I'm only left with referring to the usual feedback possibilities. In our case that's the mail form (under Help/Contact). So if you have any questions, bug reports or general feedback don't hesitate to drop us a line.
