ZURB

Uploading Images to Solidify is Now Faster Than a Speeding Bullet

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 10:00:00 -0700

When it came to uploading images in Solidify, you had to wait as the system rendered every thumbnail, in all the different sizes, and then uploaded everything to Amazon's cloud-storage, S3. You'd wait. And wait. And ... you get the idea. In some cases, with large images, it could take several minutes for one image to be uploaded and processed. We know how painful it can be to wait as each image renders. Which is why we've gone in, done some tinkering and made uploading images 92% faster!

Since Prototypes aren't assembled on mobile devices, we decided that serving up the full-size images would be fine until the thumbnail processing was complete. This allowed you to link up your prototype faster, and allowed us to silently process your images in the background. Check it out how fast it is now:

When you send out your test, Solidify will use the smaller and lighter images on the reports and test-taking phases. This change is part of our goal to get every request below the 30 second mark so you don't have to wait. And wait. And wait, over and over again.

Have any questions or feedback? Great, because we love to chat. Shoot us an email at support@solidifyapp.com.

Improve Your Notable Design Feedback Skills and Win Over Others

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:00:00 -0700

It's been great to see all of you using Notable to give contextual feedback on your projects. But contextual feedback is just one key aspect of giving and receiving great feedback. We've put together other key lessons in a two-hour class, which will help you improve your skills so you win over others.

The class, Mastering Design Feedback to Influence Other and Win Meetings, on Tuesday, May 28 will be taught by those of us that give feedback on a daily, even hourly basis. Of course, we at ZURB all use Notable as one of our tools to give feedback! Here's what you'll learn in the class:

Soliciting meaningful feedback to crush projects
Prioritizing feedback and iterating to wow your boss
Giving good feedback to win everyone's praise

The Lowdown on the Class

What: Mastering Design Feedback

When: Tuesday, May 28, 2013 at 9:00 AM PDT

Where: Attend from anywhere, streamed directly from ZURB HQ in Campbell, CA

Don't Wait Around, We'll Email Your PDF Exports to You

Tue, 07 May 2013 09:15:00 -0700

We hear you, PDF exports have been a bit of a pain! But our latest updates will make this process more efficient and a lot less painful. We've completely removed the process of waiting for our PDF export, which means no more twiddling your thumbs and more time to go ahead and leave awesome feedback on other posts in Notable.

We'll Email You Your Export

PDFs don't generate super quickly. The technology just isn't there yet. But we don't want you sitting around waiting for our processors to generate your PDF. We rather you spend that time leaving good feedback or even making yourself a nice cup of coffee.

Now when you go to export your post or set into a PDF report you can continue working on your designs or go about the rest of your day. We'll email you the PDF when it completes. A single post should email to you with a minute or two, while posts with many versions or sets may take anywhere between 5 and 15 minutes to generate.

Download your Export at your Convenience

Once you receive the email with a link to download your PDF you will have 10 days to download the export or forward the email to your teammates to download. After that time the link will expire and you will need to export your PDF again

Have questions about these changes or just want to chat? Email us at support@notableapp.com.

Non-Admin's Can No Longer Share Posts They Don't Own

Thu, 02 May 2013 14:10:00 -0700

We've made a quick change to user permissions in Notable that may effect your current workflow. In our latest update we have removed the ability for users of your account who are not admins to share posts that they do not own.

Sharing Team Member's Post Will Be Limited to Account Owners and Admins

This means that non-admin users on your account will no longer be able to add other team members to posts they don't own or share the post via URL.

We have received several requests for this change for workflows that need more control over who can share posts and sets. While we do not want to manage how your team uses the app we do want to make sure that your information is secure and protected.

...But, All of My Team Members Need Access

No problem! You can make everyone of your team members an admin. Admins have the ability to share posts that are not theirs, edit comments, add team members, etc.

Here at ZURB all of our team members are admins on our account. While clients, contractors or interns may be invited to our accounts, but not added as admins

I'm Not an Admin, But I Need to Share a Team Member's Post

You have two options. You can either ask another admin on the account to grant you admin access or ask an admin on the account to share the post for you.

While we aware this may be an inconvenience for some users, this will add a level of control for your posts when decided who can or cannot share posts.

If you have any questions or comments please email us at support@notableapp.com

Find Your Posts Faster with New Notable Search

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:45:00 -0700

Today, we launched a new Search feature in Notable so you can easily find specific posts that may have become buried or misplaced.

Person-to-person sharing and email alerts work great for making sure the right people can get right to the feedback they need. But even the most organized person can have a hard time finding old posts.

Easily Search All Your Posts

Notable's new search function lets you find your posts and sets by title, description, notes and comments. Though, key words or phrases found with the title or description of the post will be considered more relevant to your search.

To locate this new feature, check out the top of your screen next to the New Post drop down menu.

Once you begin typing in your search content you can simple hit enter to search your entire account or if you are within a workspace you can narrow down your search to your active workspace.

To further narrow down your selection you may use any filtering tools you wish that are available on your regular dashboard. We've also highlighted your search terms in the content on the post for easy visual navigation.

Questions, thoughts, Just want to chat? Shoot us an email at support@notableapp.com.

Server Maintenance on April 20 at 8:00 AM PDT

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:00:00 -0700

Notable along with our other apps will be down for approximately two hours on April 20, 2013 at 8:00 AM PDT.

We’ve been ecstatic about the adoption of Notable. The number of people using the app is always growing and we couldn’t be happier. To ensure the future scalability of the app and improve performance issues we will be upgrading our servers.

Technical Details for Web Nerds

Notable runs on Ruby 1.8 and will be upgrading to Ruby 1.9, since Ruby 1.8 is on its way out this only makes sense for us to keep up with the latest version. As a result the app should run a bit faster for everyone using the app.

Jobs running in the background will also be improved by switching to resque from delayed_job. This switch will keep the app running smoothly and should eliminate downtimes that are caused by failed image uploads.

Our image processing capabilities will be improved as a result of using new versions of ImageMagick and GraphicsMagick in an ubuntu environment. This means quicker load time for your screens and thumbnails in Notable.

Lastly, we’ll start to have zero-downtime deployments and be able to push hot code fixes and updates with minimal service interruption by using nginx/unicorn.

Not sure what any of this means? Simply that Notable is going to be faster, there will be less down times and overall an increased quality of performance.

Have any questions or concerns about our server maintenance? Please shoot an email to support@notableapp.com. We'll also update you throughout the morning on April 20th from Twitter. To minute-to-minute updates follow us, @NotableApp.