Chipmark Development Blog

The long awaited Firefox 3 Beta Plugin is finally here!

This release fixes the following problems

• “Sticky” tool tips that displayed recent mouseover text
• Multiple error messages when a new window is opened (in most cases)
• More informative error messages when things do go wrong

This release was a bug fix release only and does not include any new features.

In order to fix some of the errors we were having, we were forced to revert to synchronous database calls. This may result in a slight performance decrease of the plugin, but in our testing we did not notice anything significant enough to cause a problem.

General:

• Support for bookmarklets.
• Require users to solve a CAPTCHA before registration
• Fixed performance problem related to spam

Internet Explorer:

• Support for Vista when the User Account Control is either on or off
• GUI style changes

ALPHAs:

• The Firefox 3  browser required a complete rewrite of the Chipmark plugin. We have released an ALPHA of the latest build for Firefox 3. Please try it out and let us know what you think.
• The new manage interface uses the ExtJS framework and attempts to provide some improvement over our current management interface.

General:
-Multiple pending buddy list requests handled.
-Shared toolbar folders no longer forced on recipient’s toolbar.
-The Facebook interface has been correctly sized in Internet Explorer.
-Toolbar items are now consistent between FF, IE, and the web interface.

Internet Explorer:
-Plugin no longer crashes when hiding menus.
-Fixed default folder selection in folder properties window.
-”Keep me logged in” has been fixed.

Firefox:
-Middle clicking items in the “top ten” and “recently added” menus now opens links in tabs.
-Middle clicking chipmarks within toolbar folders now behaves correctly.
-Icons now display on toolbar chipmarks.
-Toolbar folder menus no longer overlap when switching between folders.
-Easy import duplicates have been eliminated.

Chipmark had some technical problems during the past 12 hours or so. These issues started when I installed a new SSL certificate on the server. The last step of this installation is to restart Tomcat, which I did. Unfortunately, one of the problems with Tomcat is that it is perfectly legal for it to fail to shutdown. Well, I ended up having to do a hard kill, which corrupted our database. To make a long story short, we fixed the problems, and it appears that Chipmark is up and running again. If you noticed any issues during the past 12 hours, we apologize. We do our best to keep things running smooth, but there are occasional bumps in the road.

–Zak

There will be another outage, as the topic suggests. This is to complete the testing which was
scheduled and then cancelled last week. Again, we apoligize for the outage, and we hope this will be the last.

–Zak

Word has been passed down from the facilities folks that this outage is canceled. The work that was planned still needs to be done, so there will be downtime at some point in the future (likely within the next 2 weeks), but as of now, the date and time has yet to be determined. We’ll keep you informed as more information comes along.

–Zak

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As the title says, Chipmark will be unavailable for a period of time, beginning December 26. The system will be down from 10:00PM on the 26th until 6:00AM the following day. The reason for this is to correct the cause of the previous two unplanned outages: faulty electrical equipment in the system which supplies power to the network closet where the Chipmark servers are housed.

We apologize for all of these outages. Hopefully the cause of all the problem will be fixed, and this will be the last. Luckily they have scheduled it for a time when the impact on Chipmark users will be minimal. I just wanted to pass this message along to everyone, so hopefully nobody will be caught off guard.

–Zak

Both the Chipmark website and plugins have been updated!
The plugins are now on version 3.2.

Here’s what’s new:
-Forum
-Developer API
-Facebook Application
-”Add Chipmark Here” menu item for all folders
-”Open in Tabs” menu item for all folders
-Toolbar Folders
-Easy Import

As some of our users may have noticed, chipmark has been offline during the past two nights. Around 9:30 PM on Tuesday November 13 there was a power outage in the Electrical Engineering & Computer Science building where the chipmark servers are housed. The outage shut down service until approximately 10:30 AM the following morning. Then, around 9:30 PM on November 14, there was another outage which left chipmark in the dark for another 6 hours.

We would like to apologize to our users for the loss of service. We work hard to provide quality service, but sometimes events such as these occur which are out of our control. Please know that we were aware of the situation very soon after both outages, and we worked to restore service as soon as possible. We hope that this will not happen again.

Hello, world! Chipmark ‘07 has arrived and we are working on a nice new release of Chipmark. We have some new features in store, including a Facebook interface, a forum, and some nifty enhancements to our plugins. Our goal is to provide the best software possible, and we want to know what features our users would like to see included in future releases of chipmark. So if you have any suggestions, we would love to hear from you! Please drop us an email at support@chipmark.com with your ideas.