Faster Photo Books: Update on Inkubook Improvements

If you visit Inkublog occasionally or if you receive our newsletter, you’ve probably noticed that we sometimes refer to the surveys we’ve done to get your feedback about Inkubook. The speed and performance of the site is something that has been a bit of a problem spot, so we’ve been working hard to make improvements. We’ve made some fairly significant changes that have resulted in making things work noticably faster, and we’d like to take a little time to tell you about them.

Start Your Book Faster

Some of the changes we’ve made will help you get into Inkubook and get started on a book faster than was possible a few weeks ago.  Here’s what we’ve done:

1. Your user home page and the book editor will load more quickly on your computer. We made this happen by using smaller files and grabbing less data each time those pages load, which results in overall speedier performance.

2. We reduced the size of the background files that draw on your screen. Previously we had been drawing really detailed versions of the backgrounds both on your pages and in the dialog box where you select new backgrounds for your book. We discovered that we could get just as good a result with smaller files, so we downsized them. As a result, it doesn’t take nearly as long for the backgrounds to draw on your pages in the editor or in preview, and the Get More Backgrounds dialog box will show up more quickly, too.

3. We take bigger handfuls when we upload your photos. Originally we were uploading your photos one at a time. Now we upload photo files two at a time, which means the process goes twice as fast. If you’re the undisciplined sort who tends to eat potato chips two at a time then you might know how much more quickly your bowl is emptied compared to the dainty person next to you who eats chips one at a time. (Not that I speak from experience or anything.)

Finish Your Book Faster

We also have a category of improvements that will be noticeable to you as you’re building your book or returning to a book to continue working on it.

1. We aren’t using as much memory. This doesn’t mean that we’ve abandoned trying to remember what’s on our grocery list. It means that we’re storing fewer things in your computer’s memory so it doesn’t have to work so hard to pull things up. For example, we only store the high-resolution images needed for the pages that are right in front of you at any given time, rather than storing in memory all the high-resolution images in your whole project. We get what we need when we need it.

2. In general, we’re being smarter about how we load things than we used to be. We used to load all the thumbnail images for the book, then all the pages, then all the backgrounds. Now we load things according to the order that you need them. So that means that if you open your project and go immediately to page 12, we work on getting you what you need for page 12 before we get other things.

3. We’re storing things closer to where you are. This one is two-fold. First, the application files are stored locally on your computer so we don’t have to load them from the server every time they’re needed. We will occassionally need to retrieve things from the server (as when we’ve recently made updates that refresh everything), but the need to retrieve everything from the server will happen far less frequently.

The second part of this is that, before too long, we’ll be using a different server storage arrangement that will have your project files stored in a number of locations. That way we’ll be able to retrieve them from the place that’s closest to you geographically. U.S. locations include Ashburn (VA), Dallas/Ft. Worth, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, Palo Alto, Seattle, and St. Louis. So if you live in Portland, OR and work on your book from home, we’ll get your files from the server in Seattle. But then if you visit your sister in Portland, ME and work on your book while you’re there, we’ll get your files from someplace much closer, like Newark.

There you have it: a (relatively) brief list and description of some of the things we’ve been working on to make the Inkubook experience better for you. If you think we’re going to stop there, fear not. We’re still on our path of continuous improvement. We just wanted you to know where we are right now. 

Make sure to stop by to see how much more quickly things happen. It’ll give you an opportunity to work on a book that’s been languishing or to check out our new calendars.

More Than Photo Books: We Have Free T-Shirts, Too

NOTE: We’ve had an overwhelming response to our request for feedback about Inkubook.com. We’ve gotten some really great suggestions, and we’re looking forward to implementing some of them. Due to the tremendous response, we’ve run out of t-shirts. We still welcome comments, and we’ll still give you a hearty “Thank you!”, but we won’t be able to send you a t-shirt at this time.

(To those of you who have already left a comment but have not heard from us yet, we’re still working our way through all the feedback. You’ll hear something sometime in the next few business days.)

You know when you were a kid and you used to see the boxes of cereal on the shelf that said you could get some sort of super cool toy if you managed to convince your parents to buy the cereal for you? But then you got it home and discovered that your battle was only half over because you also needed to talk your parents into writing a check or getting a money order for $4.95 to cover shipping and handling? And then you were crushed to learn that basically all the persuasive arguing you did to convince your mom or dad that the sugar-laden cereal was a good idea instead of your normally nutritious breakfast fare was for naught? Well, this isn’t like that.

The Inkubook t-shirt. The front view is shown on top;
the back view is on bottom.

Here at Inkubook, we have t-shirts to give away. While we do ask you to do one little thing for us in order to get one, we hope you’ll find it a lot less troublesome than those long-ago battles over cereal.

While supplies last, you can get an Inkubook t-shirt simply by giving us some feedback. If you’re typically the type who gets stage fright and doesn’t like to leave voice mail messages or comments on blogs, here are a few ideas on things we’d like to hear about:

1. Tell us what you think about the particular post you’re commenting on.
2. Tell us what other topics you’d like us to cover on the blog.
3. Let us know what you’ve liked about using Inkubook or what you’d like to see us update.
4. Give us some ideas for backgrounds and themes you’d like to have us add to Inkubook.
5. Tell us your sob story about how your mom never would let you get General Mills’ Boo Berry cereal because you wouldn’t actually eat it; you just liked the blue ghost on the box. (Or is that just me?)

To leave a your feedback, go here to fill out the feedback form, or you can leave a comment on one of our posts. Once we’ve heard from you, we’ll contact you to get your mailing address. No checks or money orders required, and we definitely won’t surprise you with a C.O.D. charge when the package arrives on your doorstep.

Not too bad of a deal for a really nice, thick, fashionable t-shirt, right? We’re standing by to hear your comments and take your order!

Photo Book Tips: Look Before You Leap with Preview

Preview: a feature of Inkubook that’s so helpful and yet so often overlooked. Poor Preview. Let’s make him happy by giving him some love.

The Preview button as it looks today and as it will look later this week.

In case you’ve never noticed our friend Preview, I’ve placed a picture of him to the right. Why are there two? Well, the little blue guy is what Preview looks like today. Later this week he’s going to get a makeover along with the rest of his family, and he’s going to be a bigger, bolder, more yellow version of himself. Perhaps he won’t be so overlooked then.

Anyway, the reason Preview is so helpful is because when you use it, you get to see your book in a format that more closely resembles an actual printed book. It’s still not quite like holding a book in your hands because Preview is a two-dimensional picture rather than a three-dimensional thing, but it’s pretty close. All the picture and text container boxes are stripped out. We’ve added a little shading that simulates what the roll of the pages will look like when you have the book open in front of you. The gallery panels are moved out of the way so all your focus can be on the book.

Let’s look at an example of how Preview helped me decide I needed to make a change in one of my books. Below is a spread from a book about my dog Pete (aka Pistol Pete) and my cat Milo (aka The Catnip Kid). I’ve used backgrounds from the Pets collection, and I chose a nice beige color for the text because it seemed like it would complement the backgrounds nicely. Looks pretty decent in the Editor view, don’t you think?

In the Editor, I can easily read all my captions…

If I were to buy this book without checking it out in Preview, I’d be a little disappointed when it arrived at my house. While the beige text does coordinate nicely with the colors in the backgrounds, it doesn’t show up so well in the caption under the picture of Milo in the basket because it’s basically the same color as the beige stripe. I hadn’t noticed this when I was editing the book because of the gray background of the text boxes. Now using Preview I can see that the caption looks like it says “And he’s an exp    h     .” Look at the shot of the spread in Preview to see what I mean.

…but in Preview part of one caption fades into the background.

Now that I know what my text actually looks like, I can go back to the Editor to play with different colors of my captions to find something that works a little better on my backgrounds.

Eager though you might be to order your book and have it in your hot little hands, make sure to use Preview to give it a double-check before clicking Buy. You might find that you’re able to make your book even better than it already is.

Update on Our Inkubook Upgrade

Things are going well with our upgrade to Microsoft Silverlight 2, and the best part is that we don’t expect our service to be interrupted today. The site is still functioning on the beta 2 version of Silverlight.

So what’s that mean, exactly? For most people who’ve not had a reason to download the new version of Silverlight, it means business as usual for making your books. You can sign in and get to work as you would on any other day.

For go-getters who’ve already downloaded and installed Silverlight 2, Inkubook won’t work for you at the moment unless you take matters into your own hands. The solution is to uninstall Silverlight 2 then visit http://inkubook.com where you’ll be prompted to install the beta version Silverlight. From that point, you can work on your book again. The alternative solution is to wait until we have Silverlight 2 installed, which will make everything function harmoniously for you.

We currently have Silverlight 2 running in our testing environment so we can make sure there are no kinks in it before we put it out there for you to use. We expect to complete the upgrade around 6:00 a.m. EST on Friday morning. At that time there will be an interruption to our service that we expect to be short. Check back here occasionally to learn if we’ve had to change our schedule.

If you’re having any problems with the site that don’t seem to be related to this issue, please email admin@inkubook.com and lend a hand.

Inkubook’s Upgrading to Make Your Photo Book Experience Better

On Tuesday sometime after 8:00 a.m. EST we’ll be upgrading to the newest version of Microsoft Silverlight 2. This upgrade will give you a better Inkubook experience when it’s complete.

We’re not exactly certain when Microsoft will give us the go ahead to make the change, nor do we know exactly how many hours it will take. Throughout the day we’re going to keep our blog updated with the latest and greatest information we have, so visit frequently to find out when we expect to be back to wearing our book-making hats.

Any orders that are placed before the upgrade begins will still be processed according to our normal production schedule. You can expect to receive your book or books as planned (2-6 business days for printing plus the appropriate number of days for your chosen shipping method).

Thank you for your patience as we continue to make Inkubook better for you!
 

Inkubook’s Helping Light up the Web

Silverlight Showcase Ratings Page

Inkubook is built with a cool new tool from Microsoft Corporation called Silverlight. In Microsoft’s own words, Silverlight is

“…a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.”

That sounds a little boring, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not just for computer geeks. Silverlight helps everybody (you, me, and even technically challenged people like my mom) have a great experience on the Web. In fact, you might have heard about it during the Olympics because Silverlight was used to manage the streaming video coverage of the games. If you watched any of Michael Phelps’s record-breaking swim action on the NBC site, you were very likely using Silverlight and you might not even have known it. Aside from the initial request you’ll get to download it to your computer–which is much like the requests you receive the first time you use any sort of plug-in–you’ll never even know Silverlight is working behind the scenes.

Right now, Inkubook is being featured in the Silverlight showcase. We’re even getting top billing, which has us pleased as punch. Silverlight encourages people to check out the websites that use the technology, and individuals can give ratings to the sites in the showcase. We’d certainly appreciate it if you’d pay the Showcase a visit and give us a good rating. It’ll send us into the weekend with a smile.

Inkubook’s being featured on the Silverlight home page.

What’s That Sound?

That sound is everyone at Inkubook working diligently to launch a new version of our application. Today the Inkubook office has been reminiscent of the monkey house at the zoo-all busy and crazy but without some of the more unsavory monkey-house hijinks. If you visit the site today, you will most likely see the screen to the right. That is because the site is down as we roll out the new version in preparation for our official launch tomorrow.

In the little more than three months since we did our initial beta launch, we have taken everything that was built in Silverlight 1.0 and rebuilt it in Silverlight 2.0. For us that meant a lot of long nights and a lot of pizza delivery. For our customers, that means better text handling and zippier performance in addition to a glitzier and more attractive UI in a number of areas of the site. We’ll be providing you with more in-depth details once the site is back up and we are ready to announce it to the world, but I figured I should give you a quick heads up here. Hopefully you’ll stop when we’re live to kick the tires and see what’s new.

We’re all very excited to get things of the ground, and I promise we have quite a few surprises up our sleeves that will change the way that you think about your photos and photo books.

Aiyeee! What Are You Doing Here???

To be honest we weren’t expecting you so soon. If you scan your surroundings you might notice that things don’t look quite right. Well, that is because this site (let’s call it a “weblog”) is, for all intents and purposes, not finished. Being the hospitable types that we are, we aren’t going to tell you to come back later after we finish painting and making the beds, nor will we send you away empty handed, we just want to set your expectations appropriately.

So Where Exactly Are You?

We suppose there is the chance that you stumbled here in some kind of tawdry Internet escapade that is often referred to as “surfing.” In that case, you are probably a bit befuddled as to what exactly constitutes an “Inkublog.” The short answer is that it is the Official Weblog of Inkubook. See, isn’t that better? Still have questions? OK, maybe you should head over to our About page for the more formal explanation.

What Can You Expect Here?

This weblog is the mouthpiece of the employees of Inkubook. You’ll here from all sorts of people including marketers, developers, designers, testers, and even people who own (and even wear) suits (aka executives or “The Man”). Our goal is to help people build drop-dead gorgeous photo books. That means that you can expect the following.

• Tips and Tricks – From novice to expert, we’ll provide you with little things that you can do to produce fabulous results in your photographs.
• Recommendations on Hardware, Software, and Other Tools – These are the types of things that, in combination with a little smarts, will take you from “zero” to “hero.”
• Inspiration – We’ll give you some suggestions for weekend projects, success stories from other users, and off-the-beaten-track ideas for creating stunning keepsakes.
• Entertainment – We think we’re witty, charming, attractive and all sorts of stuff that our mothers told us we shouldn’t brag about, and we intend to share that all with you. We are sure you cannot wait.

If there is anything else that you would like to see on this site, please let us know. All you need to do is visit our Feedback page and fill in the blanks. We like to make people happy, so chances are that if thou asketh, thou shalt receive.

What Now?

Well, since you stopped by and it is Independence Day weekend, here are a few resources to get you started. Hopefully, they’ll score you some photos worthy of your first Inkubook.

Photographing Fireworks

This Week in Photography and Photojojo! both have excellent articles on explosive techniques for capturing fireworks, while the Amazon blog covers how to keep our four-legged friends happy while the fireworks are lighting up the night. More than anything on the Fourth, remember that while the fireworks are often the highlight of a good Independence Day, it’s tough to tell one photo from another. Be sure to get plenty of pictures of the rest of the festivities to personalize the event.

We’ll be back soon! In the meantime, get your cameras out and start shooting so you have plenty of material for your drop-dead gorgeous Inkubook.