FileCatalyst Webmail and Workflow have had a new major upgrade, bringing our ground breaking web applications up to version 4.4

Our new Outlook™ Plugin for FileCatalyst Webmail is now officially released. The plugin integrates directly into Outlook for Windows, allowing people to send large files without leaving their email client. Transfers are still tracked by the Webmail application as before; the only difference is the mechanism for initiating the transfer. Click the image to see full-size.

Here are some of the other key features and improvements:

• Ability to automatically create XML file containing all the Job details in Workflow.
• Java API, ability to submit jobs programatically from any third party Java Application
• Temporary accounts, designated users can now “invite others” to the system, this triggers an invitation sent via email and the new account is set to automatically expire after a predefined number of days.
• Ability to specify when a User Account expires. Once expired, the user will no longer be able to login to the application.
• Automatic deletion of expired user accounts (for both temp and regular users)
• New user status added – “File Area only no job entry”, when a user is in this status they will not have the ability to submit jobs. Only access to file area and group folders will be available to the user.
• Added Database Connection Pooling
• Return first order form found for the user instead of default order form for HotFolder/Plugin/API submissions.
• Capture FTP logs when uploading links, PDF and XML files
• In case of error during upload of PDF, XML or file links, added wait and retry functionality
• In Webmail, simplified the download links sent to the recipients, new links look like: http://myserver.demo/GET/JOBID this helps to by-pass some phishing/SPAM filters
• Improved logging when re-ordering a job
• New filter on user list, allows admins to filter the user list by user status, full access, job entry only, temp user, admin etc…
• Fix installers to work with Windows7 and 64 bit systems.
• Improved performance of many SQL database calls

For download and install instructions, please contact your FileCatalyst representative. For more information about these products, visit http://www.filecatalyst.com/products/

We recommend that all clients upgrade to the latest version as soon as possible.

FileCatalyst Direct has received some new features and improvements. The latest version available as a production release is now 2.7.3, and is available for immediate download from your download page. Please contact your representative if you need more details on how to download and/or upgrade.

New to FileCatalyst 2.7.3:

• I/O tests to identify maximum write speed for available hardware (help identify bottlenecks at the hardware level)
  • User home directory at FileCatalyst Server location
  • At the HotFolder directory (often but not always end-user location)
• Improvements to user listings, including responsiveness and filtering
• Multiple Active Directory and OpenLDAP directory servers for authentication
• Optimization to improve throughput of single connection transfer speeds
• Improvements to connection concurrency: more concurrent users possible; admin may hard-limit number of concurrent connections
• Improvements to Command Line Interface usage and documentation
• Aggressive releasing of Delta transfers and related resources
• Ability to bind specific IP address on the server
• Regular expressions available for filtering on HotFolder tasks
• Improvements to Java Applets:
  • sendLogsToURL variable improved
  • added transfer mode display (UDP/FTP/HTTP)
  • added JavaScript call to modify remoteDir
• Auto-detection of network settings no longer needs ICMP to be enabled
• Improvements to memory handling and resource management

Also worth noting is that both HotFolder and Server documentation (when selecting “Help” from the application itself; not the QuickStart guide) have new and improved Performance Tuning sections. This new section is a must-read for anyone interested in knowing what bottlenecks might be holding them back, or how to squeeze the most out of their transfer.

A formal press release is due soon, but I thought I’d get a bit ahead of myself with an informal post:

As some of you may have already discovered, we have been in the beta stages of a new file transfer service for a few weeks now. The service is powered by our FileCatalyst Webmail offering. It ressurrects an old product name that some longtime users may recognize, but in a completely new form. Check it out at files2u.com

files2u.com - fast file transfer for free

The catch? There’s not really one. We have placed some FileCatalyst information easily available on the website itself, but it’s not “in your face”. Mainly, the ‘catch’ is simply that it’s a very simplified version of Webmail. You don’t get any administrative-side functions, or things that a Webmail user might get (like individual and group storage, address books, etc).

All files2u.com does is allow you to send files (LARGE files) to anyone with an email address. That’s it. But we make it easy. No client software to install, no registration process, no fuss. Zero installation because we use Java applets to empower fully-accelerated FileCatalyst transfers though most networks.

The benefit to you? You get to send large files, of course! If you’re a developer, artist, or producer who works on projects with large files, you already know that email doesn’t cut it (10MB at best is NOT a large file by today’s standards) and FTP can be an annoyingly slow and unreliable beast. With Files2U, a few clicks and your large file is on the way.

The benefit to us? For starters, it’s sort of a “portfolio” piece. Anybody in the world can check out what a Webmail experience (simplified though it may be) would be like. It’s also another way to get the FileCatalyst name out there.

But mainly, it just gives us the chance to provide a free tool. We’ve always used our private demo site for sharing files around the world, and figured we could make something public. Not everyone has the ability to transfer large files, and we’re providing it for students, families, businesses…whoever. We have the technology. We like to help people. We like to show off what we have. It’s really that simple! And if you like what you see, you just might contact us about putting Webmail into your organization.

Enjoy!
Greg

Those who subscribe to our news from our support site (support.filecatalyst.com) will already be aware; for those keeping tabs on us via this blog, we’re happy to announce that FileCatalyst Webmail and FileCatalyst Workflow have each been updated to version 4.2. Here’s the notice as it appeared in our news:

FileCatalyst Webmail and Workflow have been updated to version 4.2, and are available at your download area. If you have forgotten how to download or have any other questions about this release, please contact your FileCatalyst representative. This release introduces a number of features and improvements, including tighter database and storage management and a few new features.

Here are some of the updates:

* Global address book in Webmail
* Ability to import address book contacts from csv in Webmail
* “Private Order Form” ability to restrict order form to group members only in Workflow
* Re-signed and updated all the applets, new applet certificate will expire in March 2011
* Added bandwidth tuning paramters in the user profile if the application has acceleration is enabled
* Ability to sort group list by group name
* Auto clean up of /uploadtemp and config/backup folders
* Display memory usage information on the About page
* Fixed a problem with Tomcat logs growing very fast
* Added additional security to HTTP file transfers
* Fixed job submission via HotFolder
* Auto Clean-up of HSQL
* Fixed HTTP “form” upload bug
* Fixed bug with “Isolate Groups”
* Increased the detail of system log

This new release is a recommended upgrade; technical support requests may require upgrade prior to trouble-shooting.