Lately people have been asking me, "What's up with Ringlight?" There hasn't been much visible activity lately since the beta started in November. However, in the background things are still very much active and you can expect a new release soon.
All of my work since November has been in refactoring the Ringlight codebase (both client and server) to increase reliability and scalability. The beta test has been going great. Lots of bugs have been found and all of those bugfixes are going into the refactoring. The new Ringlight will be sleeker, faster, and generally more solid.
As soon as I finish the new version of the client and server, I'll start a new beta for the new Ringlight 2.0. Then I'll be able to get back to the web design and marketing side. A lot of people have been asking about the awesome new site desing. Yes it's done and ready to go! That will be part of the new web design phase after Ringlight 2.0 is out.
Thanks to all my beta users! I'll let you know when the new code is ready.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Monday, November 3, 2008
Two Days Until Ringlight Beta Launch Party
A lot has happened with Ringlight lately.
There will be music, beer, food, and lots of nice people from the Austin startup community.
If any of the features you love have been removed, send me some feedback and let me know. All of the great features from the past will be reappearing over time. They've just been taken out temporarily so that I can focus on the key elements for the launch. If you let me know that you want something back, I'll put it at the top of the list!
Thanks to all my alpha users out there. I couldn't have done it without you, and I hope you enjoy the new beta release. Let's work together to make it awesome!
- I've resigned it to be more focused on private sharing of files and less on web publishing.
- There is now a premium subscription option which lets you mirror your files online
- Everything which is unfinished or broken has been taken out to prepare for the beta launch
- The beta is launching in two days!
There will be music, beer, food, and lots of nice people from the Austin startup community.
If any of the features you love have been removed, send me some feedback and let me know. All of the great features from the past will be reappearing over time. They've just been taken out temporarily so that I can focus on the key elements for the launch. If you let me know that you want something back, I'll put it at the top of the list!
Thanks to all my alpha users out there. I couldn't have done it without you, and I hope you enjoy the new beta release. Let's work together to make it awesome!
Friday, September 19, 2008
Site Redesign
I've received a lot of feedback from people about the design of the website. I've taken all this feedback to heart and redesigned the website extensively.
The most noticeable change is probably the new color scheme. Gone is the old orange website, replaced with a combination of shades of blue which users generally seem to find more appealing. There are also new icons, more text explaining what Ringlight is, more detailed privacy settings information, and some layout changes.
What do you think of the new style?
The goal is to get more visitors to the website to actually sign up for an account, download the client, and share some files.
The most noticeable change is probably the new color scheme. Gone is the old orange website, replaced with a combination of shades of blue which users generally seem to find more appealing. There are also new icons, more text explaining what Ringlight is, more detailed privacy settings information, and some layout changes.
What do you think of the new style?
The goal is to get more visitors to the website to actually sign up for an account, download the client, and share some files.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Site Restructing - Upload Status!
The official launch of Ringlight is coming up and in preparation I've been doing some restructing of the site, focusing on core functionality and removing things that weren't working.
Something that I here often is that the site is somewhat confusing, with too many options. In order to simplify things, I've removed advanced content management functionality that no one was really using, specifically groups and playlist management. These features might return in the future, but at the moment the focus is on getting all of your files online. Once we have a ton of files indexed, we can think again about organizing them into groups and playlists and such.
In the spirit of getting more files online, there are now handy progress bars for the following functions:
Something that I here often is that the site is somewhat confusing, with too many options. In order to simplify things, I've removed advanced content management functionality that no one was really using, specifically groups and playlist management. These features might return in the future, but at the moment the focus is on getting all of your files online. Once we have a ton of files indexed, we can think again about organizing them into groups and playlists and such.
In the spirit of getting more files online, there are now handy progress bars for the following functions:
- Upload files from your local web browser to any machine running a Ringlight client.
- Download files from any website by URL to any Ringlight client.
- Download files from any Ringlight users to any Ringlight client. If your client is offline, it will start the download whenever both clients are online.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Uploading Files
I just added a fun new feature to Ringlight. You can now upload files from any web browser to any computer where you are running the Ringlight client.
I often find myself in need of such a feature. I'll be on some computer at the lab or a friend's house and I'll think, "I really need a copy of this file. I guess I can e-mail it to myself..." Then, of course, you have to go check your e-mail and download the file at home. What a pain!
Now I can just upload it directly to my home computer, into any folder which I have shared. Then, the file will automatically be shared as well! This is pretty neat, because it means that you don't even have to be at your computer to publish new files. You can publish them from anywhere!
I often find myself in need of such a feature. I'll be on some computer at the lab or a friend's house and I'll think, "I really need a copy of this file. I guess I can e-mail it to myself..." Then, of course, you have to go check your e-mail and download the file at home. What a pain!
Now I can just upload it directly to my home computer, into any folder which I have shared. Then, the file will automatically be shared as well! This is pretty neat, because it means that you don't even have to be at your computer to publish new files. You can publish them from anywhere!
Friday, June 6, 2008
Twitter Integration
Ringlight makes it easy to share files. Just put it in your folder and it's on the web. However, you still need to send a link to the file to all of your friends. Of course, if they've subscribed to your personal RSS feed then they'll get the link automatically in their reader. I use Google Reader to keep up-to-date on files shared publicly by everyone on Ringlight. It's pretty fun to see all the new files every day.
I'm working on adding more ways to share links to your Ringlight files, and I stared with Twitter. You can now go to the File Info page for any file and click the Share on Twitter. Just type in your Twitter account name and password (I don't store these, just use them once to send the message) and a note to include, and it will be posted to your Twitter account.
What's next for sharing links? E-mail? IM? Posting to del.icio.us? Let me know and I'll work on it.
I'm working on adding more ways to share links to your Ringlight files, and I stared with Twitter. You can now go to the File Info page for any file and click the Share on Twitter. Just type in your Twitter account name and password (I don't store these, just use them once to send the message) and a note to include, and it will be posted to your Twitter account.
What's next for sharing links? E-mail? IM? Posting to del.icio.us? Let me know and I'll work on it.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Queued Downloading, Search Engines, Less CPU Usage!
It's been a great week to be a Ringlight developer. On the website, I've added the Queue for Download option to every file. This allows you to request that a file be downloaded onto one of the machines where you are running the Ringlight client. This has some cools uses. For instance, you can download files to your home computer while you're at work, or the other way around. Very cool! Also, what do you do if you see a file you want to download, but the computer with the file is offline? Just Queue for Download and when that computer comes back online, the download will start automatically. All downloaded files go into the Downloads folder in your Ringlight shares folder. Yes, this means that by default people can see what you're downloading. If you don't want that, just mark your Downloads folder as Restricted and it will be secret.
This brings up an important point that I want everyone to understand. Go look at the File Info page for any file. I've edited this page to be more informative, and it will probably say some things like "Access to this file is public to all users." and "This file is visible to search engines." You see, be default any files you share can be downloaded by anyone, and may even show up on google. Don't be scared, because this is actually very cool! You can publish things on the web just by dropping them in a folder on your computer. This is a really awesome and powerful feature, but Ringlight is for you to use however you want. If you don't want google to see your files, just click the Hide Folder option, and the folder and all the files in it will disappear from search engines. If you don't want people to download your files, just click the Restrict Folder options and then no one but you can download the files. You can make your restricted files available to certain people by publishing them to a group. Ringlight works for sharing with just yourself, just your friends, all the way up to the whole Internet. Use it how you want to use it, and let's work together to make it awesome!
Speaking of awesome, topaz has reported that the Ringlight client has not been being awesome on her machine. Despite all my efforts, it's still taking up too much CPU when it scans for new files! So, I have switched to using event-based filesystem monitoring, letting the operating system inform me when there are new files. This is kind of a pain since it has to be done differently on each operating system. For now, I'm starting with Windows, but I plan to add it to OS X and Linux as well. If you're on Windows, let me know how it's going. Is Ringlight eating too much CPU on your machine?
This brings up an important point that I want everyone to understand. Go look at the File Info page for any file. I've edited this page to be more informative, and it will probably say some things like "Access to this file is public to all users." and "This file is visible to search engines." You see, be default any files you share can be downloaded by anyone, and may even show up on google. Don't be scared, because this is actually very cool! You can publish things on the web just by dropping them in a folder on your computer. This is a really awesome and powerful feature, but Ringlight is for you to use however you want. If you don't want google to see your files, just click the Hide Folder option, and the folder and all the files in it will disappear from search engines. If you don't want people to download your files, just click the Restrict Folder options and then no one but you can download the files. You can make your restricted files available to certain people by publishing them to a group. Ringlight works for sharing with just yourself, just your friends, all the way up to the whole Internet. Use it how you want to use it, and let's work together to make it awesome!
Speaking of awesome, topaz has reported that the Ringlight client has not been being awesome on her machine. Despite all my efforts, it's still taking up too much CPU when it scans for new files! So, I have switched to using event-based filesystem monitoring, letting the operating system inform me when there are new files. This is kind of a pain since it has to be done differently on each operating system. For now, I'm starting with Windows, but I plan to add it to OS X and Linux as well. If you're on Windows, let me know how it's going. Is Ringlight eating too much CPU on your machine?
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