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[UPDATE] Many things.
The past year has been a difficult one, many family issues, and changes, and we are going through another one. I have not been "on-line" much, as trying to keep things straight became a real issue. But, off line, I've been working on a lot of code, new layouts for a number of programs and plug ins. Mostly for dealing with images, profiles, user communities, etc.

I have a huge amount of code to repackage, and try to get into installable modules.

As indicated in the past, a lot of code has been pulled out into "libraries" that install into an "ULTRA" subdirectory in the Plugins area, and which the various programs share. New modules are added as you need/purchase them, and that allows updates/additions of features across the various plugins/OEM systems in an easy fashion.

Due to numerous requests, the postcards plugin (as running on http://pittsburghpostcards.com) will be repackaged, and released, as the updated "lite" version of the program. It's missing user profiles, the unsend/send features, address books, etc. Those features are part of the Ultra_Profile system, and require that to operate, because of overlapping modules.

The current project is to integrate a token system into the CMS (photo/file) management features of Links, and allow content sales on an item-by-item or section-by-section basis, rather than subscription basis. using the profile/user systems, purchases can be tracked, so if a user needs to re-download something they can.

Andy seems to have resurfaced :) so maybe we'll again being integrating all the smaller plugins into the Ultra_Widgets package.

As a side note, we've leased pending sale, Postcards.com, so we are going to be moving the main postcards programs (the Ultra edition) to the DigitalPostcards.com site, and will be integrating the stock-photo back end into it in a "lite" edition at first (allowing people to print greeting cards, and get web-based graphics via the tokens system). DigitalPostcards(R) has always been our target stock agency, so integrating the viral-type marketing of electronic greetings with the stock photos and higher-resolution images seems to make sense. We are going with the tokens system, for a number of reasons, not the least of which are the various restictions PayPal puts on webmasters with adult and alternative content, and the difficulty in getting your own merchant accounts and the high costs.

GLinks has payment modules built in, so using standard shopping carts is not a major issue for those who want to use PayPal or their own merchant accounts via Authorize.net or similar.

I'll be spending a bit more time on-line over the next few weeks, and maybe will get back to my pre-2006 levels. It's been a rough ride, but hopefully the worst is over for at least awhile, and I can get back to a semi-normal routine and the business of developing the last parts of the software.

On the back end, I've been trying to integrate community more tightly with some of the other website functions, and hopefully with a bit more help from Alex, I'll be able to release some of the plugins that use cross-program functionality to maintain the sign-up user base in community, with overlapping public profiles that can be varied by program, yet which maintain data (and security/identity) integrety with a central database so users can both have additional features with a one time update, and you as webmaster/site-owner can have some security from users changing data/emails/etc for ulterior motives.

More after the Spring holidays. Happy holidays, which ever you celebrate.

Robert


PUGDOG� Enterprises, Inc.

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