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News: all updates for our software and apps


This is CLZ Alwin, with the last CLZ Newsletter of 2015, and it’s a loooong one.

Yes, we’re back from our 15-year anniversary celebration in London! We had a great time there, with lots of sightseeing, great food and of course, too many alcoholic beverages 🙂 Here’s a selection of photos from our trip.

In the meantime, we have processed the London backlog of support tickets and our help desk team is back to our normal level of support again.
And despite all anniversary and other holiday season celebrations, we’ve still been able to make progress on development too 🙂 Here’s an overview:

  • Version 16’s for Windows are live!
  • Server upgrades: Progress update.
  • Better book data for most EU countries.
  • Coming up: Version 4.0 for all iOS and Android apps.

Version 16’s for Windows are live!

On November 30, we released 5 brand new versions of all Windows editions, called version 16, aka “QuickSilver”! I am happy and proud to report that, in the meantime, over 46 thousand (!!) users have already upgraded to v16 and are now enjoying the following new features:

  • Webcam barcode scanning
    Use your webcam as a barcode scanner, to add or find movies by barcode.

  • Delete Orphaned Images
    Clean up your hard-disk by deleting all unused cover images and thumbnails.

  • Enhanced database Backup and Restore system
    Keep multiple time-stamped backups and easily restore them.

For more details and screen shots, use the following links:
Movie Collector | Book Collector | Music Collector | Comic Collector | Game Collector

Of course, similar version 16 upgrades are coming up for Mac OS X!
However, it is proving to be a challenge to get the webcam scanning to work on the built-in Facetime camera’s of iMac’s and MacBooks, as these camera’s lack a proper auto-focus feature. We are confident that it will work though, it’s just taking longer.
We’re currently aiming for late January for a v16 release on Mac. Thanks for your patience!

Server upgrades: Progress report

We’re finally getting close to the completion of our Server Upgrade project.
This month’s achievements:

  • Since Dec 16, all cover images are now stored on a fast cloud-based storage solution and delivered through a world-wide image scaling and delivery network.
  • Since yesterday, all 5 Core search engines are now running on a new server, directly connected to our 5 new Core database servers. The effect of this move should be immediately noticeable when searching in your Add Auto screens, for both Title and Barcode searches.

Left to do: moving the Cloud, Connect and Core websites to a new server.
We’re planning to complete this part early next week. This final step will give you faster cloud syncing and snappy browsing of your CLZ Cloud or Connect collections.

Better book data for most EU countries

Our Core online book database contains close to 32 million books and delivers excellent search results for most users in most countries.

However, the coverage for books in certain European areas and in New Zealand was definitely sub-par. So in the past few weeks, we have added extra Core back-end sources for these countries:

  • Norway : 2 new national libraries added
  • Sweden : 1 new national library added
  • Finland : new selectable Region, with 1 library
  • Denmark: 2 new national libraries added
  • Germany: 3 new national libraries added
  • France: 1 new national library added
  • Portugal: 1 new national library added
  • Italy: 1 new national library added
  • New Zealand: new selectable Region, with 2 libraries

(Back-end sources are mostly national libraries that are consulted by ISBN when a book is not found in our own Core database. When this back-end check results in a hit, the book is copied to Core for future searches. Next to user submitted data, these libraries are the most important sources that feed our Core.)

BTW: no software update needed, these are server-side changes. Even the new regions (Finland and New Zealand) will automatically appear in your existing Book Collector software.

Coming up: Version 4.0 for all iOS and Android apps

Another project that is experiencing some delays. Not because of problems, but simply because we keep coming up with ways to improve the app and the Add screens in particular. I guarantee it will be worth the wait though.

ETA: We hope to be able to release CLZ Movies for iOS late January, with the other iOS apps following quickly after. For Android, we expect to need an extra 2 months, so we’re aiming for early April there.

Happy 2016!!!

Finally, the entire CLZ team wishes you a Happy New Year, with lots of new additions to your music, movie, book, comic and game collections !!!

BTW: keep posting your new goodies in our Collector groups on Facebook. We love seeing the photos of your latest purchases, your shelving solutions and your CLZ Cloud links! If you’re not a member yet, come join us now: