Software and app updates related to 'newsletter' (page 3)
Lots of things going on at Collectorz.com, on all supported platforms: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android *and* online (Connect!). Which will result in important software updates in all areas, some within a few months, some as early as “next week”, some even just went live!
Here’s what cooking now, in order of ETA:
- Now live : Improved My.CLZ.com site.
- Now live : Music Collector Cobalt.4 for Mac.
- Next week : Music Collector Cobalt.5 for Windows.
- Next month : CLZ FineDiner app for iOS.
- Within 2 months: Connect 2.0.
- Later: CLZ Comics 2.0 for Android.
Read more
Alwin here, with what was meant to be the April 2014 edition of the CLZ newsletter, but ehm… let’s just call it the “early May edition”. Time flies where you’re having fun 🙂
If you’ve been following our Facebook, Google+ or Twitter feed, you have probably noticed that we’re on a roll ! SIX big releases since the last newsletter: the long awaited CLZ Movies 2.0 for Android, three big Cobalt updates for Mac and two for Windows.
And there’s more to come, including a completely new CLZ project for the fine dining enthusiasts among you: CLZ FineDiner (more info below).
On top of that: we reached an important milestone 3 weeks ago: 20,000 Update Plans !
In the meantime, 20,832 users have upgraded their software to the Cobalt version by getting one of our Update Plan options. Which brings the total number of Cobalt users to 45 thousand !
Thank you all for your continuing loyalty, much appreciated!
The topics today:
- It’s live: CLZ Movies 2.0 for Android!
- Coming up: CLZ FineDiner – keep track of your restaurant visits.
- Recent Cobalt updates for Mac and Windows.
- Upcoming Cobalt updates for Mac and Windows.
Read more
Saturday morning… while my wife Sytske is handling your support questions, I (Alwin) am writing this March 2014 edition of the Collectorz.com newsletter.
We have released important updates for two Windows Cobalt versions this month. Next to that we’re doing lots of “behind the scenes” work for upcoming new releases. Let’s look at both:
This month’s releases:
- Comic Collector Cobalt.4 for Windows – new Quick Fill screen when adding comics
- Book Collector Cobalt.4 for Windows – now recognizes 23 million ISBNs
Coming up:
- Book Collector Cobalt.3 for Mac – ebook cataloging and more
- Music Collector Cobalt.4 for Windows – improved support for vinyl
- CLZ Movies 2.0 for Android – add/edit/scan – first screen shots
- Flexible user defined fields system for all platforms (inc. CLZ Cloud)
Comic Collector Cobalt.4 for Windows – new Quick Fill screen when adding comics
In this Cobalt.4.1 update, we introduced many improvements to the Add Comics Automatically screen, plus we made the Update Automatically feature fully configurable!
- Add Comics Automatically: New Cobalt Compact template for Preview panel.
- Add Comics Automatically: New Quick Fill popup, that lets you set ALL Collection Status values (including On Order and For Sale), plus several extra fields, while adding comics.
- Add Comics Automatically: Screen now opens and closes faster.
- Fully configurable Update Comics Automatically feature.
Book Collector Cobalt.4 for Windows – now recognizes 23 million ISBNs
The Cobalt.4.1 update brought two improvements to your Add Books Automatically screen: better results for ISBN searches and a new look for the Preview Panel.
- Add Books Automatically: Now recognizes 23 million ISBNs!
A new, secondary ISBN lookup data source has been added to our online book database, which includes 13 million new ISBNs, plus extra data for 5 million books in our existing database. This brings the total number of ISBNs recognized by our own database to 23 million! - Add Books Automatically: New Cobalt Compact template for Preview panel
CLZ Movies 2.0 for Android – add/edit/scan – first screen shots
As you probably know, we are currently working our way, step-by-step, toward fully stand-alone 2.0 apps for Android, with adding/editing features, barcode scanning, 2-way cloud-syncing and a tablet-optimized layout.
While doing this, we’re focusing on completing CLZ Movies first (as it is the most popular app), doing the other 4 apps after that.
In CLZ Movies 1.5, a complete rewrite of the app, we have already introduced a new look, a native Android user-interface, an optimized layout for phone, phablets and tablet and a new details template.
In the meantime, we have almost finished CLZ Movies 2.0 for Android, which will bring adding/editing features, barcode scanning and 2-way syncing through the CLZ Cloud.
» » Here’s some Sneak Preview screen shots of CLZ Movies 2.0.
The ETA for CLZ Movies 2.0 is end of April 2014.
Book Collector Cobalt.3 for Mac – ebook cataloging and more
This is Patrick’s main project at the moment: adding automatic e-book cataloging features to the Mac edition of Book Collector. Automatically scan your computer for e-book files, and easily add them to your database, using meta data for the e-book files.
This new version will also get the re-designed Preview template for the Add Books Automatically screen, plus the new ISBN lookup data source that adds 13 million recognized ISBNs.
ETA: 2 or 3 weeks
Music Collector Cobalt.4 for Windows – improved support for vinyl
The Cobalt.4 version will add more vinyl-specific fields, PLUS (if all goes well) the ability to add vinyl records by searching Discogs.com by Catalog Number.
This has been an on-going project for Robbert and Ronald for quite a while. We would have liked to release this much earlier, but the guys from Discogs are … let me put this nicely … not exactly cooperative:
Discogs has recently introduced restrictions on image downloads and the usage of their API, just at the moment we started implementing our new search system. And this has caused numerous issues, which we have been trying to resolve since mid-January. We hope to have everything working soon, but it’s still hard to put any reliable ETA on this.
In the meantime, Robbert and Ronald will just continue on another ambitious project:
Flexible user defined fields system for all platforms (inc. CLZ Cloud)
This is a huge and ambitious project we expect to be working on for a long time to come: creating a new, completely flexible, user defined fields system for all editions (Win, Mac, iOS, Android and Connect), that will seamlessly sync through the CLZ Cloud.
We will be implementing this platform by platform, starting with the Windows editions, then the CLZ Cloud / Connect, moving on to the other platforms after that.
A costly and time-consuming endeavour, but we think this will take the flexibility of our cataloging solutions to a new level.
And now… Sytske and I are going to enjoy a sunny weekend 🙂
Talk to you next month (or earlier if you’re on Facebook, Twitter or Google+),
Alwin Hoogerdijk
Hi all!
It’s a short month, so here I (Alwin) am already, with the Feb ’14 edition of the CLZ Newsletter. Today’s newsletter will focus on one of our customers, Michael Thomasson, who has attained the official Guiness World Record for “Largest Video Game Collection”!
But first, let me give you a super-compact overview of what the CLZ Team is working on at the moment:
- Robbert and Ronald: Updates for all Windows editions, with a new Cobalt Compact template for Add Auto, plus other program-specific new features.
Their Movie Collector update is already live, more info below. - Pim and AJ: CLZ Movies 2.0 for Android. Add Movies screen is finished (inc barcode scanning!), working on Edit screen and two-way CLZ Cloud syncing now.
- Patrick: Big update of Book Collector for Mac, with automatic e-book cataloging features and the new Cobalt Compact templates for Add Auto.
- Robbert and Dion: a complete redesign of Connect, with a more modern look that automatically adapts to desktop, tablet and phone screens.
- Rowdy and Martin: Quality checking all movie and edition cover images in our online movie database, replacing all small and low-quality images with better ones.
- Chris: A complete rewrite of all manuals of our Windows and Mac editions, using our own online manual software Manula.
Okay, on to the biggest video game collection… in the world…
Read more
This is CLZ Alwin, with the last CLZ newsletter for 2013!
I can happily report that 2013 was a great year for Collectorz.com, the highlight being the success of the new Cobalt versions and our new Update Plan system.
What makes us even happier is that just this morning, we have sold the 15,000th Update Plan! If we include the 16,000 users who received a free Cobalt license (because of a recent purchase), plus all new customers since the Cobalt release, this brings the total number of Cobalt users to 37,886 !
HOWEVER: we are still receiving a lot of questions about Cobalt and the Update Plans. So in this newsletter I’d like to try and answer the 5 most common questions.
In other news… I’ll cover recent Cobalt updates, upcoming Cobalt updates and what’s coming up on mobile and online. Here we go:
Read more
This is Alwin, with your Collectorz.com News for November 2013.
At the CLZ HQ, the Cobalt craziness is slowly quieting down. Our Support guys and gal (Chris, AJ and Sytske) have everything under control again.
On the development side, the advantages of the Update Plan system are already showing, with this month’s Cobalt.1 updates bringing a nice set of improvements for all PC & Mac programs and our new weekly “Maintenance Monday” resulting in faster fixes for reported problems (more details in the 1st topic of this newsletter).
I have three news topics today:
- About Cobalt and Update Plans (over 13,000 users have gone Cobalt!)
- 3 days left in our Black Friday Sale: Get an extra Collectorz.com program half price!
- CLZ Movies 1.5 for Android is live!
Read more
Hi all,
Alwin of Collectorz.com again 🙂
This time with the Collectorz.com newsletter for October 2013, the craziest month in Collectorz.com history! What a ride it was (and still is!).
The past 2 months the CLZ team has been working on nine (!!) new Cobalt versions for our Windows and Mac editions and at the same time preparing our software and server-side code for the completely new Update Plan system.
But I am proud to say that we made it! In the past 4 days, all nine Cobalt versions and the Update Plan system went live and it’s all working great 🙂
In the meantime, over 5,800 (!!) users have already updated to Cobalt, most of them opting to pay for their Update Plan with the new automatic monthly payments, others choosing to Pre-Pay for a year. Thank you all!
Read more
Alwin here, with your CLZ News for September 2013.
When I start writing these newsletters, I always scroll down the timeline of our Facebook page, just to remind me of everything that happened in the past month.
This time however, it looked like we were just a mobile app developer, as I only found posts about iOS and Android. Of course, our mobile apps are a big part of Collectorz.com, especially now with the recent iOS 7 release and our big Android project. But it certainly isn’t the only thing we’re working on!
Read more
This is CLZ Alwin here, with your monthly dose of Collectorz.com news.
This month we released a major upgrade of “the one that started it all”. The program that I started on myself, in my spare time, back in 1996 (yes, that’s over 17 years ago!).
Of course, the program I am talking about here is Music Collector for Windows.
In the meantime, our lead Windows developer Ronald has taken over the programming duties on Music Collector, but still, I am very proud that my baby has just reached version 11!
Read more
July 31, so just in time for the July 2013 edition of the CLZ Newsletter.
It’s the summer holiday season, so most of the CLZ crew is either currently on vacation,
just returned from vacation or just leaving for vacation.
But still, we’re getting a lot of work done 🙂 Here’s what’s cooking :
- The price of the iOS apps will go *up* next week. Get them now!
- But…. What about Android ????
- Just a few weeks away: Music Collector 11 for Windows
- Lots of software updates for improved CLZ Cloud syncing
- Coming up: completely new mobile Connect website
- Core for Movies is getting a Submit feature
Let’s start with the most urgent topic, as I don’t want you to miss out on this one:
Read more
CLZ Alwin here, with the June 2013 edition of the CLZ Newsletter.
Just 3 topics today and they’re closely related, it’s all about the CLZ Cloud!
- New naming : CLZ Account and CLZ Cloud
- CLZ Cloud storage and syncing is now free for everyone!
- Coming soon: Improved CLZ Cloud syncing with custom images and more data fields
Read more
Hectic times here at the CLZ office in Amsterdam. We’ve completed some big releases and started on a couple of huge other projects. Some of which I will disclose in this newsletter (we’re back on Android!!), but others I have to keep quiet about for now.
First, here’s the new stuff we’ve launched this month:
- CLZ Barry for Android version 1.1
- Book Collector NINE for Mac OS X
- Core for Comics / Comic Collector 5.4
And this is what we’re working on now:
- CLZ app updates for Android ( join our CLZ Android Club! )
- Further improvements for the iOS apps
- Improvements to Connect software and cloud-syncing
- …. ?
Let me go over these in more details (warning: it’s lllloooonnnnnggggg).
Read more
This is Alwin, with your monthly dose of Collectorz.com news. Lots of different projects
going on, on various platforms. Windows, Mac, online, iOS and yes, even on Android 🙂
Todays topics:
- Coming up: Book Collector NINE for Mac OS X
- Reminder: Movie Collector NINE for Mac OS X is live
- Now available in the App Store: CLZ Games 2.0 for iOS
- Coming up: CLZ Barry 1.1 for Android and iOS
- Coming up: Comic Collector 5.4 for Mac and Windows
Read more
Saturday morning, Easter weekend and the last weekend of March 2013.
Perfect timing for your monthly Collectorz.com update.
Here’s what we’re working on nowadays:
- Coming up this Tuesday: Movie Collector 9 for Mac OS X !!
- Now live in the App Store: 2.1 versions of all 4 iOS apps
- Work in progress: CLZ Games 2.0 for iOS
- Work in progress: Core for Comics
Read more
We’re nearing the end of February, the shortest month of the year.
But still, we were able to push out a lot of important releases (7 in total!).
- CLZ Books 2.0 for iOS available in the App Store
- 9.1 releases of both Movie and Book Collector for Windows
- Maintenance updates for all four Mac editions
And this is what the CLZ team is working on now:
- 2.1 versions for all 4 iOS apps
- Movie Collector 9 for Mac OS X !!
Let me (Alwin) go into more details for all of the above:
Read more
Welcome to the first Collectorz.com newsletter of 2013!
And we’re off to a great start, with two big releases already completed and another one coming up.
On top of that, our popular CLZ Barry app got a very nice review at TUAW.com. To celebrate Barry’s success, we’re doing a *Barry Half Price Sale” this week!
So these are the topics of today’s newsletter:
- Cut the barcode scanning cord with CLZ Barry (half price this week!)
- Book Collector NINE for Windows is live
- CLZ Music 2.0 for iOS live, CLZ Books 2.0 coming up
- CLZ Books 2.0 for iOS submitted, live tomorrow?
Let’s start with Barry.
Read more
It’s the last day of the year, so this is the last CLZ newsletter for 2012.
But before I tell you about our recent releases and current projects…
The entire Collectorz.com team (Robbert, Martin, Rowdy, Sven, AJ, Ronald,
Chris, Pim, Patrick, Syts and Alwin) wishes you a Happy New Year,
with lots of new music, movies, books, comics and video games!
If you all keep growing your collections, we’ll keep providing and improving
the tools to manage it all. Just like we did in 2012, when we brought you:
Read more
This is Alwin, of Collectorz.com, with the November 2012 Newsletter.
With the recent big updates and more new versions coming up,
it’s pretty hectic at the CLZ headquarters in Amsterdam.
Here’s an overview of what everyone’s working on:
- Ronald, Martin, Rowdy, AJ, Sven and I are finalizing the software and
online movie database for the imminent Movie Collector 9 for Windows. - Robbert and Martin are working together to create and tweak the
new Core for Movies service and the necessary in-house admin tools. - Pim, Patrick, AJ and Chris still got their hands full with our big
iOS two-point-oh project, with the main focus on CLZ Music 2.0 for iOS. - Sytske, Sonny and Chris are answering all support requests and all your
questions related to the recent and upcoming releases.
Now let me go over these projects in more details:
Read more
This is the October 2012 edition of the Collectorz.com newsletter,
brought to you, as always, by the CLZ head honcho himself, Alwin Hoogerdijk.
You may have guessed from the subject: most of this newsletter is about
two most popular products: Movie Collector and it’s companion app CLZ Movies.
Because that is what all of us have been working on this October:
- Coming soon: Movie Collector 9 for Windows
- Submitted to Apple: CLZ Movies 2.0 for iOS
The other topics today:
- * Windows 8 compatible!
- * A small favor?
Read more
Hi all,
This is Alwin, and I have an important question for you.
Today, I want you to tell me if you want further emails from me or not.
You see, I love keeping you all up-to-date with the latest happenings at the
Collectorz.com HQ, with my monthly newsletter email and product specific update emails.
But I absolutely do not want to *annoy* anyone with my emails …
… I want to reach out only to people who like getting these updates.
Read more
Here’s the August 2012 Collectorz.com Newsletter. With everybody back at the
office after well deserved vacations, work on all projects is speeding up again.
Let’s go over the current projects one by one:
- iOS apps 2.0
- Collectorz.com Core
- Updates for Mac editions
- New Windows project
Then at the end of this newsletter, something fun
that kind of evolved on Facebook last week:
- How do you store your collection? -> Collection photos on Facebook
Read more
Hi all,
Yes, it’s July 31, so it’s time for the Collectorz.com Newsletter.
Today, I have more news about the upcoming new iOS apps, including a
special invitation for all users of our *current* apps for iPhone and iPad:
- Calling all iPhone and iPad users… Get a preview of the 2.0 apps now!
Next to that, an overview of the important releases and happenings this month:
- Updates for Mac editions, now fully Mountain Lion compatible.
- Game Collector 5 for Windows is live!
- C37 scanner overstock (200 units) sold out in 6 days!
- Image server upgraded with 2 TB of extra hard disk space.
Read more
This is Alwin, with the Collectorz.com Newsletter for June 2012.
As you may know, I am a gamer and I am the proud owner of 535 games.
(check my game collection on Connect)
So I am happy that today I can announce we’re going to bring a major upgrade for my favorite Collectorz.com program: Game Collector 5.
Next to that, I want to introduce those of you who haven’t read about it yet, to a new project: Collectorz.com Core.
We’ve been working on Core for many months now and we’ll probably keep evolving and perfecting it for many years to come, it’s that important!
Also, in this newsletter:
- Mac editions / Music Collector 10 for Mac is live
- CLZ Comics 2.0 for iOS is getting closer
Read more
We’re nearing the end of May already, so time for an update on all things CLZ,
in the May 2012 edition of the Collectorz.com Newsletter.
Today’s topics:
- New site design
- 30.000 (thirty thousand!) “likes” on Facebook!
- Music Collector 10 for Windows and Mac
- Movie Collector 8.2 for Windows – free update for v8 users
- What else is going on?
Read more
Wow, it looks like you all love our new Connect Sync & Share service!
It went live 3 weeks ago and since then 5,273 PRO users have already activated their free Sync & Share subscriptions!
(BTW: this is Alwin with the Collectorz.com newsletter for March 2012)
Do you own the latest PRO edition of your software and haven’t activated your Connect Sync Share account yet? Then go here for a step-by-step.
Okay, on to other news:
- Book Collector 8 for Mac is here!
- BIG updates for the Mac editions of Movie Collector and Comic Collector
- Coming up: Music Collector 10 for Windows *and* Mac OS X
- CLZ Comics v2 for iOS is getting closer
Read more