WebAsyst now supports Unicode
Unicode support enables WebAsyst to recognize any language group. This means that whether you type in English, French, Hebrew, or Russian, language characters will always be correctly displayed in your account:

Multilingual keyword search and sorting now work according to Unicode rules and standards. Visit Unicode official website to learn more.

AJAX introduction to all WebAsyst services
After successful redesign of WebAsyst Files to comply with AJAX technology, we have introduced AJAX methods to all WebAsyst services. As a result the following features are now added to WebAsyst:

• Folders “drag and drop” in all services containing Folder Panel (Files, Contacts, Mail, Notes)
• Folder inline renaming by double-clicking on the folder name (no need to open Folder -> Modify Folder menu item)
• Improved folder navigation and large list paging. When clicking a folder, only folder content is reloaded while the entire web page stays intact

We are going to release a major WebAsyst upgrade on Thursday, 08/30/2007. This upgrade will require turning off WebAsyst server temporarily from 4 am to 5 am EDT. You will not be able to login to WebAsyst hosted accounts at that time and access your services.

We will do our best to perform the upgrade as soon as possible and notify you when it is complete.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

I would like to introduce myself to all blog readers. I have been working with WebAsyst for over a year now. Besides putting together WebAsyst content and editing blog, I am also the liaison between customers and developers. In other words, I can speak both “normal” and “techie” English, and can translate customers’ requests and preferences to developers.

Please feel free to leave any comments and suggestions for us to consider. Looking forward to reading them in this blog!

Olga Karpman,
WebAsyst blog editor

Online stores often go far when it comes to fraud prevention and security measures. Besides credit card history check, a lot of major online stores introduce sophisticated systems to verify IP addresses. Most likely it does pay off – one ecommerce fraud attack can damage business and drive away many customers.

But can fancy fraud prevention system also reduce number of customers? Very easily. Often trustworthy customers with reliable credit card history cannot go past IP verification when placing orders, because IP addresses resolve to “not-so-trustworthy” domain names.

I personally have come across several stories of people unsuccessfully trying to place orders while out of the country, in stores like L.L.Bean, Nokia, or even Flowers.com (the guy was trying to have flowers delivered for his wife’s birthday while being away on business). In most cases, a customer receives an email saying his credit card did not go thru. I was lucky with L.L Bean – I called them up and the same credit card worked just fine over the phone. But the shopper at Nokia wasn’t lucky at all; he was calling credit card bank and Nokia customer service back and forth answering security questionnaire, just to find out that his name has been permanently placed on an “IP-suspicious” list, simply because he had placed his order in Russia.

In my mind, online merchant need to find the “perfect balance” between security and site usability. You definitely need security measures in place; however they should not drive away reliable customers from shopping in your store.

We have added drag and drop feature to WebAsyst. You will see it in WebAsyst Files in this upgrade: it lets you drag and drop folders in the folder pane instead of using standard Folder -> Move command. We are also working on adding files drag and drop and implementing the feature in other web services as well.

The introduction of this and several other features is the benefit of AJAX technology, which we have recently implemented in WebAsyst Files. It now lets us implement many different features to simplify user interface in all web services.

We’ll keep you posted on the new upgrades.

As you may know, Berlin, Germany, will be hosting this year’s Web 2.0 EXPO on November 5-8, 2007. The focus will be Web 2.0 technologies and trends in next generation web design and development. What is most exciting for us is that WebAsyst is a Silver Sponsor of the expo. Some of our team members will be there to present the latest releases of all WebAsyst collaborative web services and WebAsyst Shopping Cart (it is now delivered as a downloadable Shop-Script shopping cart solution), the new addition to web services suite. Read more about the future changes in Shop-Script software.We are planning to release several more upgrades and features before the expo. Stay connected and don’t forget to leave your feedback!

We have added the Full Screen feature to WebAsyst. Now every WebAsyst page includes the “Full Screen” button on the top right corner of the window:

Click on the button to switch you WebAsyst account to the full screen mode. The working window of the current WebAsyst service will occupy the entire screen. The top logo panel and the toolbar on the bottom of the screen are not displayed, so is the main menu on the left (if you are not using bottom screen toolbar).

To switch the full screen mode off, click “Full Screen Off” on the top right corner:

Many WebAsyst users have wanted to see this feature in their accounts. It can especially be useful if you work with low resolution computer screen. In this case WebAsyst window occupies the entire screen and you are not distracted by the panels on the top, on the bottom, or on the side of the working window. Users who work primarily with one service (or rarely switch between the services) can also benefit from the Full Screen option.

The first WebAsyst service to be redesigned utilizing AJAX technology is WebAsyst Files. AJAX allows faster exchange of information without reloading page content between website and server. This improvement is clear when browsing files. Every time you click a new folder name in the folders list, the file list pane is updated. However, the entire page is not reloaded; therefore, folder switching and content update is considerably faster. Even if your upload speed is slow, the page format does not disappear (i.e., no blank screen while loading):

Posting your WebAsyst Files
Another new feature introduced in this release is file posting. This option is available directly from the WebAsyst Files main window. Click on a folder name, and again on the “Create a Link” button located on the files pane. You may create links for an entire folder, any number of selected files, or search results. Share a link with your colleagues or friends to give them open access to your files, or to place it on a blog, website, newsletter, etc:

Our developers are now redesigning all WebAsyst services to utilize AJAX technology; as usual, we will keep you posted on new upgrades!

Populating online store with product catalog can be a time consuming process, especially if your product list contains hundreds or thousands of records.

Shop-Script online store lets you upload your product catalog in a bulk mode; i.e. adding multiple product records in one operation. In Shop-Script PRO and Shop-Script PREMIUM stores this is accomplished by CSV file import feature. Your CSV file is a text file saved in CSV format (comma separated values – each new line corresponds to the collection of one product details separated by comma) that contains the list of your products and their details (e.g. listed price, numbers in stock, product description, category, etc). You can add the exact product details as you would like them to appear in your online store. To make it easier to create and edit your product catalog, it is recommended to use an application with tabular format (e.g. Microsoft Excel). Here’s the sample of CSV DVD catalog:

If you have Shop-Script PRO or Shop-Script PREMIUM installed on your computer, the sample Excel CSV product file is located in examples/ folder in the Shop-Script root directory or you can download it from your store’s administrative mode in Catalog -> Import products. Please note that the file was created with semicolon as a delimiter. To ensure the correct formatting when opened in Excel, please use semicolon as a list separator in your local computer settings.

To import you product catalog saved in CSV format to Shop-Script store, open Catalog -> Import products page of the administrative mode, browse for the file, indicate list separator (e.g. comma, semicolon, tab) used in a file and fill out the rest of the options. When the file is imported, your store’s product catalog is automatically populated with products details saved in the imported CSV file.