The bug in Firefox can cause a small number of pages on MovieSite versions 1 and 2 to “hang” indefinitely and appear not to load. The problem also affects major sites such as Yahoo! and LinkedIn.

If you encounter this problem, we recommend you use Safari meantime.

Best wishes,

David

Open Brolly will use its core expertise to take clients’ database information and make it available through attractive and functional applications on the iPhone. We’re also introducing feedback and collaborative mechanisms – for example, allowing application users to contribute to the information displayed in future versions of an application.

Our new system, for translating information to and from the iPhone and existing databases, is called BusinessBox. Applications are expected to include provision of visitor information in a tourism destination, crew and facilities for the film and television sector and specialist databases in other niche sectors. For more information, contact david.sim@openbrolly.com.

We have invested in backup capacity and were able to switch to this immediately. We continue to run on this, and there is no disruption to services. We are running below the capacity of the backup line and therefore there should not be any performance issues.

Demon, the service provider, has not yet provided an estimate for restoration of the main connection so we will continue to run using backup capacity until further notice.

In related news, an upgrade is planned for the main fibre optic connection. While we are currently operating below capacity, we will ensure that we are ahead of the curve of future growth.

We do not anticipate downtime any longer than 30 minutes – and probably significantly less – while we bring a new database server online.

Many thanks for your patience during this upgrade which is essential to keep pace with the growth in usage of our systems.

If you have any questions, please email david.sim@openbrolly.com.

Considerable work has gone into making Versions 1 and 2 as compatible as possible, minimising the changeover process. The biggest underlying change has been to links – now any record can be linked to any other. This means that version 1 links will be converted to version 2 format without any loss of information.

In the last few weeks there have been some major improvements made to the underlying code to improve performance. We have also added some great new features, in addition to the changes in forms, including:

- Image information extract: Some cameras store the location a photograph was taken, together with the time and date. This information will now automatically be pulled into MovieSite without any manual rekeying.

- Image upload is now faster and easier: select up to a hundred images at a time to upload with no timeouts.

- Faster access to information: adding records to lists, viewing image information and editing spendsheets is now faster as the system does not switch to a new page.

- Advanced Custom forms: for larger agencies, it is now possible to have different forms for different users, or for different types of record. This could, perhaps, hide confidential information from a group of internal users who do not require to see it. Alternatively, incoming projects might have a different tracking form to local projects. (Advanced customisation is an additional service offered by Open Brolly).

We will be offering free webcasts to all MovieSite users to introduce the new system, and to cover specific areas of functionality. Watch this space for dates and times.

The workshops will be run on 29 May 2009 as part of the new Moray Film Festival. To provisionally book one of a limited number of free places on the course, find out more, or to discuss running a similar workshop in your area, please contact 4TM or email david@4tm-services.com.

Google Street View provides 360° horizontal and 290° vertical panoramic street level views and can be accessed by via Google Maps and Google Earth. As the services are rolled out, it will provide an important additional resource for urban Screen Agencies and film makers – offering high resolution photography of frontages and streets from almost every town in the UK. Streetview can also be integrated, where available, with web brochures produced by the MovieSite system.

As you may know, we have been using version 2 code for some months on customised public sites, such as the Irish Film Board Production Company database. It has proven to be robust and flexible as we had hoped. The focus is now on updating the MovieSite backend, to improve consistency and allow our clients to customise the information they hold.

In our schedules we hoped to commence go live with a Screen Agency in Jan / Feb 09, and we expect to meet this target with a new client. This is an ideal opportunity as we’re migrating information anyway, and the structure of data in their old system lends itself to the more flexible structure of MovieSite v2, rather than trying to shoehorn information into version 1.

Of course, equally important is ensuring that the transition to version 2 is painless and delivers benefits for our existing clients too. We will therefore be opening up a demonstration environment, currently scheduled for the first week in February. This will allow users initially to try out the new data entry forms and, later in February, try out the whole MovieSite system in V2. This will mean that users can “play” with the system without any implications for their own data and provide us with feedback.

We will ask system testers to complete a short questionnaire. Once we’re confident we’re on track with our users’ wishes, working with the chair of our user group, we’ll begin rolling out the upgrade to all MovieSite.

If any client wishes to remain on MovieSite v1, as it addresses their needs better at this time, they will be able to do so. We will announce formal long term support arrangements for version 1 later.

The Museo Nacional del Prado has created “Masterpieces” on Google Earth, enabling users of the application to zoom in to the Museum on a map. However, it goes a step further – you can enter the building and view high resolution images.

As Stephen points out, the potential for using Google Earth for film locations is huge: both for marketing and for film tourism. Some ideas:

- Take advantage of Google Earth’s ability to display photographs of locations on a map, and set up a tour of recommended locations for an enquiry. This could be the next generation of web brochure, available now.

- Add links to film trailers, film publicity stills and location shots, and allow users to fly across your region stopping when something is of interest.

- Create links from Google Earth back to your locations database.

MovieSite supports custom integration with Google Earth. Contact David Sim for further information.