Technical & Development News

We are currently adding new updates to the Twitter API found within the Content Management Systems of some clients. This update will provide new functionality and options as well as meet the current API guidelines for Twitter.

Most of our e-commerce clients currently use shopsite version 10 as their e-commerce backend. A newer release, shopsite 10 sp2 has been recently released with new updates. Clients are being migrated to this newer version as part of our continual maintenance to make sure our client have the latest and greatest.

Shopsite 10 sp2 adds several new features and improves upon several older ones. Right off the bat, users of Shopsite 10 sp2 will notice a completely new User Interface (UI). This new UI is cleaner, easier to use and provides a new dashboard overview allowing you to see the status of your store, orders, feeds, reports and marketing.

Additional upgrades include*:

• UI and Navigation
• Product Upload with Excel Spreadsheet
• Publish Auxiliary Files
• Multiple Image Upload
• Wishlist
• Recurring Billing with Authorize.Net
• Check Payment Field Options
• Multiple Image and Thumbnail Support for More Info Pages
• Additional Multi-purpose Fields for Product Pages
• Page and Product Sorting

* Availability of featured based on Shopsite version

All clients that can be upgraded to this new version are being upgraded over the coming weeks for free. If you would like an expedited upgrade, please contact us.  Please note that expedited upgrades may incur a small fee.

Advertising Solutions, Inc. is proud to announce that since the official non-beta launch of ASI:NGMFS+E nearly two months ago, ASI:NGMFS+E has stopped tons of spam junk mail from reaching the inboxes of our clients’.  Since then first launch we have added several high priority spammers to our permanent ban list and many serial spammers have been stopped. We will continue to monitor network traffic and make updates to keep website contact form email as clean and legitimate as possible.

Advertising Solutions, Inc. has announced that all clients have been successfully migrated from ASI:NGMFS to ASI:NGMFS+E. We had expected this migration to take a few weeks longer but our staff worked hard to migrate each client over as quickly as possible. Let us know what you think about the new version by posting at the ASI:NGMFS+E features page at  http://advertisingsolutions.net/news/2010/02/asingmfs-ext-launched/

We have added a series of new definitions and IP Bans to our ASI:NGMFS+Ext SpamCatch. The newest version is 2.9. Enjoy

Advertising Solutions, Inc. has finalized its testing on the new Mail Form System updates. Our previous Mail Form Software known as ASI Next Generation Mail Form System (AKA ASI:NGMFS) has been launched.

ASI:NGMFS is now known as ASI:NGMFS+Extended. This new “extended” version includes all the old features of our previous Mail Form System plus many new and exciting benefits, which are outlined below.

As of this date, all new clients will utilize the new ASI:NGMFS+Extended version. Clients using our now legacy ASI:NGMFS will be migrated over to the new system in the coming weeks. The time frame for completion of the migration spans a few months due to the number of clients effected by this change, however, clients wanting to be migrated sooner, may request so.

New Features in ASI:NGMFS+Extended:

• Updated Unlimited Number of Custom Fields. Our previous version allowed up to 20 customizable form fields on top of the standard preset fields. This new system now allows for an unlimited number of fields.
• Updated Field Mapping only shows the fields that your form uses. Previous versions used a set number of standard fields that would display on the resulting email regardless of if they were used. Now only the fields your form uses will print out.
• Updated Email Address Security now completely hides your email address from visitors, spambots and potential spammers. Our old system used a simple algorithm to make your email address hard to be found but now our updated system completely hides your email address making it impossible for anyone to steal your address.
• Updated Visual Alerts tell a user when they did not fill a field out correctly.
• New Spam Filtering automatically scans the user’s message for common spam or junk words and will stop the message from being sent greatly reducing the number of people who can use the form to send solicitations.
• New IP and Domain Blocks automatically compare our list of blacklisted senders with the current sender and will stop them from using the form. This helps prevent “serial spammers” and those who repeatably send spam through a form.
• New Block and Ban Feature will block any mail caught by the Spam Filter or IP and Domain Block and will place a temporary ban on the person for 24 hours ensuring that the person does not rephrase their spam message and try again.
• New Permanent Ban is automatically activated on repeat offenders.
• New Spam, IP and Domain Block and Ban toggle allows selected forms to escape from having the Spam, Blocking  and Filtering services enabled. This prevents clients to opt-out of the Spam and Filtering services and accept all form submissions.
• New User-Friendly status feedback alerts the user when the form is loading or the message is being sent.
• New Form Styles and Colors make the forms more attractive.
• New Customizable Styles allow greater control over the colors of each individual form.
• New Colors, Styles and Layouts within the feedback email allow you to see everything you need on one printed page.
• Automatic Updates to our ASI:NGMFS+Extended core software and our SpamCatch software are applied from time to time automatically and free of charge. This ensures that every form is up to date and has the latest spam and ip address blocks.

Advertising Solutions, Inc. is currently testing a new update to our mail form system. This new system will provide new features such as ip banning and spam scanning. These new featured will block known spammers at the network level as well as provide additional protection against those who abuse the system and send spam using the forms. This update is currently in beta and is being tested on select websites. We will post updates when we officially release the version.

Advertising Solutions, Inc. has launched a new line of servers specifically configured to feed video files for our clients. These servers allow faster downloading of videos and also increases speed of bandwidth. By isolating video files on a special server, we are able to provide faster service and better handle load balance. Additional tools for accessing videos such as new video players have also been launched. This is just one of many new and exciting features coming from Advertising Solutions, Inc.

Advertising Solutions, Inc. is currently making updates to the core software used to power our client’s blogs. All clients who are currently using blogs are being updated to the new core software. This update is free.

This update includes added features and updates to the main application which include:

• Better and improved editing tools;
• Improved template coding handling;
• Sync with social networking sites like facebook and twitter;
• Process internal and external xml / rss feeds;
• Podcasting solutions;
• Updates to feeds, sitemaps and other search engine optimization tools;
• Better post management tools;
• New look and feel;
• Updated media manager;
• New photo gallery with visual effects;
• Social Bookmarking / networking tools;
• Social Bookmarking submission options available;
• Polls and rating system;
• much much more.

We will be making this updates slowly over the coming weeks. Please contact us if you have any questions regarding this update.

We have created a new section of our website called the Technical & Development News. This section will allow our clients to better learn about behind the scenes updates and developments going on at Advertising Solutions, Inc. This area will include:

• New Version and Updates to  Software and Web Applications;
• Updates to Servers, Hosting and other Behind-the-Scenes services;
• Products, Services and Applications current under development, in beta or undergoing testing.

Our goal with this new section is to help educate our clients and let them know what we are currently working on and developing as well as allow them to learn about new services. You can find this section at http://advertisingsolutions.net/news/technical-development-news/