25Mar
Just a quick update to let you know that we’ve deployed a new version that fixes certain UI issues in Internet Explorer 8, the latest update to the infamous Microsoft browser that was released a few days ago. Before, the map branches and connections weren’t displayed at all in IE8, icons did not work correctly and some dialogs looked downright awful.
This should all be fixed now and our growing numbers of IE8 users (which are already up to 2.3% of all Internet Explorer users, who in turn make up a third of our total visitors) can hopefully enjoy mostly bug-free mind mapping. If you do encounter any remaining issues please let us know, and even more importantly, if you’re still using Internet Explorer 6 please, please upgrade to version 8 asap. Or better still, use Firefox if you can…
17Mar
It’s St. Patrick’s Day and we at MindMeister thought it would be great craic to celebrate the grand occasion with another special promotion. This March 17th we’re offering 40% off all MindMeister PRO accounts set up on Paddy’s Day 2009.
The offer applies to both our Premium Edition and Business Edition. So, if you’ve been waiting for the right moment to bring your entire team on board, this would be it, to be sure!
To avail of this offer, simply enter the code
leprechaun09
in the Promotion Code field on the signup pages and we’ll automatically take the 40% off your license fee. Sláinte!
10Mar
MindMeister was featured on BBC’s technology show Click which aired several times last weekend. We noticed a huge surge in signups on usually rather quiet Saturday and Sunday and were rather chuffed when we found out the reason.
Kate Russell mentions MindMeister as the first site in her latest selection of the best sites on the World Wide Web in the Webscape section of Click. She refers to it as a “beautifully simple mind-mapping tool“, and “totally intuitive, as it has no mess or clutter from fancy frills“. See the entire piece online plus full transcript, or click below to play the video here.
I tried to catch the last airing of Webscape yesterday on BBC World but unfortunately (for us, not for American stem cell researchers) the show was interrupted before the MindMeister piece due to a breaking news announcement of President Obama. Ah well.
4Mar
We’re almost a quarter into the year and it’s time for a short update of what’s coming up in terms of releases and new features in MindMeister. It looks like it will be a busy time until Easter as we’ve been working on quite a few things in parallel at MeisterLabs and we hope there’ll be something here for everyone!
As you might have read we recently acquired the iPhone application MindMaker. We’ve spent a few weeks completing its integration into MindMeister and are now putting the last finishing touches onto a complete UI overhaul, hoping to be ready for a preview release by mid March with the public version to follow a week or so after that. To be honest we did underestimate the effort a bit, talking full-mouthed about an impending release date already weeks back – again, sorry about that!
In terms of the core product, the next release (no I won’t mention a date this time) will again contain lots of small improvements, plus one major new mapping feature: inline images, finally. You’ll be able to visually spice up your maps with resizable images that are displayed directly in the map. Upload images from your local hard disk, select them from the MindMeister image library or use our web wizard to search and embed images from such prominent places as Flickr or Google Images. Of course we’ll also have a WunderBild function (my personal favourite of the new release).
MindMeister users come from all corners of the world, and not all of them have English as their main language. Localization of the user interface was one the most requested additions so we’re quite proud to announce that internationalized versions of MindMeister will be available soon. We’ll start with Japanese and German, hopefully soon to be followed by other languages. Localization is done through partners in the respective countries who manage and own the translated versions, and we offer quite generous (and often exclusive) distribution deals. If you’re interested in becoming a regional partner please contact us.
Finally we’d like to give you a glimpse of a soon to be available new deployment option of MindMeister. Many companies – due to internal policies – simply cannot embrace all aspects of Software-as-a-Service, meaning that they need to host all their software inhouse. For those customers we’ll be offering a virtual MindMeister appliance – a self-contained and full-featured installation of the our server that can be deployed behind a company’s firewall. The first edition will be as a VMware appliance, with other editions to follow on demand. For more details on the MindMeister Virtual Enterprise Appliance please contact us.
