It has been a busy year for Queensberry. We brought in the Press Book/Album range and along with that came a whole lot of new queries.

Introducing a new product or feature sure keeps us on our toes. In fact sometimes there’s a race between our very switched on customers and us here in tech support to find out what the latest version of Photojunction has to offer.

I would like to say Merry Christmas from our tech support team to everyone who has emailed, talked and done screen sharing sessions with us. We all hope that our efforts made your lives a little easier.

As  you would be aware from recent emails we are lucky enough to have Summer coincide quite nicely with Christmas here. The stockings are hung, the tinsel dusted off, and on the Christmas tree. Also the sunglasses and board shorts are out. Life is good.

Anyway back to my snow globe and the fact I can see the future in it.

What I saw was pretty exciting. Recently we were lucky enough to have a sneak preview of what the little elves in Photojunction’s workshop have been working on. There’s some stuff that’s going to bring a twinkle to many a photographer’s eye.  We might even gift wrap it for you seeing you have been so good this year. But unfortunately you will have to wait until after the holidays to get your hands on it.

So until then be safe, take bit of time away from the camera and computer, give your wife, husband, partner, kids, Mum (Mom), Dad, cat and dog a big hug from us and wish them all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Cheers
Peter

Happy New Year!

As I always say, this is a great time of year to reflect.

We achieved a lot to be proud of in 2010. As well as our regular software releases, and a user base that grew by another 25% over the year, some of the highlights included:

– Queensberry press book integration
– our new classroom movie series
– and of course our popular weekly webinars…

We’re not quite so proud of these out-takes from a filming session Nigel and I did for our website home page. But Ian found them pretty funny and made them into a short video. Maybe you’ll have a laugh at/with me too. You can click on the Vimeo button to watch in high-res.
Don’t feel you need to watch the whole five minutes

Cheers, Danny

I don’t know whether you’ll find it as funny as I did, but this movie makes me feel pretty good. To me it demonstrates the fact that the PJ team aren’t happy doing anything second-rate. – Ian

We trust that you’ve found time to pry yourselves away from the computer and that you won’t actually see this. But if you do, everyone at Photojunction and Queensberry wishes you all the best for the holiday season and we look forward to catching up again in the New Year.

Cheers, Danny and everyone at Team PJ

Here’s a quick, real-life story about Photojunction’s auto-save templates feature.

Last week we got a slightly panicked call from a PJ user who’d lost her entire album design. Frustrating.

Support treats calls like this as detective stories, and they’re really good at solving them.

But what happened is less important than what to do about it.

She thought she’d need to totally re-design her album, but we introduced her to Photojunction’s auto-save templates feature.

During the design of every album you do, Photojunction auto-saves templates of your design. It’s not an option you can turn on and off. Photojunction just does it because it cares.

That means the user had lost her project, but not her design. By simply setting up a new project and loading the auto-saved templates of her now eaten project, all she had to do was re-populate the apertures with her images (and PJ might have been able to do this for her if she’d wanted).

15 minutes after hopping off the phone, Photoshop was grinding through it’s exports and the album order was sent.

I liked the way she summed up the whole situation… “just a storm in a teacup.”

Cheers, Nigel

If you haven’t heard, Photojunction and albumexposure have teamed up to bring you online album proofing direct from within Photojunction.

We’ve had some great feedback since we announced (on Twitter especially) and wanted to share some of it with you

@bluesky_photo: Just seen this – what an incredible concept! Brilliant idea @jeffyoungren , thanks to v clever @photojunction + @albumexposure

@loripaladino: HOORAY!!!! Photojunction 1.38b and @albumexposure http://bit.ly/bdbnoJ

@muyiwa: Thanks to Photojunction, I am no longer terrified of clients wanting to make changes to their album!

@EricOConnor: If you pre-design albums this is a big deal. http://bit.ly/bNrA6o via @albumexposure @photojunction

@JeffYoungren: So Stoked that @PhotoJunction and @AlbumExposure are now friends – the ULTIMATE Album workflow!! http://bit.ly/bNrA6o

@WeddingsByRyan: Another beautiful album designed and sent for preview. Thank you #Photojunction. Thank you #AlbumExposure

Cheers, Danny (and Jared and Gary the albumexposure guys)

PS check out our mentions blog to see what others are saying about us.

I especially miss the States at this time of year. For a young football player, there was something magical about Super Bowl parties.

But I’ve moved on – a new love… Rugby.

Enjoy the hot wings, pizza and beer.

Cheers, Danny

Seen this? It’s called an iPad

From my geeky point-of-view (with a Photojunction bias of course) I’m gutted it doesn’t run OS X, and therefore OS X apps….

What a shame. Would’ve been cool to see Photojunction run on the tablet.

Here’s hoping they open it up a little in future.

Anyway, back to work to focus on ‘low lying fruit’ (a favourite saying of mine).

Cheers, Danny

Hi everyone!

The full PJ crew are back in the saddle for 2010 after a well deserved break… We trust you managed to take time out to relax and celebrate with friends and family.

The small beach town of Ohope was my choice of retreat this year. As well as strolling the fairways of the country golf course and relaxing on the beach, I spent a little time reflecting on the decade some are calling the ‘noughties’.

10 years ago I arrived in New Zealand to explore my family roots (my Dad’s a Kiwi and my Mum’s American). How time flies – cliché I know – but I remember counting down to the millennium in Matamata. Not many people can say that!

Think about all the things you didn’t know then. I didn’t know…

- I would live in New Zealand for the next 10 years
- My soon-to-be wife, Natalie
- The All Blacks would be knocked out of two more World Cups
- I would be diagnosed with cancer… (in remission 7 years later)
- How to spell “haematology” the English way
- Nearly as many photographers and geeks as I do now.

Plus all sorts of stuff that most people wouldn’t find too interesting.

So, here’s to the next ten years…

Happy New Year and welcome back from Danny and everyone at Team PJ and Queensberry.

Boxing Day Sales in New Zealand are just like Black Friday in the States. Nigel is hitting them up, but I’m opting out this year for a game of croquet instead.

Happy Boxing Day!

Danny

p.s. The Boxing Day article is worth a read.

Hey it’s Thanksgiving!

I was brought up in the States (Kiwi Dad, American Mom) … and we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in New Zealand.

I miss it and I wish we did.

It’s a great time to stop and “give thanks”, so here goes from Team PJ…

Thank you for using our software, and for your friendship, your commitment, your bug reports, your patience and your feature requests.

And a special thanks from Support, who say the phones are real quiet today!

Cheers, Danny