New Windows Vista compatible PimpFish BETA released!

That's right kids - We've released a BETA version of PimpFish 2007 for our registered users and a Vista compatible PimpFish Basic. To get your hands on this cool new version go here:

http://pimpfish.com/download/pf2007-beta/

And as you may notice we are using our new design and layout on those pages - expect BIG changes on our website and SLAPfiles area very soon ... Take it easy y'all!

- The Zabersoft Dudes

Merry Christmas and happy Holidays!



It's that time of year again. The holidays. If you celebrate that sort of thing, then Zabersoft wishes you an excellent holiday and whatnot. As always we're busy, and at the moment things are still on track for our big new update in February. Which is going to kick ass (as usual).
I wonder how the inhabitants of Christmas Island feel about all this...


Best holiday wishes, n' have a happy new year!

- The Zabersoft gang of idiots

The Good ... The Bad ... The Ugly ...
Whew! we thought we'd come out with a small update for all you freaks out there, and give out a little sneak preview goodness on our upcoming version: PimpFish 2007 Vista Edition

Yep, that's going to be the official name for the thing untill the next update when we will most likely drop the "Vista Edition" part. Of course we will still work on XP and Windows 2000 - But we will be dropping all Win 9x support (98/Me) - Anyway, I have a few news to bring today and some are good and one is bad. But first, the good news:

• We have finalized the feature set of PF 2007 and can now show you some sneak preview pictures! Check this out yo....
  

Wow, check that out... The toolbar looks... Like... So much cooler! And what is that "Plugins" button you see there? Well the new SLAPfiles plugin integration of course! What this baby does is enable us to do custom serverside processing of all grabs... Meaning, grabbing from Youtube, Google, apple.com/trailers etc. ad nauseum will be completely integrated and seamless! Just surf to the page where the video is playing, hit grab movies and BLAMMO! It all works out... And the best thing is: We can now continuously just update, tweak, fix and whatnot on our server and you will never have to download an update to the plugin stuff.... More sites will be supported automagically!

How will this look in the downloader...? Well, something like this:

Cool, huh?

Also we have of course taken full advantage of the new UI features on Win Vista (as seen on www.pentafish.com) and put in a few more of those cool task dialogs:

Looks friendly doesn't it? :)

What other cool features will be in there? Well...

- Firefox toolbar update (a lot of good stuff coming up)
- Better Image Grabbing (CSS now supported to a certain extent)
- Plenty of bugfixes and improved downloader logic
- Better error reporting and feedback
- Bundled free FLV player with no adware/spyware/crap so you don't need any additional tools other than PimpFish to download and view video from e.g. YouTube

This is just a partial list of the highlights...

• The bad news: Spidering will sadly not be part of the recipe this time 'round :

Yep, you heard right. Unfortunately due to insane time constraints we have had to cut that feature out of this release - as we are racing to meet the January 30th deadline for a simultaneous release with Windows Vista. Not only that, but time allotted for development is pretty much over as we need to spend the next two months on working on getting this thing Certified for Windows Vista, do all our Quality Assurance, create cool new walkthrough stuff (This time around it's all video based!) and create a whole new PimpFish.com website almost from scratch.... The bright side of all this though, is that now that we had actually started working on it, then this will be item no. 1 to be added to the following version.

Greets form the Zaber dudes...

- Mike n' Arni

Hey there!
We thought we'd do a quick update and inform you all of our superior geekyness and fill you in on what's going down these days.

PimpFish 2007 sneak preview!
Yep, it's that time of year again where everything kicks into high gear as we are getting ready to release another MAJOR update to PimpFish. This time we have a bunch of neat goodies in store for you, and to just name a few that are in development:

* SLAPfiles Plugin Support (No longer a need to go to that pesky video downloader page to download videos from your favorite video websites)
* Spidering (oh yes... oh yes!! MWUAHAHA)
* Improved image grabbing (You can now get hold of images linked through CSS etc.)
* Huge Firefox toolbar update
* Windows Vista certified and spiffy UI
* Approx. 1 billion other improvements

We have been focusing a lot on making things cool for Windows Vista, as the friendly folks at Microsoft UK wanted us to do some stuff for them. So, to get a lowdown on just a few of the features you'll be getting in the next version then you should check out our special promo page for the Microsoft version:

http://www.pentafish.com/

This is just the tip of the iceberg though ...

The PimpFish plague keeps on spreading ...
As we are certifiably insane then we have kept on pushing PimpFish on unsuspecting (and quite innocent) populations all around the globe. The last to fall prey to this spreading malice is the fair country (and continent!) of Australia. So be on the lookout for lots more Kangaroo action in the near future!

Oh, and if you are thinking: "Hmm, I wonder how the next big website update will look like to go along with the cool new PimpFish 2007?" Well, wonder no more! you can get a sneak preview on that as well, as we actually used our basic new stuff to hook up the Australian PimpFish website. Check it out:

http://www.pimpfish.com.au/

Pretty isn't it? :)

New Zabersoft logo



Yeah, we redesigned that old thing... The tiger is scarier than ever...





Kind regards from the Zaber dudes,

- Mike and Arni

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives...

Yeah, you 're right, that is the opening title to the fantastic show Days of our Lives. But errr, that's not quite what I wanted to talk about in todays update. Well, it has something to do with time I guess.

Lately we here at the Zabersoft worldwide HQ (which exists inside a tiny cardboard box with the lettering FEDEX on it, for some strange reason) put our heads together and decided on when we would like to release the next major update of PimpFish and more importantly what said update should include.

This is as always an ongoing process which takes a long time, but this time we have decided that we will be quick and dirty about things. This might prove as a challenge though as we have a lot of versions out there in the ether which will take synchronous development to get right.

All I can reveal now is that we will be releasing a brand new version of PimpFish Basic along with the full retail version of PimpFish (with mucho goodness of course) and that at least a few of the major features we have been promising for years will make their way in there.

Also, as you may have noticed here in the blog before, then the new version will be very much targeted at Windows Vista and we guarantee it will look smashing on the new Windows Platform.

And oh yes, we will be doing some fun stuff with a tiny American software company which nobody has ever heard of. But more on that later (Hint: The CEO of that company was quite a juvenile delinquent in his younger days...)

Well, that was that for now! Catch you later Bubba!

Arni J and Mike D (The Zaber dudes)

New stuff all over...

As usual we are posting in our blog about new developments here at Zaber, and this time we are very happy to announce that we have finally finished our release in France, US and the UK through Avanquest and that our new Japanese release is almost all hooked up.

More video downloader goodness ...
As some of you may, or may not know, then we have been actively pursuing a way to include support for the more popular video websites out there into PimpFish. The basic problem is that many of these sites use Flash-based video which is shown in a container on the webpage itself - Which makes the job difficult, if not impossible for our toolbar and Floatbar (in the current incarnation of PimpFish anyway)

So, the future strategy is to use the coolness of our SLAPfiles format and create a plugin system to PimpFish for seamless download from these websites. So to start with, we have been working on first of all getting some support for these websites up and running so that we can merge it all into the next version of PimpFish and make it truly kick ass.

Where is all this heading? Well today we added support for 7 new popular websites in our SLAPfile video downloader tool which were impossible to grab from before:

Apple.com/trailers - IFilm.com - Bolt.com - Collegehumour.com - Grinvi.com - Vsocial.com and Blip.tv

This now brings the total count of supported websites to 14!

And we are pretty darn sure that nobody out there has the level of stability when it comes to grabbing those evil evil hard to get videos from Apple.com/trailers! :)
If you still haven't had a chance to check out our video downloader tool, then scoot on over and check it out now!

We'd like to thank you for your support and your time, and we hope you will stick around to see the next version of PimpFish which will have all this functionality directly integrated into the application :)

Zaber out .....

Arni J & Mike D (The Zaber dudes)

It's official! PF Basic released - And a new goodie as well...

We've got a new flavor of PimpFish out for all the people out there who are simply too cheap to pay for software. It's called PimpFish Basic - And that's just what it is: A basic version with all the core functionality of PimpFish, but with certain fancy frills cut out.There has to be some incentive for people to give us money so we can fund the development of this darn thing!

Anyhoo, the Basic version can't minimize to the tray and doesn't have the cool thumbnail viewer, also we have disabled galleries, and custom download location (it only downloads to My Docs) and some other minor stuff. So, as you see, nothing crucial - But enough to make you feel warm and fuzzy about owning the fully featured Rolls Royce version (You are a registered customer right? Hehe, just messing with ya...)

If you are an unregistered user, and want to take free ride on the sleek chrome-covered PF-train, then go to our download page and get your hands on the Yugo of downloader software:

http://www.pimpfish.com/download.html#basic

New Video Downloader tool released!!

Finally we got our crap together and released something which is truly freakin' cool! We now have a nifty SLAPfile tool which will hook you up with goodness from all the leading video websites, including: video.google.com - youtube.com - myspace.com - break.com - dailymotion.com - metacafe.com and putfile.com !!

To try out this thing, check out:

http://www.pimpfish.com/slapfiles/video_downloader.php

What's _really_ cool about this whole deal though, is that we are working on implementing our online SLAPfile tool as a plugin system in the PimpFish application - What does this mean? Well, in a soon-to-come major update this will all be integrated so you won't even have to think about it! It will all just be click-to-grab and voila, we take care of the rest.

For now though, you will have to live with using our online tool - We hope that is OK with you ;)

Thanks for readin'!

Arni J and Mike (The Zaber dudes)

PimpFish Basic on your doorsteps ...

We've been very busy these last few days at the Zaber camp as we are finishing up all the little details with regards to the upcoming PimpFish Basic release. We can now let you few but lucky Blog readers in on a little secret: PimpFish Basic will be released in the beginning of next week...

Also, we have a bit of a surprise on the SLAPfiles front - Let's just say that our tools just got a whole lot better...

Stay hip!

Arni J and Mike (The Zaber dudes)

PimpFish for Windows Vista and PF Basic sneak preview


Hello everybody!

As you all know from a quick glance at this blog, then it is obvious that we are not the most prolific bloggers online.
I guess we are just too busy cooking up cool stuff that we have a hard time keeping track of everything. But at least we are trying to get better at this thing. So, we thought that with this update we would give you a little sneak preview of what we are playing around with these days.

First and foremost then we are coming out with a brand new, free, version of PimpFish (yeah you heard right: Free!) What's the catch? Well, it will be a slightly feature-reduced version of the regular PimpFish and it will have a few messages in the toolbar and downloader to encourage people to upgrade, and to give out news, tips and whatever mad ramblings we might feel like putting out there in the ether.

PimpFish Basic Thumbnail Viewer window
with the Aero Glass effent on Windows Vista

Windows Vista Stuff

As a part of our continuing, sick and twisted, urge to improve on PimpFish we have been doing a lot of research and development on the upcoming Vista platform lately. One of the things we will be introducing in our future release is support for the Aero Glass effect in Windows Vista (as you can see on the image on the left)

We probably wont go overboard on all that stuff though, as we predict that everybody and their mother is going to be doing the Aero Glass stuff as soon as Vista hits the streets (just look at the surge in Windows XP themed icons etc. in applications in recent years) - So what you can expect is spiffy new looks here and there, but still with some unique UI elements along with all that stuff. For example, our downloader remains largely unchanged on Windows Vista except for the border areas which have been glass-i-fied.

The PimpFish (Basic) Downloader on Windows Vista downloading some stuff

PimpFish Basic - Coming soon!

The other big thing coming out soon is our new PimpFish Basic (as I mentioned earlier) which is going to rock - a lot. Basically PimpFish Basic is a completely free but feature reduced version of the regular PimpFish. What we have "cut out" from the free version is the automatically generated galleries, the ability to save to any directory (PF Basic only saves to My Documents) and the mini thumbnail viewer.

We are hoping to release the new PimpFish Basic, and send out a newsletter to all you freaks within the next week or two.

On top of all that you can expect 7 new language versions of the regular PimpFish being released over the next couple of months... Exciting stuff!

Well, untill next time - Stay freaky!

- The Zaber dudes

Wow... Do we ever suck at making updates!

Yeah, that's right. We suck. Huh? What? Oh, by that we mean suck at making updates to our blog dude... What kind of a person are you anyway?! Jumping to conclusions like that...

Hmm that was weird. Anyhoo. We have been tremendously busy at the Zaber camp - Which is awesome as always. Question is whether all this work is bearing fruit - And well, it looks like it is! :)

We have recently gotten some cool new distribution deals with people who are much much more qualified than any of us loosers over here at spreading software around the globe. I mean, we have no idea what the hell we are doing.

Hopefully that will eventually result in PimpFish becoming insanely popular. That is our goal anyway - And as things look at the moment we are getting there. Here's some stats:

1st month: 2.500 downloads
2nd month: 4.000+
3rd month: 8.000+
And this month it looks like we will hit 12.000 downloads!!!

That's pretty freakin' awesome if you ask us. Furthermore we have had a lot of great feedback from our users - suggestions for new features, comments and ALOT of praise. So, at least we are doing _something_ right :)

There's plenty of cool new things to look forward to - And thank you all for being so supportive! (Tell your friends... Or we'll send a big hairy dude over to your house and kick your ass!)

Thanks for reading :)

- The Zaber dudes