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Call Graph version 1.1.0.3 is out. We have built upon our previous update and made more modifications to the recording and encoding algorithm. Several new features have been added as well as couple of bug fixes. Here’s a list of all the changes.

Echo Cancellation:

The echo cancellation module has been completely revamped in this release. We are now using the DirectSound built in API’s for it. It should perform much better now and should cancel out most of the echo while using inbuilt mic and speakers.

Delays:

We had received several reports on delays while using Call Graph. This update fixes the delay issue. Thanks to John and Mike for helping us out with it.

Voice Recorder:

Call Graph can be now used as a standalone voice recorder. The recording starts as soon as the start recording command is issued from the UI and if a Skype call happens in between, and if auto recording is turned on, it records the Skype call as well. So now the recording can be started before making the Skype call too.

Recording In Between:

Now you can launch Call Graph in between a call and start recording it. Useful if you’ve forgotten to start Call Graph before the call had started. Thanks to David for suggesting this feature.

Browser Based UI Changes:

The layout has been changed to 2 column. A new interactive demo page also has been introduced which walks you through a Skype Test Call recording session. From this version you can also bookmark the recordings/configuration pages.

Minimal UI:

We have re-introduced the Dialog based interface we had earlier and have added a configuration item to control it. Its available from the Advanced tab. If you wish you can completely turn off the browser based UI and use only the dialog based interface. Do note that some advanced functionalities will be available only from the browser based UI.

Others:

The ‘History’ menu item has been renamed to ‘Recordings’. The installer and uninstaller has been cleaned up; now you can uninstall directly from Add/Remove programs. A nasty crash which used to happen sometimes during the end of the recording has also been fixed.

What’s Next:

Integration with our web service, rules for recordings, option to use Wave I/O instead of Direct Sound etc.

Please do keep your sending in your feedback and suggestions. Wishing you a very happy festive season (if you are in India) and Halloween (if you are not!).

Call Graph supports two User Interface’s, an browser based UI and a minimal UI. The browser based UI launches the default browser and displays all the data there using scripts pulled from our website. The mimal UI consits only of a windows dialog for configuration and a toolbar. A detailed feature by feature comparison follows.

The interface can be switched anytime from the Advanced configuration tab.

Continuing with the UI changes we had started with our client, we have recently released the first batch of UI changes for our web service. In brief, the colors have changed, the the menu has been rearranged, the sidebars have been tweaked and the pages have been optimized to load faster.

Color Combination:

We have completely done away with the dark green background. It has been replaced with a white now. The main area of every page has a white background while the menu and sidebars are light green. The text is now black on all the pages.

Menu Changes:

The Call Record History page has been renamed to ‘Uploaded Records’. The support page has been removed. We have introduced help widgets on the sidebar to replace the functionality.

Uploaded Records:

This page lists all the records that have been uploaded from the Call Graph client. The listing is now identical to the one in the Client UI. The flash player has been replaced with a button which in turn launches the flash player when its clicked. A progress bar is now displayed before the flash player appears which makes the play function instant. Earlier there used to be a delay between the time when the play button was clicked and the file started playing.

The shared records listing has also been changed in a similar way.

Sidebar:

The sidebar also has undergone a revamp. On the uploaded records and shared records page, the Order By, Search and Filter options have been grouped into a single box. This is to indicate that these options can be combined with each other while trying to locate a particular record. The search earlier used to be at the top of the page.

Whats Next:

Tighter integration with the Client UI, sharing, transcribing directly from the client etc. Stay tuned.

Let us kwow that you think of the new color combination and the changes. Things should be much faster and responsive than earlier now.

We recently added a small but very useful feature to CRIMS: Autosuggest. This feature provides you with automatic suggestions on possible value when you want to share a call record or when you are doing an advanced search. Here’s some screenshots of it in action.

Its a small change but it helps immensely and saves a lot of typing. Thanks to Pat for suggesting this feature.

We did a major revamp of the CRIMS UI. We had been working on this for sometime now and we spent time on it to make it more responsive, cleaner and intuitive. Here’s a short description of what has changed.

Popups:

The popups for Edit Tags, Rename, Share and Delete files have been removed. Instead of that we have introduced ‘Edit In Place’ dialog. When you click on these links, a small dialog opens up on the same page to take in the input. Much better than navigating to a different page. Here’s a screen shot of the ‘Share’ operation.

The functionality of removing each share individually has also been added.

The delete file brings up a modal dialog now. The batch operations also show you a modal dialogs instead of popups.

Widgets:

Two new widgets, help and support have been added. They are on all the pages now: Transcripts, Upgrade, Add Machines etc.

Clicking on the help option brings up the modal dialog now. The help text also has been revamped.

Icons:

Icons have been added to the main message bar on each of the pages. For any action they show the result there. If an error occurss during an operation, the text turns red to alert you.

What’s Next:

Autosuggest, color scheme change and more. Stay tuned.

Do let us know what you think of these changes. And thanks for using Call Graph once again.

As mentioned in the last post, the recent change to our UI had increased the clutter on the call record history page. So today we cleared it up. The result is this.

Only the flash player, name of the file and manage options are displayed initially and the details are hidden from the view. Clicking on the ‘Show Details’ reveals the details of the call record. The view can be toggled to show or hide.

Also the current record your cursor is on is highlighted as you move along the page.

Notice the two new items at the top of the page to expand/collapse the details of all the records in one shot. The select all/none has also been moved from the actions widget to here.

This small change has enabled us to do a lot more with the UI. So now you can also set the number of records that are displayed per page. The setting is on the settings page. The default value is 10 but it can be changed to any value you wish.

Another small change was control on the mail notifications that CRIMS sends. It can be turned on or off from the settings page. Here’s a screenshot.

So how does this look? We hope its better than before, but please let us know if it isnt.

The next thing in line is to remove the popup when managing your call records. So stay tuned.

We released a couple of changes to the UI that we had been working on recently and added a sidebar to the Call Record history page. This sidebar adds a table sorting, batch operations and advanced search functionality. Here’s an overview of these.

Sidebar:

The sidebar looks like the following on the ‘Call Record History’ page.

It has four widgets as of now: space usage monitor, batch operations sort table and advanced search. The space usage shows a graphical representation of the storage space used for your account, as the name suggests.

Batch Operations:

This widget allows you to select multiple call records and do things with them. Right now you can either share them with others or delete all the selected ones. We will add more options to this widget as we go along.

Sorting:

The call records view can be changed using this widget. Four options are available as of now: newest first, oldest first, ascending/descending order of duration and ascending/descending order of file sizes. Once you have sorted them you can use apply some batch file operations on them.

Advanced Search:

Advanced search can be used to filter the call records which match a specific criteria. The four filters available now are duration, filesize, recorded by and uploaded from. So if you want to list all the call records uploaded from a specific machine, then select the uploaded from filter and apply the name of the computer in the pattern part. That will list all the records uploaded from a specific machine. Similarly for recorded by. The patterns in the duration and filesize case can be something like ‘>10 MB’ or ’10 < seconds’ etc.

Once the results are displayed, you can apply either use batch operations or sort them using the sorting widget.

To illustrate the use of these widgets, suppose you want to list all the call records made to a certain person which are greater than 5 mins, oldest first. To do this, you first use simple search to list all the records with that persons name, then apply the the duration filter using the advanced search widget and finally apply the sort with oldest. The resulting page will have all files listed. Now if you want to share all of these at one shot, use the batch operations to select all of them and then select “Share All Selected” from the dropdown. Fill in the email address and call record will be shared!

New Storage Plans:

We also added four new plans: the 8 GB @ $5 p/m, 18 GB @ $10 pm and their yearly counterparts. The payment UI has also been changed and now you can check your status once you have subscribed to it, or cancel the subscription if you want to.

Transcription Rates:

The rates of our transcription service has also been changed to 50 cents per minutes instead of the per line. So for a call record of half an hour, the transcript price will be $15.

What’s Next:

As you would notice, the records table has become a bit cramped up because of the sidebar addition. So in the next iteration we are planning to change that. We are also planning to add a mail notification setting so that you can control how you receive mails from CG CRIMS. Watch this space for more.

Hope these changes are useful. Please do send us your feedback on it.

We made some minor UI changes today to CRIMS: registration process and pagination.

The registration process has been made a bit more standard now. Earlier you had to provide your email and we used to send a link, which used to lead to the profile creation page. Now, you can create a profile and then verify your email later on whenever you wish. You can log in and view your account, but then cannot do much. We need your email address so that the notifications are sent whenever you add machines or upload call records. So for those you would have to verify your email.

The pagination of the Call Record history page was also made more standard. Instead of displaying all the page numbers in at the bottom of the page, which used to be a long list if you had more than 50, 60 records, we now display only around 9 pages. First three, three from the middle or your current page, and three of the last pages.

Another minor change was in the search box. Now its more intuitive and prompts you to enter your search term.

Happy call graphing!