Upgrade issue: Setting user account status

If you're upgrading from gnizr 2.3.0 to gnizr 2.4.0 M3/M4, you may need to run the following sql command to set the proper user account status for all existing users. This is a temporary fix. In the final release of 2.4.0, we will include this fix in the upgrade scripts.

update user set acct_status="0000000001";

-- kudos to rick --

What's the problem?

After upgrading to gnizr 2.4.0 M3/M4, users are unable to log in. In gnizr 2.4.0 M3, there is a major change in the user registration process. In the new implementation, user accounts are put on hold until their email address are verified -- valid email addresses are required for password recovery.

In the DB record, when an account is on hold, the column 'acct_status' is set to 0.

How to fix the problem?

If you are the admin, and you know that all your users have a valid email on file, then you can execute the SQL command to change the 'acct_status' of all users to 1.

Gnizr 2.4.0 Milestone 4 Release

Gnizr 2.4.0 Milestone 4 is now available for download.

• Download: gnizr-2.4.0-M4.zip
• How to install or upgrade
• Configure gnizr-config.xml for 2.4.0
  
• What has changed
  

Note: This release is intended for evaluation and testing, and it's not suitable for any serious deployment.

HTML Tidy

In this release, new implementation has been added to restrict the kind of HTML tags are allowed in the "title" and the "notes" field of a saved bookmark. For example, users will no longer be allowed to add use "script" and "iframe" tags in the body of the bookmark notes.

Added more OpenSearch

We have added more OpenSearch engines to the default list. This list now includes search engines of del.icio.us, Live Search, Yahoo! News Search, YouTube, Wikipedia, and the New York Times.

Bookmark Export

Users can export their saved bookmarks to a file. In this release, exported bookmarks are saved in the Mozilla/Netscape bookmark file format. The export procedure exports both bookmarks and folders. If a bookmark appears in two or more folders, multiple copies of the bookmark will be created in each one of the folders. User can find the "bookmark export" function in "settings".

Welcome to gnizr.com

For those who want to try out gnizr but don't have the time and resources to install it, we have a good news for you.

Welcome to gnizr.com (beta).

It is free and runs on the same code base as the gnizr open source. The only difference between running your own gnizr and using gnizr.com is that your information saved in gnizr.com is public and can be seen by anyone on the Web.

Users of gnizr.com will always be the first to see the latest and use the most stable gnizr software. This experience doesn't require any software download, upgrade or installation.

During our beta release (like what gmail.com has done for a loooong period of time), we limit the number of active user accounts. If you have registered, but didn't receive a confirmation from us, don't worry we will notify you once our user registration quota is raised.

Any questions, send us an email -- helpATgnizr.com.

Tell us your gnizr success stories

Recently, FishEye shows the total number of line-count of gnizr open source has passed 100,000. Since we have open-sourced gnizr, the traffic to our Google Code project and blog sites continue to increase in a healthy pace. We are very happy about this.

While we can use automated tools to track visitor traffics, but we didn't have a good way to receive and monitor feedbacks from our users. Today a new Wiki page has been created on the Google Code project site to report and receive community feedbacks. This new page called "Success Stories" will publish short descriptions of how users from diverse industries and organizations are using gnizr to facilitate information sharing and improve people's productivity. On the same page, you can find the email address to which you can send your suggestions and feedbacks.

I wrote the first story about my experience in using gnizr to teach the Social Web Technologies course at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Gnizr 2.4.0 Milestone 3 Release

Gnizr 2.4.0 Milestone 3 is now available for download.

• Download: gnizr-2.4.0-M3.zip
• How to install or upgrade
• Configure gnizr-config.xml for 2.4.0
  
• What has changed
  

Note: This release is intended for evaluation and testing, and it's not suitable for any serious deployment.

See also: Gnizr 2.4.0 Milestone 1 and Gnizr 2.4.0 Milestone 2

I Forgot My Password

People often forget their login passwords. We have implemented a function that allows gnizr users to reset their login password. In the login page, users can follow a "I forgot my password" link to reset their password.

Users must have valid email addresses defined in their respective profiles in order to use this function. Users can change their email address by going to the "settings" page. Administrators (i.e., gnizr) can also change user email address under the User Management function.

When a password reset request is submitted, an email message is sent to the user. To enable this function, when installing or upgrading to 2.4.0-M3, the administrator must configure mail server setting in the gnizr-config.xml.

Here are some typical SMTP configurations.

Policy-Driven User Registration

In the previous releases, gnizr administrators can implement one of two user registration policy -- (1) anyone can register, and (2) only the admin can create new accounts. Starting in 2.4.0-M3, a third option is available.

The new option allows anyone with a valid email address to register, but in order for their accounts to be activated, they require explicitly approval from the administrator (i.e., gnizr).

Here is a detail description of gnizr's User Registration policy.

This feature requires the administrator to configure mail server setting in the gnizr-config.xml.

New Bookmarklet for the Internet Explorer 6

Some enterprise users having trouble using the bookmarklet that comes with gnizr in the IE6 browser. David Hochman kindly sent us a fix to this issue. Part of his fix has been included in 2.4.0-M3.

In the "help" page, users can find this experimental bookmarklet. We have tested in IE6, and it worked much better than ours in the previous releases.