The Quarterly Report

What We’re Cooking Up This Summer

Alkaline has been inching closer to its private beta where a select few photographers will be allowed (and encouraged) to kick the tires. While the current feature set may impress (real-time stats, database abstraction, and palette generation to name a few), there remain yet a few happy surprises to surface—including a new outlet for photographers to sell their wares.

The admin dashboard is undergoing a complete remodeling before the beta invitations go out. It has a lot of the features you’ve come to expect: full user administration, point-and-click theme and extension management, and at-a-glance information; and others that few others offer: real-time progress bars, data entry during import, and embedded diagnostic tools.

And not only can Alkaline handle millions of photos in a single library, but it’s also easy to use and install. In the coming weeks, a compatibility suite will even be released to determine your Web server’s compatibility with Alkaline (and make recommendations if it’s not). The Canvas theme engine will limit you only to your imagination and functions with operates with nothing more than HTML, and the Orbit extension engine will allow you to drag-and-drop additional functionality—from as simple as Twitter notifications to as complex as selling custom prints—into your Alkaline installation.

While Alkaline won't be released until the fall, keep checking alkalineapp.com for beta updates.

Let’s not forget about 4x6 (a k a our red-haired cousin). It’s being reimagined as a Safari 5 extension. As an extension, 4x6 will live on your Mac or PC and be able to load even faster. This change will also unlock the unparalleled customization available only on the desktop platform—custom fonts, total privacy, and the like.