TMM Insider Newsletter October 2008 (Vol. I, Issue 7)
Recent News
Improved No-Cookie Sales Tracking in NATS 4
New private Web browsing features and mobile Web browsers add complications to the tracking of affiliate signups.
In response, we've improved the abilities of NATS4 to track surfers and credit affiliates for the signups they refer. In addition to the query string and cookie, NATS tracks surfers using their IP address combined with their User Agent. NATS correlates this data to determine the referring affiliate when a sale occurs.
The NATS no-cookie tracking features have been tested with the private modes of new web browsers and can credit affiliates for purchases made by surfers in private mode or with cookies disabled.
TMM is dedicated to having the most accurate sales tracking in the industry and we are always working to ensure affiliates get credit for every sale they generate.
Knowledge Base Replaced by New TMM Wiki
We've ported the Too Much Media knowledge base to a brand-new wiki. This new portal will provide both TMM clients and affiliates with a wealth of information on how to best use our products. During the transition, each article was professionally edited and cross-referenced while more than 100 new articles were written by Too Much Media's new full-time technical writer. Each product's table of contents was re-organized to match the product's Web interface so you can use your existing knowledge to quickly find what you're looking for.
Note: starting Monday, 20 October 2008, direct links to articles in the old knowledge base will redirect you to the corresponding article on TMM Wiki.
Please visit TMM Wiki today
Longer Support Hours
We have extended our weekday support hours until midnight EST. General TMM technical support will now be available from 10 A.M. until midnight on weekdays and 10 A.M. until 6 P.M. on weekends. As always, emergency support is available 24/7.
PHP Version 5.2.5 Changes and NATS
PHP version 5.2.5 and later no longer dynamically loads extensions outside of the extension directory you configured while installing PHP. If you upgrade PHP past v5.2.5 on your NATS server and you use ionCube, you must copy the entire contents of the includes/ChartDirector/ folder of your NATS install into the PHP extensions directory. For additional information, please visit ionCube's Web site or the PHP bug report If you don't know how to make this change or if you have additional questions, please contact your hosting provider.
TMM Insider Back Issues
You can now find previous issues of the Too Much Media Insider on our new wiki. Each back issue features all of the original content plus links to relevant documentation. Please check it out.
Beta Features
Do you want to preview new NATS and CARMA features? Submit a support ticket if you want any of the features below and we'll upgrade your NATS or CARMA so you can start using them before we add them to the general NATS and CARMA releases. These features have been extensively tested, but we want your feedback before we add them to the general release.
NATS4: Faster Uploads with Less Memory Usage
NATS now downloads remote files without using as much memory. You'll definitely notice the speed increase when you upload large adtools. You might not notice it, but your system will now also use less memory when performing other tasks also.
Interested in faster NATS4 uploads? Copy and paste this paragraph into a new ticket and we'll contact you shortly.
NATS4: Admin Areas and Support Pages Daily Update
Every time you login to NATS4, it updates the Support Admin and generates a list of links to other TMM products you own -- the Admin Area links. Updating this every time you log in wastes time if you log in frequently and gives you outdated information if you stay logged in for a long time. We updated the back-end architecture so that the links are updated once a day no matter how often you login in. We also check that the updated links are actual URLs so you don't get bad information.
Interested in a less wasteful, faster, and more accurate TMM product link section and Support Admin? Copy and paste this paragraph into a new ticket and we'll contact you shortly.
NATS4: Completely Revamped Fraud Report
If you're used to the NATS3 Fraud Report, you're going to love the improvements we've made to the NATS4 Fraud Report. The new fraud report loads faster because NATS now updates the statistics once a day instead of every time you generate the report. And NATS now lets you give specific weights to particular actions so you quickly find affiliates that engage in a small number of high-probability fraudulent activities.
Interested in the latest fraud accountability reporting? Ask for the new NATS4 Fraud Report in a new ticket and we'll contact you shortly.
NATS3: Almighty Content
We're looking for someone who wants to setup a third-party with Almighty Content. Please check out their services.
Interested in using Almighty Content? Ask for the Almighty Content third-party in a new ticket.
CARMA: Third Party Content
You can now purchase, display, and manage third-party content from Slick Feeds and Porn2Go in CARMA. We'll add other third-party content providers later, but you can get started using Slick Feeds and Porn2Go today.
Interested in purchasing, displaying, and managing Slick Feeds or Porn2Go content in CARMA? Ask for the CARMA third-party update in a new ticket and we'll contact you shortly:
Recent Additions and Bug Fixes
NATS 4.0
Netbilling Native Join Option Description
You may now send a description of the join option to Netbilling using the Netbilling Native NATS biller.
Affiliate Documents Section Secured
We've added additional security measures to prevent unauthorized users from accessing affiliate documents.
Member Subscription Updates
When a member joins more than one site in a program, NATS failed to correctly update the member's subscription, but we've now fixed this.
Administrator Profit & Loss Report
The administrator's profit and loss report can now search by affiliate.
Extra Session Security
NATS4 now destroys sessions when you logout to provide additional security against attackers.
Duplicate Biller Charges
Editing a biller charge in the Billers Admin added a new biller charge entry, forcing you to manually delete the old entry. We've fixed this.
Limiting Displayed Adtools Didn't Show Adtools
We fixed a bug that prevented adtools from being displayed if you used the Limit search box.
Subscription Report Misprint
The subscription report claimed all subscriptions were under the type-in program. We fixed this misprint.
Custom Adtool Template Naming
You can now use "ign_" in your adtool templates. NATS will automatically ignores the ign_ when matching adtool template variables with the fields you define in the adtools admin.
PayVia Options Made Editable
You can now edit the options for the Check payvia option.
Math Errors on the Retention Report
Some variables in the administrator's retention report weren't checked for non-zero values before being used to divide another number in the template, which could lead to a display error. We now check the variables before using them in division.
No Data, No Pie Chart
When NATS tried to build a pie chart and there was no data for the pie chart -- for example, on a fresh NATS 4 install -- NATS generated an error. Now NATS generates a broken image icon.
Failed Postbacks Failed
The function that logged failed postbacks was failing, but we fixed it.
Shopping Cart Integration
You can now track one-time sales through a shopping cart in NATS4. For additional details, please see the NATS4 Shopping Cart Sales article.
Automatic Currency Conversion Rate Updates
We changed NATS4's automatic currency conversion rate update script to use the most recent conversion rate in the currency conversion rate table.
Manual Sales Join Option
Adding a manual sale now lets you make the member a trial member or a full member.
Admin Overview Custom Dates
The Admin Overview now lets you view the statistics for a specific date or date range.
Disabling Adtool Date Limitations
By default, NATS4 doesn't show adtools older than a month, but you can enable a configuration option in Configuration Admin to make NATS4 show every adtool regardless of its age.
Affiliate Welcome Email Configuration Option
A new configuration option lets you send a welcome email to affiliates when they sign up to your program.
NATS 3.1
Netbilling Native Join Option Description
You can now pass an optional description of the join option using the Netbilling Native NATS biller.
Gateway Cross Sell Security
We've recently made changes to our gateway cross sell system to provide greater security when processing transactions.
Content of the Day Templates
You can now use the NATS's Content of the Day Module's Use Template option to select a template.
ChargeMeLater IP Address Update
ChargeMeLater changed their IP address. If you use the ChargeMeLater biller, please submit a ticket so we can update your NATS with the new IP address.
Reseller Overview Report Now Includes Current Day
We changed the Past 7 Days Reseller Overview report to include today's information.
More Statistics Run on Slave Database
We've made additional statistics scripts run off an optional slave database.
Updated WebMasterChecks Dump Formats
You can now send payment dumps to WebMasterChecks in two new formats: WebMasterChecks Epassporte and WebMasterChecks Wire.
Member Email Addresses in Notifications Sent to Program Owner Decrypted
The owners of programs that securely store member email addresses as encrypted in the database will continue to receive notifications about the member using the member's regular, unencrypted, email address.
SegPay Double Currency Conversion on Chargebacks and Credits
If your SegPay account used a different currency than what you setup in NATS, credits and chargebacks could be converted twice, giving you incorrect amounts. NATS now checks the postback from SegPay for a currency type and uses their value if it disagrees with what you setup.
Sites Array Added to Member Password Retrieval Templates
We now include a Smarty array containing all of your NATS site information to the Member Password Retrieval templates.
Sorting Adtools by Date
A new checkbox lets you sort adtools by date.
Making a PayVia Minimum Exception
A new configuration variable, FORCE_PV_MIN_EXCEPTIONS, prevents the FORCE_PV_MIN configuration setting from applying to an array of affiliates.
Extra LocalBilling Fraud Analysis
NATS now sends LocalBilling a surfer's referring affiliate's campaign identification number, login identification number, and program identification number in the join form query string to improve LocalBilling's fraud checking.
More Editable Member Fields
In the Members Admin, you can now edit the member's email address, first name, last name, and add up to five custom fields.
Payments Not Storing on NATS 3.1.52.1
If you use NATS version 3.1.52.1, please submit an upgrade ticket. Your payments will build, but they will not store.
CARMA 1.3
Multiple Flash Movies
CARMA was not properly creating sets of Flash movies, but we fixed this and also added better log output when creating Flash movies.
Total Number of Actors
The carma_list template function now returns the total number of actors so you can split a list of actors across more than one page.
Additional MIME Types
CARMA now sends members the MIME type for all of the following media types: M4V, MP4, RealVideo, RealMedia, and Flash.
Filtering Duplicate Galleries
You can now prevent CARMA from displaying the same gallery even if the gallery is published in more than one section using the "dupe" parameter to the carma_list_favorites template function.
Corrected Count for carma_most_viewed Template Function
The template function, carma_most_viewed, now prints the correct total when you use non-default parameters.
Admin Sites Now Sortable
You can now sort the list of Admin Sites by any of the following attributes: site name, tour publish mode type, publish mode type, number of hostname tours, number of hostname members, tour URL, members URL, tour caching status, or members caching status.
Undeleting Sites
After you delete a site in CARMA, you can now click the Show Deleted Sites link and click the Undelete icon to restore the site.
Start Parameter Added to carma_upcoming Template Function
We added a start parameter to the carma_upcoming template function so you can list upcoming content on more than one page.
You can now navigate between any two pages on the CARMA Configuration Admin using the menu tabs.
Related Photo and Video Sets
You can now quickly jump to the sets that feature an actor from the Actors Admin by clicking the links in the Content column.
Deleting a Site Suspends the Site's Publication Rules
Deleting a site in CARMA hides that site's unique content and suspends the publication of any new content to that site. Undeleting a site republishes all content and restores the publication rules.
On the Hotplate
NATS 4.0
NetCash Biller Update
You will soon be able to use NetCash in NATS4.
CARMA 1.3
Improved Gallery and Video Stats
A new administration statistics page will let you see members statistics for a specific set. You'll see the names of users who viewed the set, the number of views, the most recent view, which member first viewed the set, and the gallery's rank.
Story Content Sets
Similar to picture and video content sets, you'll soon be able to add video content sets to CARMA.
Search Page Function
A new template function will let you include a search box anywhere in CARMA.
TMM Insider Tip
Curious about NATS's newest version, NATS 4? We've prepared a guided tour of NATS4, highlighting all of the major changes since NATS 3, for both program owners and affiliates. The tour includes an explanation of the key differences, screenshots of every major screen, links to key documentation, and descriptions of NATS4's two new administration interfaces: the Includes and News & Notifications Admins.
Please visit the NATS4 Upgrade Changelog at the following URL.
Contact Us
Is there something that you would like to see here on this newsletter? Have an idea for the TMM Insider Tip? If so, contact the editor at kevin.wetter@toomuchmedia.com.
Thought of a new feature that would benefit all of our clients? If so, then please submit a support ticket.
