Getting Started

There are three MAIN things you can do on BrandFM:

Search, Browse and Download - If you're looking for files and media, this is where to go. Search for what you want using the search box in the top left corner, or browse by your favorite flavour of company, brand or tag. Once you have found the files and media you want, you should add them to your cart. From that point you can download the files, request permission if you need it, or send the files to an associate using e-courier.
Upload Pictures, Products, Logos and Documents - If you manage the brand for a business, have products that need to be represented CORRECTLY in advertising, or have any kind of media that you would like to make readily available through a secure site on the internet, then you should create an upload account. Upload accounts can be free or paid depending on the amount of storage space you need. It's easy and free to get started! Enjoy.
Share Files - If you have an upload account, or permissions to another account, then you can share files with colleagues and associates. Most of the time you won't need to specifically share your files, but if you have made them restricted or private then you'll need to grant people download access to them. Additionally, you can declare people as uploaders or managers (can grant permissions) on brands, so that you don't have to do everything yourself.

Further Help

This help message may change depending on the page you are using, so if you have any problems make sure you click on the help button in the top right hand corner of the site.

And finally, if this help message hasn't satisfied your needs, visit the Help Centre with the link below.

I need more help, take me to the Help Centre! Help Close page help Arrow_up

Blog Home

Tags Updates Advice Uploading Logos Browsing Colour Accounts Images Reviews Marketing more...

RSS Feed

Stay up to date with BrandFM news using your favourite RSS reader.

Email Updates

Get news and events delivered straight to your inbox when you subscribe to our mailing list.

May 16 Updates

posted by David May 15, 2008 in Updates, Uploading

Here we go – it’s Friday again and here’s a summary of updates added to the site.

Promotions & Promo Codes

We’ve added a promotions feature so that we can offer sign-up promotions with plan discounts from time to time. Customers enter a Promo Code to receive the offer.

Are you a human?

Added a CAPTCHA to the sign-up page. Captcha’s are designed to catch robots on the web which crawl the web looking for forms. Now users have to confirm they are human by viewing an image of letters and entering those letters in the form.

The cold shoulder

Added the ability for BrandFM admins to freeze a naughty users account. This will kick them out of the application and stop them logging in again. They’ll need to contact support to get reactivated.
Moral of the story is to be good.

Any file

We’ve added the ability to upload any file type (some exceptions will apply for risky file types like exe’s). Previously this was limited to only files that we could process and generate a thumbnail for.

It’s now made it possible for the user to upload a thumbnail image separately from the file.

Normally the user uploads a file, the file is inspected and BrandFM generates 4 thumbnails of differing sizes. However sometimes this is not possible because BrandFM can’t extract an image from the file, so a default icon is shown instead of a thumbnail.

If this happens, the user can now upload a separate thumbnail file (that has been created or saved on their local computer – usually from the source application) to replace the default icon. This should ideally be an RGB jpeg.

If the newly uploaded thumbnail image is large enough (640px) then 4 new thumbnails will be generated. These thumbnails will make no difference to the source files uploaded or downloaded. Only the thumbnails are affected.

screen capture of the upload thumbnail dialogue

An example of this in use: Joe uploads a Television Commercial, an MPG file. BrandFM can’t process the file. So the user opens the file in their video editor on their own computer and extracts a frame to use as a thumbnail image. Saves it as a JPG and then uploads it as the thumbnail for the video.

Another example: Fred uploads a spot colour logo but is unhappy with the resulting colour in the thumbnails. He replaces the thumbnails that are auto generated with his own RGB jpegs rendered in photoshop on his computer.

Getting the right thumbnail image to upload may require special software or knowledge so may be more suitable for advanced users. However you can also call on the services of the BrandFM services team for advice or assistance.

Bugs

Fixed a bug where “Custom Name” was displayed as filename instead of the actual custom name you entered.
Fixed a wrapping/layout issue on the Invited Users page.

Next week

We’re planing on re-factoring the code to Rails 2.0 which should give us some performance improvements and we’ll also be looking at reorganizing brands and categories to make more sense to users plus the usual bug fixes.