In the spirit of March Madness and the Final Four, how about a cheer? We’ve got spirit, yes we do, we’ve got spirit, how ’bout you? Alright, I’m sure a few of you were rolling your eyes just then, but we need you to get up and cheer for Box in CNET’s Webware 100 Awards for 2009. CNET Webware selected Box as a finalist and we want all Box users and fans to vote and make us #1!

Get out the vote!

Voting for the Webware 100 starts today, March 31 at noon Pacific Time and ends at noon Pacific on April 30, 2009. Winners will be announced on May 19 and we hope that you can make Box a big winner. So email all your friends, family and colleagues and get the word out on Twitter, your blog, your Facebook page - anything you have access to and vote for Box.

Use this link or click on the CNET logo on this post. Let’s go!

Post by Sean Lindo, Community Manager

Update: Voting is now closed, as of noon PST April 30, 2009

From time to time, I hear from users that have trouble accessing or uploading files to Box. In many cases, it has something to do with firewall settings. I find that just by tweaking a couple of settings, users can get around some of the more common issues around accessing Box through a firewall.

Granted, there are many different setups and factors involved, so I can’t promise this will work for everyone. But, here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

1. Use our site’s host name instead of a particular site IP address since IP addresses change frequently and without notice. Configure host names to recognize any sub-domain of .box.net and .boxcdn.net. For example, this includes www.box.net, upload.box.net and ak1.boxcdn.net.

2. The ports that should be opened for these domains are 80 and 443.

If you are still having some difficulty after checking these settings, we recommend that you contact your company’s IT administrator to troubleshoot the issue or contact the technical support team for your firewall.

As always, if you’re having issues and need to contact Box Support, send us a note at http://www.box.net/help/contact. That’s really the easiest way to get in touch with us - we want to help! It’s what we’re here for…

That’s my quick tip for the week - in the meantime, happy Boxing!

Post by Amber Nguyen, Support Team Lead

We sat down with Box’s VP of Engineering, Sam Ghods to talk about bringing full-text search to Box Business customers. Read more after the jump!

Q: Full-text search has been one of the biggest requests from Box’s growing base of business customers. Why is this such a big deal for them in particular?

Full-text search gives a business tremendous insight into their content. As users of existing desktop full-text search products are aware, once you get a taste of full-text search, it’s hard to go back. You are now able to find files not just by the title or description, but by whatever you may recall about the content of the file itself. Since we index all Office formats (including the new docx, xlsx and pptx formats), PDF’s, CSV’s and more, nearly all your business documents are readily searchable. Having this kind of functionality across your entire business is a very powerful tool to help business get more done faster, which is all we’re about here at Box.
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It’s hard not to notice how much Box has changed in just the last few months. We launched a totally new interface, along with Profiles, Discussions, Bookmarks and Web Documents - and it’s only March! While these features were designed to make Box a better tool for business collaboration, the latest feature is aimed at something more basic, but equally important to the Box experience - quickly finding the files you need from hundreds or even thousands of files in your Box account. To do that, we are testing full-text search capabilities with a select group of Box Business customers, which will be rolled out to all of our multi-seat business customers over the next few weeks.

Full-text search is far more powerful because it displays search results based on the actual text content within a file. Think about it - if you’re looking for a file and you don’t know what it was named, but you remember it contained the phrase “messaging for the Apollo campaign” somewhere in the document, you can find the file without guessing haplessly about what you might have named the file. Those days are over. Box searches through the text content of files in the most popular formats:

- Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint
- PDFs
- TXT and CSV files
- Box Web Documents

One of our initial test customers is ICD Security Solutions, a security systems integrator based in Asia. They have hundreds of thousands of documents on Box, making them a perfect candidate to really test the performance of full-text search.

In addition, the new search capabilities can read through file descriptions added by users. No matter what you need to find or how many documents you have on Box, full-text search has you covered. And it’s ready to use now - no software, no hardware, and no hassle. 

Now you can spend more time using your files instead of searching for them. We look forward to your feedback.

Post by Sean Lindo, Community Manager

As the saying goes, a picture speaks a thousand words - and now, you can let your pictures on Box do a little more of the talking. We have teamed up with Enthusem for a new OpenBox service that lets you create and send printed, full-color cards using images you have on Box. You can add a personalized message and a direct link to a Box file on your card, which can be sent through the US Postal Service. This is great for following up with prospects, adding a personal touch to customer follow-ups, creating dynamic sales proposals or just sending a note that really stands out.

To get started, first add the Enthusem OpenBox Service to your account. Then just find the file you’d like to use, click on the image’s file menu and select “Mail with Enthusem.”

After a quick, one-time registration process (Enthusem will remember your info for future visits), you will see the image you selected along with an interface to customize your card.

If you’d like to learn more about Enthusem, check out www.Enthusem.com.

Post by Jeremy Glassenberg, Platform Manager

I have a cool bit of news for all music-loving Box users out there… Adobe enhanced the Flash player’s ability to stream and play MP3 files encoded at various rates. Since our player is powered by Flash, this improves how the Box widget and MP3 streamer play MP3s. Previously, this limitation created a “Chipmunk Effect” when users streamed or played files that were not encoded at a rate that is not a multiple of 11.025 kHz. Yeah, I know, but it’s true. This bit of news is also nice for me as a member of the Box Support team, as we no longer have to advise users to re-encode their MP3 files in order to properly stream or play them on our widget or MP3 player.

Play on.

Post by Amber Nguyen, Support Team Lead

Businesses and organizations that use Google Apps can now send files stored in Box through Google Apps Mail. With Box’s new integration, users can “attach” files as direct links in Google Apps Mail in just one click.

You can add this feature by clicking on the OpenBox tab, adding the Gmail service and selecting the “Send with Google Apps Mail” action.

Once the service is added, you can send any file in your Box account as an email attachment by simply clicking on the file’s menu and selecting “Send with Google Apps Mail.”

While you’re in the OpenBox directory, check out other services that let you do more with your files.

Post by Jeremy Glassenberg, Platform Manager

I came across an article on Syracuse.com on the courageous story of Dan Duggan, a veteran musician from central New York. According to the article and Dan’s blog, Dan is getting treated for stage III tongue cancer. He is recovering at home and hasn’t been able to perform or teach, which is how he makes a living. His friends and the central New York community are rallying to help Dan out by donating change to a special fund. As they say, “No amount is too small.”

Lots of people have rallied around the cause and Dan posted a song on Box as a thank you to his supporters called, “For the Love Of Friends.”

Everyone at Box wishes Dan a speedy recovery. Check out the article on Syracuse.com to see how you can help.

Post by Sean Lindo, Community Manager

It’s funny how the Twitter floodgates opened when word got around that members of Congress were Twittering during the State of the Nation address. We’ve had our band of loyal Twitter followers for a while now, but I figured it was worth reminding you how to reach us. Follow Box or send us a tweet anytime @boxdotnet.

We’d love to hear from you - whether you have a general question about Box, a compliment, a complaint or a suggestion, feel free to tweet away.

As for what you can expect from us, we like to keep things interesting with blog updates and product news, maybe even a contest or two down the road (you’ll only know if you follow us!). When we’re close to announcing big news, you’ll hear it here first. We’d also like to give you more of an insider’s view at the daily comings and goings at Box HQ.  There are so many things that make everyone around here laugh, argue, maybe even cry (just a little on the inside).

What would you like to hear about?

Update: Just as a reminder, we have a Twitter OpenBox service that lets you tweet a link to any of your Box files and folder, right from your Box account.

Post by Sean Lindo, Community Manager

Have you ever wished you could easily accept files on your website or blog? Maybe you’d like companies to submit bids for your business or you want to accept submissions for a writing contest. We heard that from a lot of you, so we launched the Upload Widget to help you do just that.

Using the new Upload Widget you can quickly and easily create a virtual file dropbox that lets people upload files directly to your Box account. Set up an Upload Widget on any website, blog or social networking service that lets you embed HTML code.

Here’s how it works…

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