After over a year in development (we're still learning about software design projects) and six weeks of beta testing by about 40 of our more adventurous users, we launched version 3 of the HOS Archive service today at 11:05AM.
We sent emails to every subscriber to alert them to the coming changes and did everything we could think of to make it a smooth transition. User IDs and passwords were carried over from the old Windows Media service. Personal Favorites lists were also transferred from the old site, but this process was less than perfect.
Some people couldn't find the Favorites menu button at first. Others found they were not completely up to date when they opened the "My Favorites" playlist in the new player. Rest assured, dear space fans: all of your favorites are still in our database and we will get all of them where they are supposed to be shortly. When the smoke clears, you'll find the new favorites display page much improved because it shows programs, albums, and tracks in one place.
A few users with unusally small screens on "netbook" size computers discovered a problem with that our beta test did not uncover: it's hard to see the lower part of the site because the top part with the larger Flash player and menu bars does not scroll up and out of the way. There are advantages to having the player stay put, but not when you have a 600 pixel high screen! We are working on a fix for this and will push it out ASAP.
We fielded several hundred emails and phone calls from users with other questions, but considering the scope and number of changes (we call them "improvements") everything went very smoothly and space fans on several continents are now happily listening to our crispy new 128kbps streams.
Please don't hesitate to email us at help@hos.com if you have any questions about the new site.
:: SH
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