Hi David, I woke up tonight a 3.28 am, my phone was ringing... My son was calling me, he's an engineer living at the moment in Christchurch, New Zealand, to learn English... Guess why he called me? (He's ok, not wounded, but no more water, no more electricity and little power left in his PC and his mobile...) This made me think... Do you have mirror sites elsewhere in the world to host the config files? Earthquakes are not the only issue... Fire, hacking, and so on... If there are no mirror sites for the configs, if anything happens, all Buzztouch apps will be dead, right? Here's an idea: a function in the BT app that would switch to another server if the BT server is unreachable at one moment or another! It could be an automatic sync between the configs folder of the BT server and a mirror folder on a server somewhere else in the world, or a manual sync: I specify on the backend the URL of the folder where I'll host the mirror config file, and I download the config from the BT server every time I make the slightest change in the backend, then I upload it on my server... OK, it will require discipline if it's up to the user to backup the config file, but automatic or semi-automatic routines could be implemented, or warnings displayed in the backend, and so on... So... what do you think? Is such a switch function technically possible? Best greetings from cloudy Switzerland Jack

Hi Jack, glad things are good with the boy - yikes! This is good thinking. However, you could think of it another way. The phone downloads it's configuration data from the server and stores it itself - right? This means that if the server is unreachable, it will still operate, it just won't be refresh-able. Our data-center is bullet proof but nothing is 100% reliable all the time. Copying your apps configuration file for safe keeping does make sense (See Core Settings in a v1.5 app, click the Config Data link for a copy of it). This type of thinking is worth thinking about, it's important.

Yes, I did test a few days ago the non-config-available issue! Airplane mode, then refresh... and it was ok - just had an error message (could it be customed, as for the user it could make him think the app is rotten and may crash the phone?). Does the cached config file have some kind of timeout if you don't use the app for a while? And is it present in the iTunes backup in the user's computer, just in case he deletes the app from the iPhone but keeps it on hand for his next holidays? Anyway, if one day you wish to have a secure folder for all BT configs to mirror yours in the heart of the Swiss vineyards, send us a message! Best greetings Jack

Updates: Have a look at the change-log in the apps control panel. Updates are now supported ;-) Swiss vineyards - can't wait!!!

Yeeeeeeeees! Great!

Hmm not to rain on your parade, but the only reason someone would go through the trouble of hosting the file somewhere else is to make sure that if buzz goes down, your app won't. So if say buzz goes down, I would assume you wouldn't be able to reach the page to change the config anyways. You would have to do it while buzz is online, and then update each and every time. Instead, have a second box, and if the app cant reach the default, it would use whatever link you entered into the second box, your backup config file. I think that's what he said above too. Does that make any sense? Or am I just confused! David.

You're not confused! The idea is to have a mirror config file, just in case... And of course this backup has to be done when BT is up! When you run a website with its own DN, you have to specify 2 DNS... if one fails, the second (on another server, of course) takes the job! Just basic security! But with the cacheing of the BT apps configs, part of the risk is already eliminated...