Category: News

MIDAS v4.16 Out Now!

2 minute read time · Updated January 19, 2023 · First published August 13, 2017

We love bringing new and improved features to MIDAS throughout the course of the year, and our latest update v4.16 is no exception!

If you frequent our website, blog, or social media channels, you’ll likely already be aware of some of the exciting improvements we’ve been busy working on for this update, but we’re now excited to announce the release of MIDAS v4.16!

Here’s What’s New & Improved in v4.16:

How To Get MIDAS v4.16…

New To MIDAS?

We are committed to fair and accessible pricing for all organizations regardless of size. We’re totally upfront and transparent about our pricing structure, and you can purchase MIDAS v4.16 securely through our website and be up and running in no time!

“Self Hosted” Customers:

Self-Hosted customers with ongoing Annual Support Subscriptions will be able to update to v4.16 in the next few days. It only takes a couple of clicks – simply log in to your MIDAS system and go to MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Update

“Cloud Hosted” Customers:

Cloud-Hosted customers don’t need to do anything! – All our active Cloud-Hosted MIDAS customers have now been automatically updated to the latest version of MIDAS!

We love hearing from our customers, so let us know what features you’d like to see in future updates to our software by voting on our feature request page!

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Upgrading our servers to support HTTP/2

3 minute read time · Updated February 11, 2025 · First published July 13, 2017
Network Switch

As part of our ongoing commitment to the services we provide to our “cloud hosted” customers, we’ll shortly be upgrading our client servers to support HTTP/2.

HTTP/2 is the first major new version of the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) for two decades. It will eventually replace the previous HTTP/1.1 protocol which was standardized way back in 1997.

The primary goal of HTTP/2 is to overcome many of the shortcomings of the twenty-year old HTTP/1.1 protocol, particularly in relation to how content is delivered over the internet.

HTTP/2 focuses on optimizing the communication and flow of content between web servers and web browsers. When a user connects to a web site, their browser negotiates an HTTP session with the server. The type of session created will vary depending on the features supported by the browser and the server. If both ends support the latest HTTP/2 protocol, the server uses the HTTP/2 protocol to shape and optimize traffic before it passes through the network back to the browser.

Once the browser and server agree to use HTTP/2, they can utilize additional features such as compression and multiplexing to optimize the connection. If either the web server or the user’s web browser doesn’t support HTTP/2, the connection will fall back to the HTTP/1.1 protocol.

Benefits of HTTP/2

One of the main improvements over HTTP/1.1 is that HTTP/2 uses simultaneous connections (or multiplexing). Previously only one resource can be fetched from the server at a time. However with HTTP/2 multiple resources can be fetched over a single connection concurrently.

Another benefit is header optimization. Every request over HTTP contains header information. With HTTP/1.1, many of these headers are repeated over a single session. HTTP/2 removes redundant headers while compressing the remaining headers, leading to performance improvements.

Benefits to cloud-hosted MIDAS users

In terms of MIDAS, the benefit of our client servers supporting HTTP/2 is that users will see notable improvements in page load speed and responsiveness when using MIDAS.

In our pre-testing, we saw page load times via HTTP/2 improve by some 20% over the same pages loaded via HTTP/1.1

When will the upgrade happen?

We’ll be upgrading our client servers to support HTTP/2 over the coming weekend (15/16th July 2017). Other than a quick server restart, no additional downtime is expected. For more information, check our dedicated Service Status site (which already supports HTTP/2!), and follow us on Twitter for updates.

Will I need to do anything?

No action is required on your part!

If you’re running a modern operating system and web browser, you won’t need to do anything. Your browser will already support HTTP/2, and you’ll still access MIDAS in exactly the same way. Once our servers are HTTP/2 enabled over the weekend, your browser will adjust accordingly.

If you’re not running an HTTP/2 compliant browser/operating system don’t worry, you’ll still be able to connect to your hosted MIDAS system over HTTP/1.1 as before. For an improved MIDAS experience though, you may like to consider upgrading your operating system & browser to one that supports HTTP/2.

  • Edge Chrome Firefox Current versions of Edge, Chrome, and Firefox browsers fully support HTTP/2.
  • Safari Current versions of Safari support HTTP/2 on OSX 10.11+
  • Internet Explorer Internet Explorer 11+ supports HTTP/2 on Windows 10 only

UPDATE: Our network is now fully HTTP/2 enabled, and we’re seeing some great performance improvements too!

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Privacy Improvements

2 minute read time · Updated January 21, 2023 · First published July 12, 2017

We care about privacy, which is why we’re introducing “Do-Not-Track” support in our forthcoming update, MIDAS v4.16.

“Do-Not-Track” – or DNT – is a setting present in most modern web browsers. If enabled, it instructs the web servers not to track you. This can mean not to track your visit, or not to tailor advertising based on your browsing habits, etc.

More and more websites are increasingly respecting this user privacy preference – but it’s fair to say that the vast majority still don’t.

As DNT is a voluntary standard, not all websites or online services have agreed to honor it. Even among those that have, not all have implemented the standard in the same way. Therefore, the effectiveness of DNT can vary depending on the website or service you are visiting.

Now, Ordinarily, the “Recent Activity” log in MIDAS – which records all user activity taking place in your scheduling system – also logs each user’s IP address.

Do Not Track (dnt) Support in MIDAS
Do Not Track (dnt) Support in MIDAS

For v4.16 we’re introducing a new “Honor user’s Do Not Track preference?” setting.

If enabled by an administrator, MIDAS won’t log user’s IP addresses in its Recent Activity log if the user has also enabled the “Do-Not-Track” setting in their browser.

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Reducing International Price Fluctuations

3 minute read time · Updated March 13, 2024 · First published July 8, 2017
 
 
 
 
 

As you may be aware, we are a UK based business. Consequently, our “base” pricing is in Pound Sterling (GBP).

However our customer base is global, with around 70% of our customers residing outside the UK.

Because of our global reach, we also accept payment in a variety of other currencies too. This includes Australian Dollar (AUD), Canadian Dollar (CAD), Euro (EUR), and US Dollar (USD).

As our core pricing is referenced back to Pound Sterling (GBP), our systems routinely retrieve daily the current exchange rates between GBP and each of the other currencies we support. We obtain our exchange rates from the ECB (European Central Bank). We then use this data to automatically adjust the prices you see on our website. This occurs each day and for transparency, we display the date & time when the exchange rates were last updated.

This may mean that if you view international (non-Sterling) pricing on our website on any given day, and then check back another day the prices may have changed from those listed upon your initial visit.

Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the prices you’ll see on your return visit will be higher. In fact, in many cases they may be lower! Indeed, since the UK voted to leave the EU back in June last year, our non-Sterling prices have been on average 10% lower than they were before 23rd June 2016.

We’re committed to fair and transparent pricing. Our core Sterling pricing for MIDAS has remained fixed for a number of years now and has not been raised as a result of the UK’s decision to leave the EU.

However, due the wider instability and uncertainty in global markets that have become more prevalent in recent times, as a result of – for example, Brexit and the Trump presidency – this had tended to mean that our international prices have fluctuated a little more day to day than they have done previously.

Therefore, for the benefit of all our customers, we’ve now introduced a small improvement in the way that our systems automatically adjust our international (non Sterling) pricing each day.

Increasing Exchange Rate Stability

Instead of using the current exchange rates on each specific day itself in isolation, our systems now take an average of the daily exchange rates over the previous 7 day period. Effectively, we’re now using a “rolling 7 day average” to adjust our international prices.

This helps smooths out and reduce small price fluctuations you may see on our website from day to day!

We also know that many organizations require a formal fixed-price quotation. We’re very happy to provide quotations upon request. The prices given on these quotations would be fixed for a period of 30 days. Please contact us for a quote today if interested!

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