Kindo Family Blog

We’re following a set of simple rules for how we treat information you give us.

1. Family only: Only the people in your family tree can see your tree and information you put in the tree (such as your profile information). The public cannot access this data.

2. No spamming: We will never spam you or any of your family members. We’re sending a single reminder to a family member who hasn’t replied to your invitation. We will also send you newsletters and other notifications to your email address, but if you don’t like this you’ll be able to change your settings. If you don’t want any more emails from us, you can also drop us a line.

3. Everything stays with Kindo: We will never provide your personal information to advertisers or other third parties that are not closely affiliated with Kindo, unless we get your explicit permission. Your data is safe with us.

4. Cookies are good for you: We use cookies, since they make it easier for you to use Kindo. Cookies are basically small text files that are stored on your computer. More specific, we use session ID cookies to keep track of your data while you’re logged in, and persistent cookies, which makes it easy to log back in to Kindo.

5. Contact: For questions regarding these rules, feel free to use this address.

Over the last month or so, our number one priority has been to release Kindo to friends, family, and early adopters (these were our Alpha and Beta releases) so that we could get as much feedback as possible to make Kindo into something people love to you use.

So far we’ve received great feedback, but there’s still loads to do!

At the moment we’re tying up some bugfixes and user interface improvements for another interim release (thanks to everyone for their feedback!), whilst working on some major new additions to Kindo, which will bring:

1. pruning to your tree (to simplify you will only see blood relatives - think pruning a rosebush
2. a full profile page for each family member
3. the ability to invite your whole family from one page, or to remind family members to join Kindo!

Once we’ve done that, there are some really cool features in the pipeline which we’re not gonna talk too much about now

In the meantime, we’d love to hear more from you:

1. What do you want to see on Kindo?
2. What is missing from Kindo?
3. What improvements could be made with the interface?

More soon…

kindo, family, web2.0, london, putney

One of the problems of doing something as complex as Kindo is that you get so caught up in the bugs, issues and things you want to do but can’t for whatever reason, so you forget what’s going right and what works well….

So, as a reminder to myself more than anything (cathartic blogs are great), I’m posting some good feedback that has come in so far, and also asking if anyone has any other good feedback for us?

So here we go:
” - it looks just great. The design works beautifully”

“It’s a pretty cool website. I started in the alpha release on my tree, and put in as many as I could think of. I only invited two people - my fiance and my mom. One day after I invited my mom (in the beta), I logged back in, and she had filled out a HUGE portion of my family tree that I had no idea about! It was pretty neat to see all the links - I would love to see it grow further & further, and see who I’m related to that I don’t know about. My mom also corrected a few things that I’d got wrong in the distant family that lives in the States - shows how little I know! I imagine it would be really cool when two huge “trees” get linked up through a common point, by email address, I imagine. All of a sudden your tree can double in size!!

Functionality-wise - it’s pretty easy to use too. I wish it could be a bit faster, but that’s more an issue of being in SA. I’m sure the UI could be tweaked to be a bit cooler - and I’m sure that will come in later releases.
”

“looks v cool mate; pretty addictive usability”

“congrats!

it looks beautiful - love the design.
ageless/genderless and cute as well…

the afrikaans sounds ok, one or two spelling mistakes and I am not used to using Afrikaans on the web so would possibly rather use the site in english…
seems to be easy to use…

really nice!”

And that’s it for now

kindo, family, bugs, web2.0, usability, design, brand

Hi everyone, after a week or so of bugfixing and user interface improvements, we’re happy to say we’ve just updated Kindo Beta, so we’re hoping you will like it!

If you’ve been using the Alpha, then don’t worry as your data is still in place (!), and you should be re-directed straight to Beta.

Improvements we’ve made so far:
You should experience faster page loading.
Kindo is translated into 8 languages, and we’re working on another 4.

Problems we’ve experienced:
Sending email in 9 languages isn’t as easy as it may seem - this is mainly due to accented characters in languages like Spanish and Swedish.

A few issues we know about and are working to improve:
Only currently married partners are place side-by-side.
Ended relationship grey lines will cross *through* siblings and other partners until we implement pruning (pruning is where you only see your blood relatives).
Sending invitations more than once. We’re adding a page to make it much easier.
Hotmail doesn’t seem to like our email…
More on our Known Issues page…

As always, we’re super happy to be getting bug reports, user interface feedback and suggestions for improvements from you, so please don’t be shy!

More soon

kindo, beta, updates

1) Take them out for a game of tennis during lunch

2) Make them run like a madman for a well-timed lob

3) Laugh at them when they hit themselves in the head with their racket

We’re looking for great people to join our team of web ninjas. If you think you fit the bill, then please do mail us and we’ll see what we can do from there.
Details below:
__________________________

Senior PHP Developers

A growing web application company based in Putney Bridge, London, specialising in Web 2.0 work in the LAMP stack, seeks ambitious, talented, enthusiastic and motivated PHP Developers.

You will have:

1. 3+ years PHP experience with an excellent knowledge of object oriented PHP 4/5, MYSQL 4/5, and a good understanding of CSS, xHTML, AJAX and JavaScript?.
2. Apache and MYSQL administration experience would be ideal but not essential, as would experience with the Seagull framework.
3. Exposure to Open source technologies/frameworks/classes eg PEAR, prototype, scriptaculous is essential. As is exposure to web-based APIs (using SOAP, XML etc).
4. Experience writing/working with CMS, E-commerce systems is beneficial.
5. You must be able to manage a development environment, be able to accurately quote time for completing required tasks and be comfortable working with Trac and svn.

To apply:
E-mail your cover letter and resume to hello AT kindo DOT com
Subject header must have SENIOR PHP WEB DEVELOPER-LNDN.

Emails / responses where the applicant does not fit the above requirements will not be replied to.

A little while ago we released an Alpha to a small group of people, to gather valuable user feedback. Thanks to those great people, we’ve had our heads down improving Kindo, and as a result we’re releasing the Beta, and at the same time opening it up to a wider audience for more feedback.

We’ve made the following progress:

1. Kindo is much faster now
2. The Kindo tree is now much more stable and knowledgable
3. You can invite family members to your tree
4. Many more user interface improvements and enhancements
   • *Note: we’re continually adding more, so please tell us about things you think should work better or be more obvious.
5. The internet is global now, so we’re releasing in 7 languages:
   • English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Afrikaans, Polish; with Russian, Turkish, Hindi, Hebrew and Arabic on the way.

Our mantra has become “Speed, Simple, Pleasure“, so in a nutshell that means we’re always trying to make Kindo faster for you, simpler, more intuitive and perhaps most importantly a pleasure to use.

Our new URL is http://beta.kindo.com/.

What can we do to make Kindo better?
If you dont like it – tell us why.
If you do like it – what are you missing?
Join the conversation on our blog, we’d love to hear your opinion.

Don’t worry – the same login details apply, and your data is all still there.

Have fun!