We have re-enabled new user registration. We will be keeping a close eye on new content and users on the site over the next couple of days. We hope that by closing down registration temproarily, we may have stopped the spammers from coming to the site, but we will be making several immediate changes to reduce the amount of spam on the site including adding a Captcha to the user registration form.

We apologize again for the inconvenience caused by the spam attack. It was unfortunate timing having this happen over the holidays.

I just published an update to the script that inserts automatic links to the online help. This fixes several issues with the regular expression used to determine when and where to place the links. So now ?PDEtools[diff_table] ?sum,details and ?implicitplot3d all will be linked correctly.

As promised, we have launched MaplePrimes on a brand new web server. This server will greatly increase the performance and reliability of the site. Along with moving to the new server, we’ve made a number of small feature updates and bug fixes:

• The typesetting for math entered with the <maple> tag and toolbar button is improved
• When you enter a word prefaced by the question mark (?), it will automatically link to the Online Help, example: ?abs
• Replaced the “Web” option from the MaplePrimes search with “Help”, this searches the Online Help.
• Fixed a number of bad hyperlinks and markup generated by the file manager.
• Allow MapleSim file uploads with the file manager.

One feature that did not make it over to the new server is conversion of plots when uploading worksheets via the file manager. We haven’t seen too much usage of this feature, so we hope it won’t be missed for now. The feature will come back along with greatly improved HTML conversion (the same as the HTML generated by Maple 13) when the brand new MaplePrimes launches.

If you see any problems with the site, please let us know through a comment on this post.

We hope the new server and the fixes help to improve your MaplePrimes experience; and we look forward to sharing the brand new MaplePrimes with you as well!

We are considering using Flash for a major part of the new version of MaplePrimes, and would like to know if you have Flash in your browser. Please vote in the new poll.

With the release of Maple 13, we have also released a major new feature to Maplesoft.com, Online Help:

Every one of Maple's help pages is now available online. With this new feature, you will be able to view the help pages right in your browser and download the source Maple worksheet to interact with in Maple.

Maple 12.01 is now available. The Maple 12.01 update includes enhancements in a variety of areas, including:

• Differential equations and differential algebraic equations: Numerous enhancements to performance of numerical solvers
• MATLAB link: Extended to include support for MATLAB 2008b
• Language packs: Updates for Spanish, Brazilian-Portuguese, Greek, Japanese, and Chinese
• Plotting:
  • Improved behavior in plot3d when using numpoints and grid options
  • The plots[display] command now handles dual-axis plots inside array plots
• Graph Theory: Context-sensitive menus updated to include more graph theory commands
• Other improvements were made in:
  • Numeric integration
  • Physics package
  • SolveTools package
  • ArrayTools package
  • Debugger

There are two new posts over on the Maplesoft Blog:

Postcards from the road: Part 1 -- On rocket science

By Tom Lee

One of the greatest pleasures of my job is meeting users and learning first hand of their achievements (hopefully with our products). Last week was a particularly eventful week and a distinct highlight was a visit our friends at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) in Montréal.

It's not often that a funny music video is made about Fractals. Here is something very special:

The e-mail notification feature that was previously available before the last update to the site has been re-enabled.

Please post any issues with this feature as comments on this blog entry. If you have comments about any other features, please add them to the MaplePrimes Suggestions forum

I have just completed a new update to the site that allows me to disable the new WYSYWIG editor for specific users. Users cannot make this change themselves at the moment, an administrator must make the change for them.

If you would like the editor disabled, please use the contact form to send me a message.