Filestack’s heritage is pinned deeply to being the world’s best file uploading service. Over the past 5+ years, we’ve had thousands of conversations with customers and prospects about the pains they encounter with file uploading. A common theme: mobile uploads have unique challenges. From maintaining state between cell towers, to ballooning file sizes, to little connectivity in areas with a … Read More
Google and MIT Take Giant Leap in Mobile Image Processing
To say that digital photography has changed in the last ten years would be an understatement bordering on absurdity. Since I’ve graduated high school, we’ve gone from blurry, low-res camera phones to those that rival some of the best prosumer cameras on the market. I can take a 12-megapixel image, run it through Photoshop, save it to my Dropbox and … Read More
Introducing the New Filestack::Rails Plugin
We’ve got lots of exciting stuff going on at Filestack right now, including a new release of our File Picker; brand new SDKs in Python, PHP and Ruby; and an update to one of our most popular plugins: Filestack::Rails. Formerly known as Filepicker::Rails, the plugin now includes v3 of our File Picker and adds support for Rails 4 and 5. … Read More
Filestack Web SDK V3 0.7 Updates
At Filestack we are constantly working to provide the best upload experience for all of our users. Back in March we launched the v3 of the Filestack Web SDK, also commonly referred to as the Filestack file picker. While the web SDK is not the only way to use Filestack, many Filestack users choose this because it can be implemented … Read More
Web Pages Loading Slow? Optimize Images to Decrease Page Load Time
Generally, if your site takes more than 2-3 seconds to load, the average internet user will abandon it in search of similar resources they’ll be able to access quicker. Unoptimized images are one of the most common culprits of slow site load speed. So, before you overload your website with a ton of larger-than-necessary image files, it’s essential that you optimize … Read More
Recreate Silicon Valley’s Not Hotdog App with Filestack’s Tagging Feature
Deep learning has gone from sci-fi concept to industry buzzword within only a matter of years. What started as proof-of-concepts and enhanced facial recognition software quickly ballooned into state-of-the-art image and speech recognition, video analysis, behavioral predictions and untold other successes, where the goal was specific enough and the dataset large enough to benefit from deep models. With modern algorithms … Read More
Filestack Tutorial For Beginners: Part 2 Watermark
Welcome Back! Hello, and welcome back to the Filestack Tutorial For Beginners. If you have not seen the first half then check it out here. Otherwise, let’s keep making progress on our watermarking application. Perform a Transformation: Watermark Working with Uploaded Files: The Filestack Handle At this point you are probably wondering: “Okay, I understand how to upload files, and … Read More
Introducing The Filestack Command-Line Interface
Filestack provides a robust and scalable solution for content upload and file delivery. We are used for websites, digital services, enterprise software and endless other projects across the industry. Our File Picker is easily integrated into any website, and we have a growing list of SDKs for use in projects of various languages, including plugins for popular frameworks. Sometimes, though, … Read More
Filestack Tutorial For Beginners: Part 1 File Uploading
The purpose of this two part tutorial is to provide enough instruction, and explanation on Filestack’s Javascript API that someone inexperienced with either Filestack or Javascript can leave with a grasp on what we do, and how we do it. The first part will focus on basic HTML and Javascript, and implementing file uploads, and the second will focus on … Read More
Ansible: Accelerated
So, you’ve been using Ansible, and have realized it can be really slow. You ask, why is Ansible slow? The answer is simple. Ansible uses ssh as a ‘transport layer’, which starts a new connection for every task in a playbook. This is not ideal, but luckily, we can change this behavior with a few simple steps. How to Speed Up Ansible To … Read More
Uploading Webcam Images with Filestack
I was recently looking into commonly asked questions about content uploading and found that there are presently 370 active questions on Stackoverflow about how to upload an image taken via webcam. This isn’t a surprising number when all of the aspects involved are considered. I understand these issues first hand because I personally spent weeks researching and re-building the webcam … Read More
Filestack Surpasses 100,000 Applications! 🎉
Earlier this week, Filestack surpassed 100,000 applications! As we continue to develop our product and grow our community, we cannot thank YOU enough for fueling Filestack’s success. We are able to grow thanks to constant requests and genuine feedback. filepicker_production=> select count(*) from apps; count ——– 100001 (1 row) We’re Proud of Every Single App Filestack’s success is defined by the … Read More
Filestack is Certified with the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework for HR and Non-HR Data
On April 17, 2017, Filestack became compliant with the EU-US Privacy Shield framework. The EU-US Privacy Shield is a framework for transferring data between the United States and European Union that ensures the data falls within the EU privacy regulations. Privacy Shield replaces Safe Harbor to protect EU citizens’ data from US surveillance and address privacy concerns. What does … Read More
The Complete List of Document File Extensions Developers
Between DOC files, PDFs, TXT files and more, there are many different document file extensions you can use. Similar to our posts on The Complete Image File Extension List for Developers and The Complete List of Audio / Video File Formats for Developers, we have created a complete list of document file extension types for you to reference when working … Read More
Improve Your Workflow with Cache and Debug
In my last few articles we discussed several features that make Filestack’s API such a big game changer in your development process. We compared Filestack pick function with a more traditional approach to handle files upload in the article “Comparing Node & JQuery File Upload vs Filestack” showing that it allows for fast development and no hassle when it comes to security. Moreover, … Read More
The Complete List of Audio / Video File Formats for Developers
From .WEBM, .OGG, .MP3, .MP4 and more, there are many audio and video formats you can expect to come across as a developer handing audio / video content in your application. Like our last article on The Complete Image File Extension List for Developers, in this article, we delve into the different types of audio / video file types, and when … Read More
LinkedIn Launches Photo Filters and Editing in their App… And You Can, Too.
On March 14, LinkedIn released Photo Filters and Editing for profile pictures, along with guidelines on how to get noticed with a “professional” photo (read more here). The fact is, profile pictures are important, and you don’t always need a professional headshot to look good. Often, a selfie with some nifty filters will do the trick. With LinkedIn’s new features, … Read More
Create an Awesome Photo Collage with React and Filestack
A photo collage is a popular way of sharing amazing moments in our lives. From exotic vacations, to crazy parties, to romantic seaside weddings and more, collages capture many moments to create one multifaceted composite. As a printing application, the ability to upload pictures and create photo collages for your customers is an absolute must-have. The are a few open source libraries and repos available … Read More
The Complete Image File Extension List for Developers
JPEGs. PDFs. SVGs. Even for the most savvy developers, keeping track of all available image file extensions isn’t easy. Using the wrong (or suboptimal) file format could result in: Low image/video/audio quality Unnecessarily large file sizes Slow delivery of large files Inaccessibility of data within the file Simply put, knowing and understanding the many types available – their functions, features,and … Read More
Comparing Node & JQuery File Upload vs Filestack
We often recommend using Filestack to upload files. But why is Filestack really better than building your own file uploader from scratch? Does Filestack actually save you time and provide more capabilities? First things first… What is Filestack? If you’re not familiar with Filestack, it is an end-to-end file upload and management solution. Through our JavaScript library or RESTful API, you can … Read More
A Filestack Developer’s “Vue” on Collision Conference
On a normal day you’ll find me with my laptop typing away at some Vue.js code. During the week of May 1st a few members of our team at Filestack attended Collision Conference in New Orleans. I knew there would be many presentations on SaaS and API integrations, so I was excited about the conference before I even arrived. One of … Read More
Building Prisma-like Filters with Pytorch and Filestack
One of the coolest papers to come out of the deep learning renaissance has been A Neural Algorithm of Artistic Style. Presumably, it’s what drives Prisma, and it’s completely open to the world. Anyone can build their own neural filters if they have the time and inclination — which is exactly what we are going to do. Using a combination of Filestack and … Read More
Take a Screenshot with Filestack and React
Taking screenshots is common for those of us who live on our phones and laptops. Sometimes we want to share glimpses of funny conversations with friends, other times, in the office for example, we take screenshots to quickly share unexpected results on our screens. Screenshots are so common that nowadays the majority of our devices offer a specific key combination to either take a … Read More
React-Filestack Package is Here – And You Will Love It!
The first half of 2017 has been an exciting time for Filestack. In March, we launched the V3 File Picker to enthusiastic community feedback. Now, we are releasing a React Filestack package for our React lovers to easily adopt the V3 File Picker. The new V3 File Picker offers fast uploads from cloud sources, a streamlined UI, and embed transformations to crop, … Read More
Upscale Images with React and Filestack
I have always been amazed by the upscale processes shown in action movies. Typically, a satellite photo captures the assumed location of the villain and the picture is infinitely zoomed while preserving a great amount of details. This works pretty well in fictional stories, but when you try to enlarge an image in real life, the result is not what we expect. In … Read More
Comparing Google Vision and Clarifai in Production
A few weeks ago, we published our thoughts and research into the major image-labeling service providers, including Microsoft Cognitive Services, Amazon Rekognition, Google Vision, and Clarifai. While we believed each had its merits and all returned accurate labels for most inputs, a combination of speed, content-detection and cost led us to choose Google Vision as the engine for our Image … Read More
Programmatically Enhance Images with Filestack and React
With social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter becoming staples in our lives, we regularly share moments in our lives through casual images on the web. Think about selfies: The simple term for a self-portrait photograph is a very common snapshot that invaded Facebook, Instagram and Twitter whose popularity is never decreasing. The fact is, the rise of accessible … Read More
Red-Eye Removal with React and Filestack
One of the most undesirable results of taking photos is the red-eye effect. In photography the red-eye effect occurs when a camera captures light reflecting from the retina of the subject’s eyes or when a flash is used at night and in dim lighting. This is a pretty common effect that all of us experienced at least once and it’s easily preventable by … Read More
Filestack Launches Content Ingestion Network (CIN) To Accelerate File Uploads Up To 10X
The new Filestack Content Ingestion Network will dramatically increase speed for users uploading files from any region in the world. Normally, when users upload files, you have to wait until the file is uploaded to your storage before you can access it. Only once the file is stored properly in its destination (with services like AWS, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace, Dropbox, … Read More
Realtime Machine Learning with PyTorch and Filestack
Only a few years after its name was coined, deep learning found itself at the forefront of the digital zeitgeist. Over the course of the past two decades, online services evolved into large-scale cloud platforms, while popular libraries like Tensorflow, Torch and Theano later made machine learning integration far simpler and more efficient. Algorithms deemed intractable prior to 2000 became the de … Read More
Create a YouTube-like App with React, Node.Js and Filestack
In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through how to create your own YouTube-like app. The final application will allow users to upload and share videos to the public. We will use React for the client side, Node.js for the server side, and Filestack to upload and transcode the videos. Although I’re highlighting YouTube-like apps, this tutorial will be helpful if … Read More
Chaining Image Transformations Together with React
Editing images is a routine component of web development. As developers, we often have to resize or crop an image to fit a certain space. We may need to upscale an image to improve the resolution on a screen size, or compress an image to save bandwidth and reduce load time. Furthermore, social sites like Instagram and Snapchat have opened … Read More
Build an Image-to-ASCII Art App in React
ASCII art is a beautiful thing to a geek. For fun, we built a transformation to convert any image into an HTML file of ASCII code, and since then, we’ve had users create twitter bots and stores to print ASCII art posters. When using Filestack’s API, the resulting ASCII art looks like this: If you are looking to integrate the … Read More
Compress Images Programmatically with Filestack and React
In recent years, we have seen an exponential increase in the number of images displayed online. Each of the 2 billion people with a smartphone is an amateur photographer, taking and sharing images regularly. Additionally, as the the capabilities of smartphone cameras continue to advance, file sizes are also trending larger. As a result, we are seeing scores of large images circulate the web. To a software … Read More
How to Implement File Picker V3 with React on Node
With new File Picker V3, file uploading integration in your codebase has never been easier. We published the client in the npm registry so you can now say “goodbye” to the script tag within your html files when using Node. With a Node application, you can simply retrieve and download the script by running npm command `install`: npm install filestack-js Or alternatively using … Read More
Comparing image tagging services: Google Vision, Microsoft Cognitive Services, Amazon Rekognition and Clarifai
Prior to integrating image tagging into our our API, here at Filestack we evaluated four of the most popular image tagging services. To determine which service to use, we looked at features, pricing, image size limits, rate limits, performance and accuracy. Ultimately, we decided to go with Google Vision today but the other services might be a good fit for your … Read More
File Picker V3 in Action
Filestack has recently launched our File Picker V3 with a minimalistic design, in-app image transformations, and an even faster file uploading API. In case you missed it, you can read more about the new features and improvements in our article Filestack Launches File Picker V3. The new UI is what everyone needs in a modern website. Uploading a file has never … Read More
How To Upload Large Files
Uploading large files is a constant headache for developers. Pains like latency, speed, timeouts and interruptions, especially over mobile devices, are difficult to avoid. However, over the years, it is becoming increasingly important that your application be able to handle large files. At Filestack, we provide file infrastructure for 100,000 applications worldwide, handling file uploads, transformations, storage, and delivery. … Read More
Filestack Launches File Picker V3
Now with a minimalistic design, in-app image transformations, and faster file uploading API. Today, we are proud to launch the newest version of our File Picker. The result of months of user research and beta testing, the File Picker V3, a more powerful uploading API and new features to create the ultimate file uploading experience for your application. The Highlights 😎 … Read More
MaxCDN vs Fastly – Our Journey Choosing the Best CDN Partner
Are you deciding between MaxCDN and Fastly for your CDN? This post details Filestack’s own notes and research from our hunt to find the best CDN to partner with to deliver billions of files for our end users around the world. We presently deliver 186 TB of data with 1.7 billion requests monthly, so picking the right CDN was an … Read More
Accelerating Application Delivery with a CDN
If you’ve ever encountered a slow loading webpage, you know exactly how wait time impacts user experience. According to Kissmetrics, a 4 second wait time leads to a 25% abandonment rate. The average Internet user expects a page to load in 2 seconds or less, and is not happy to wait longer than that. These problems are only exacerbated on … Read More
Generate a Zip File Programmatically with Javascript & React
Zip files are ubiquitous files on the net. We use them frequently when sending an e-mail or downloading a program. What is a zip file? It’s an archive format which contains one or several files in a compressed form in order to reduce the overall size of the file. This is not a new technology. The zip format was invented in … Read More
Yahoo study finds filters increase photo views 21%, comments 45%
Photo filters are everywhere on the internet. But do they really affect engagement? Yes. A lot. At least according to an interesting 2015 study from the team at Yahoo Labs and Georgia Tech called Why We Filter Our Photos and How It Impacts Engagement (PDF) which looked at the use of photo filters in the Flickr community. Based on a study of 7.6 … Read More
A how and why primer on video transcoding: Webm to H.264 and more
Rendering videos seamlessly across browser types is often an arduous process for developers. It is important to consider the format and codec of a video file. Different browser types support different video codecs, which means that you need to provide multiple formats to ensure that your video renders on all browsers. Browser Video Codec Audio Codec Chrome H.264, VP8, VP9 … Read More
[Tutorial] Add watermarks to images using React and Filestack API
You might remember the case of the monkey selfie. In 2011, a nature photographer named David Slater was in Indonesia to photograph some Celebes crested macaques. He set up the camera on a tripod, and left the remote trigger for the camera out so that a macaque that wandered by could take it’s own picture. One of the macaques actually did, taking some amazing … Read More
An API to convert png to jpg and vice versa
Converting files from one type to another is one of the more common tasks in web development. You might have a png, jpg or svg, but need a different file format for your particular use case (more on that below). Today, we will see how to use the Filestack API to convert from one file type to another. The alternative … Read More
AWS S3 vs Azure vs Google storage market share: what we see
At Filestack, we handle millions of uploads monthly for developers around the world. Developers are storing their files anywhere from their local machines, and or across multiple cloud drives such as Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, and Dropbox depending on their needs. With this data, we’ve been able to draw some pretty interesting trends… What is the Most Popular Cloud Storage Destination? Well, … Read More
An API to convert any image into ASCII
Who doesn’t love ASCII art? There are the true artists who create art themselves, a character at a time. For the rest of us, there are lots of great ASCII art generators, for instance Picascii or Text Image. One thing they are missing though is an API to handle the image-to-ASCII conversion. When we were building our API for image … Read More
How to automatically resize, fit, and align any image using only URL parameters
Resizing images like pngs, jpgs or gifs is one of the most common things we have to do as developers. You might need to optimize the layout of a website or application, reduce the size of your images to increase page performance or even just get the alignment of that reaction meme you’re playing around with just right before … Read More
Where did the $9 Plan go? Or, let’s talk about failure.
Hello! It’s Caitlin, your friendly neighborhood data sleuth. I was waiting to write about a really cool experiment where we found awesome things and were super successful for my second blog post, but instead I’m going to talk about getting things wrong. For a long time we’ve been hearing from users who wanted something between the free plan and … Read More