We were hard at work over the weekend! The new version, which went live last night, includes several enhancements and minor bug fixes. Users can now log in with either their username or their email address – several users requested this feature, so we made it happen. Power to the people! :)

In addition, we introduced a new feature which we think is pretty cool: Zen users can now create multiple accounts.

Most other web-based tools place importance on the account rather than on the user. Typically, a business will create an account on a service, and then the administrator of the account will create user logins underneath this account. Since user login information is specific to the owning account, users don’t “exist” outside of the business.

With Zen, it’s the reverse: we believe the user is more important than the account. If there’s a common trait with software developers, it’s that we always seem to be working on side projects in addition to doing our “day job”. We wanted to make it easy for people who use Zen in their daily work to use it for their own projects as well.

As a Zen user, you have a single login (your username and password), but you can create as many accounts as you like. All of your accounts will appear as tabs on your dashboard.

You can use different accounts to organize your projects – for example, you might have one for your business (billed to a corporate credit card), and one for your side work (billed to your personal credit card, or just a free account). The only restriction is that each user may only have a single free account.

Each project has to be created inside an account, and projects get their features from the account they’re created in. For example, if an account’s plan supports SSL, all projects created within that account will be secured by SSL.

We’ve been open to the public for almost a week now, and the feedback that we’ve received has been very helpful. We’ve received too much to personally respond to them individually, but I assure you’re we’re paying attention, so please keep it coming!