I've finally created a quick SlideCast showing off the ability to embed video (which is recorded directly within the Slide Manager at SlideSix). It's embedded below. Make sure you expand the control pod by clicking the button in the bottom right corner so you can view the video. Then click play and enjoy.
I'm not sure how in the world I didn't know there was a hot fix released this week, but I just spent a few good hours trying to figure out why CF wouldn't delete an image after I'd resized it. Apparently it is a known bug that has been fixed. Go get it. Do it...
Another quick highlight of SlideSix is the super cool shadowbox jQuery plugin used to embed the video how to's.
Well it would be part 3, but part 3 is already written and scheduled for later so I'm going with 2.5. Really just a super quick tip for some very impressive performance gains. I don't have concrete evidence other then my 'Wow, that's really a big difference' reaction from taking this one simple step. What is that step? Simply log into your ColdFusion Administrator, go to Settings and check 'Disable CFC Type Checking' (see disclaimer below).
When this setting is applied ColdFusion basically assumes a type of 'any' on your arguments (and, I believe, your returnTypes) in your CFC methods.
Disclaimer: There are many blog posts and articles that discuss this tactic (which is known as 'duck typing'). Some say that it is not about performance gains, but there is no question to me that my applications simply run more swift when ColdFusion does not have to validate the type. Before you do this, read up on what some people who are much smarter then me have to say about the topic.
Are you tired of me blogging about SlideSix yet? Today's preso of the day comes from my buddy Robert Froehling (Fro). Fro did a quick preso about SQL String Concatentation to the DFW CFUG a few days ago and has posted the preso up to the site. Thanks to his co-operation I did some more tweaks to the conversion engine, and this preso is the best looking yet (I think only one slide came in a bit weird where the bullet points were all concatenated to one line). Notice the heavy use of colored/commented code in his preso that used to come in with each formatted bit on it's own line. Thanks again Fro!
(Yes, it is the *only* preso of the day so far, but who's counting)...
Here's a quick lesson learned regarding embedded video with <cfpresentation>. I had run some local tests in my dev test bed where I embedded an .FLV movie in a cfpreso and everything worked fine when I viewed the presentation. However, when I ran the same tests in a different local site in IIS for SlideSix the video never showed up. A quick check in Firebug showed me that the call to retrieve the FLV was failing. I opened the URL for the FLV and quickly found an IIS error that showed a missing MIME type mapping. So the lesson learned here is to make sure your web server can serve up FLV files when embedding them in a cfpreso. In IIS it's simply a matter of adding the .FLV extension with a MIME type of 'video/x-flv'.
I'd like to begin a series of posts detailing some of the cooler features of SlideSix.com. In this series I hope to share some of my lessons learned and feature some of the code that went into building the site.
This post shows one of my favorite features: the image cropper.
When editing your profile (or your group) you are given the option to upload a user image. It's always a challenge to ensure a consistent image size when you allow your users to upload an image. Thankfully it was super easy thanks to the built in imageCrop function (on the server) and my cfImageCropper custom tag (on the client side). I'm not going to highlight the exact code here since I've done so in my cfimagecropper posts here on my blog. Essentially it's as easy as detecting the image upload, optionally resizing the image down to 700px wide (so that it fits comfortably in the browser), alerting CF that an image crop is needed after the form is saved and including the image crop utility in a cfwindow. I constrain the crop area to 150px x 150px to ensure a consistent image size. The actual user image does not get saved until and unless the image is cropped to safeguard against the user navigating away from the page before completing the crop.
I was checking out analytics this morning for SlideSix and saw a very cool thing. One of the keywords for my traffic was:
model-glue coldfusion 8 ajax examples
The really cool thing? My SlideCast on SlideSix was the 5th Google result for that search!! If you have a presentation - whether it's a sales pitch, a technical preso, an announcement - whatever message you want to share - you should really consider uploading it to SlideSix.
Thanks to Peter Bell for sending me a few test PowerPoint files the conversion engine was significantly upgraded a few days ago. And what could make your message even more powerful? Adding video or audio!
Here's another message that went out to members this morning. I'm probably going to continue to cross post some of these that I think are useful/helpful until I can get a blog set up for the site.
Greetings!Just a quick line to let folks know that I've added a page full of screencast demos to SlideSix.com. The demos range from super simple (registering for a new account) to super cool (adding media to your slides). You can see the videos here:
http://slidesix.com/index.cfm?event=page.demos
Also, did you know that you must 'Publish' your presentation after you have uploaded it? I've noticed there are a handful of SlideCasts created, but very few have been published. To publish your SlideCast, log in and select 'My Presentations', find the SlideCast in your list and click 'Publish'. If you've had any problems importing or publishing please let me know!
If you want to drop us a line:
http://slidesix.com/index.cfm?event=page.contact
Thanks for your support.
I wanted to post the message that went out to the early adopters (or as I call them 'brave souls') of SlideSix.com for the benefit of everyone who may have not heard about the site yet.
This message is going out to the handful of brave souls who decided to give SlideSix.com a chance in the first few days after its launch.First of all, let me thank you for signing up and joining our little community. I truly believe the product we are offering has an edge that no one else has yet offered in the online presentation arena.
Secondly, I'd like to let you know that a number of miscellaneous bug fixes and several minor enhancements have been deployed in the few days since the launch. I won't go into every little detail, but here are the highlights:
*Modified profile edit page so that you are not required to re-enter your password every time you edit your profile (you only need to enter a password when you want to change your password - Thanks for the idea Ray!).
*Fixed image uploading. Also now allow any readable image to be uploaded for groups and users. The following image types can now be uploaded: JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIF - and many more.
*Added ability to unsubscribe from communications (like this one). Certain important announcements will still be sent, but if you'd like to not receive informational updates like this one you can uncheck the subscribe box when editing your profile.
Plus many more bug fixes. Thanks to the users who have taken the time to let me know about these!
In the coming days I plan to author several demo slidecasts that will show some of the cooler features available here at SlideSix.com - these demos will include some audio/video features to show you just how powerful these are.
I have many, many ideas for growing the functionality and features of the site, but I need your help! Please feel free to tell a friend about the site.
You can also help by Digging the site here:
http://digg.com/software/Online_Presentations_With_Audio_Video_SlideCasting
Thanks again. With your help I really believe this site can grow!
Read more about SlideSix.com here and be sure to Digg it!!
