I'm thrilled to announce the public beta launch of the SlideSix Presenter desktop application.  The SlideSix Presenter gives SlideSix users the ability to present materials to both a live and virtual audience at the same time.  That means that you can use the application to present your material just as you would with your legacy slideware program (including support for multiple monitors/displays), but in addition to all of the legacy slideware features you can simultaneously broadcast a your slides and a live video stream and interact with your virtual audience via real time text based chat in your own dedicated room on the web.  If you're brave you can also monitor Twitter for a given keyword or #hashtag for instant feedback and Q&A from your audience. 

To get started, download the SlideSix Presenter and the user guide.  Install the application by launching the file you downloaded (requires the latest version of Adobe AIR to be installed on your computer).  Here's a presentation with some video demos to introduce the app and show you some of the things that you can do:

Where do I get help?

The first place you should check is the onboard help system within the application itself.  In the presentation panel at the top of the application you'll see a 'Help' button that will display the onboard help system.  The help system contains a number of tutorials that cover specific functionality within the app as well as a list of Frequently Asked Questions that should help you figure things out if you get stuck. 

You can also check out the user guide as it will give you a comprehensive overview on all of the features and functionality within the application as well as detailed screenshots that walk you through performing specific tasks.  Finally, if you're really stuck feel free to post a message to the SlideSix Beta Google Group and we will do our best to help you out. 

What if I find a bug?

There are no bugs, my software is perfect.  OK, so that's not quite true.  If you find a bug please post a message to the SlideSix Beta Google Group and our crack staff (me) will do their (my) best to assist you.

Where do I get it?

SlideSix Presenter Download

User Guide

A buddy sent me an opening today on behalf of his friend who is looking for help developing a Flex/AIR app. Here is the listing:

I wanted to help spread the word about two new conference options for developers. The first is the RIAdventure 360 Cruise that will be held December 6-13 on the high seas of the Western Caribbean. This is the second iteration of this event which is organized by my buddy Josh Cyr. Josh says:

I'm thrilled to announce the launch of a new community effort, cfpanel. This is an effort put together by myself and Dan Vega to bring a new live podcast hosted by a rotating panel of community members to discuss relevant topics.

Read more here.

The ColdFusion 9/Bolt/Flex 4 world tour makes it's highly anticipated stop in Cleveland tomorrow night. World famous ColdFusion Project Manager extraordinaire Adam Wayne 'Adrock' Lehman will make his illustrious solo debut when he presents information about the highly touted new software releases from Adobe.

From the Cleveland CFUG site:

The June meeting will be held on Wednesday, June 17, 2009, from 6:00PM - 8:00PM, at the offices of Dealer Tire, LLC, located at 3711 Chester Ave., Cleveland, OH 44114. Dealer Tire is located just east of the I-90 Chester exit, and just west of the East 40th Street traffic light. Note: If coming from I-90 and Chester, prepare to do a U-turn at East 40th.

If you're within driving distance of Cleveland I seriously recommend you come up for the event. I can't be certain, but I hear rumors that Adrock will be giving away $10,000 to one lucky attendee. (OK, that's a complete lie, but I wouldn't be surprised if he gave out some cool schwag).

Be there!!!!

I'm happy to announce that the CFEmmy awards have now evolved into the Adobe Community Achievement Awards. I started the CFEmmys a few years ago as a way for community members to recognize the outstanding achievements of their peers for the sometimes thankless work they do to grow our community. I'm really excited that Liz and Nafisa have thrown their support behind this effort - it should be a blast to present the awards at CFUnited.

Nominations are being accepted until June 8. Feel free to nominate those who you think deserve to be on the ballot. We'll hold a round of voting once all the nominations are in and the winners will be announced during CFUnited in August.

We are in the midst of 'conference season' where many folks within the Adobe Developer Communities (ColdFusion, Flex, AIR, etc) are attending any of a number of amazing events to learn about our favorite technologies. I specifically mention Adobe technologies because the majority of my audience here at my blog use those technologies on a daily basis, but this post certainly applies to anyone who has a need to present material in front of an audience.

So as many of my readers know, I run a presentation sharing community called SlideSix. I often encourage friends and acquaintences to post their slides to SlideSix. Many of them actually do, albeit sometimes reluctantly. By far, the most common complaint I hear from folks is some variation of "my slides really aren't that helpful without my presentation."

My response to that statement may surprise you - I completely agree. Which is why SlideSix is much more then slide sharing. There are other sites for that, and they seem to be pretty happy in letting folks post slides that may be meaningless outside of the context of the material that was actually presented. SlideSix is about presentation sharing. Once you've uploaded your slides you can easily record audio or video narration for your slides within our management console. Recorded narration can take a simple slide deck and give it meaning. It can put context to your bullet points and images and let you tell the story behind your message. Want to show a demo of something? Record it with any standard screencasting software, upload it to YouTube or Vimeo then search for it in SlideSix and attach it right to your slide. Sure, it may take a little time to put together a proper web based multimedia presentation, but the payoff is an impressive product that you can embed on your site so people who may not have had a chance to see your presentation in person can have a very similar experience to those who were lucky enough to see it live.

SlideSix is also the perfect tool to practice your presentation. How many times have you stood in front of a mirror or your dog and practiced giving your presentation? Did you really benefit from doing that? Wouldn't it be much better to actually record (and re-record) your material so that you could actually view it back and share with others for feedback?

I encourage presenters to take a look at SlideSix for your presentation needs. You'll be happy you did, and so will your audience.

Last week I learned that I've been selected as an Adobe Community Expert. I'm very excited and honored to be chosen to participate in this program. Adobe explains the program this way:

Why should I attend CFUnited 2009?

Lately I've been unable to install any AIR applications on Vista. When double clicking on the AIR file I'd be presented with the error:

Something went wrong trying to install this application. Please install the latest version of Adobe AIR from http://www.adobe.com/go/getair and then try again.

So I tried to play along and go download AIR thinking that somehow I missed an update along the way. I was then greeted with this lovely message when I tried to install the new runtime:

This version of Adobe AIR is already installed on your system.

Which looks like this (if you're playing along at home):

The solution was to find the Adobe AIR Application Installer.exe file, mine was located at:

When you run the installer executable you will be able to browse and select the AIR application that you would like to install and the process should work as expected from there on out. You may have to right click the AIR Application Installer and 'Run As Administrator' if it doesn't work straight away.

A bit of a pain, but I'm glad I can at least install AIR apps again. Anyone know why I can't install them straightaway anymore?