cfsilence - SlideSix

So I've Been Thinking About Shutting Down SlideSix...

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 14:11:00 -0400

I've come to a crossroads with SlideSix. The service has never fully taken off as a legitimate competitor to SlideShare (among numerous other similar services) and the reasons for that are numerous and outside the scope of this posting. The issue that I'm facing is the fact that my server is running out of disk space (less then half a gig free out of 30gb). It's been getting close for a while and every few months I take some temporary steps to clear some space, but I can't continue postponing the inevitable. A lot of you have reached out to me via Twitter or other channels expressing your support and for that I am truly grateful.

I've been strongly considering shutting the service down all together, but I feel a strong commitment to my most loyal users. Thinking about those users has led me to realize just who those users are: the ColdFusion and Adobe developer/designer community. I'd like to keep providing a service to those users and at the same time I'd like to reward them for their loyalty so here is what I'm thinking of doing.

Finish the complete rewrite of the service that I began last year (which utilizes CF 9 ORM).
Relaunch the service as being geared towards developers and designers and the development/design community at large
Utilize s3 for storage
Abandon the premise of recording video along with each slide
Focus on live streaming of presentations (thoughts/opinions are welcome on the value of this feature -- IE: should it even exist or should it be abandoned as well?)

Scheduling live streams
Group associations
Possible conference support?

End-Of-Life SlideSix

60 day period where users can sign up for new service and import previous presentations if desired

Fully Open Source the entire codebase

ColdFusion code
Flex code
AIR code

Here's where I need help to pull this off.

Site layout/design/rebranding (my design skills are surpassed by my 3yr old and a box of crayolas)
Donated s3 account for hosting images
Donated hosting for version control repository for the new OS codebase (possibly use RIAForge)
Participation!

Contribute to the code if you are willing/able
Use the new service!
Perfect for extending the reach of User Group presentations Conferences
Spread the word about it!

Any other help/kindness you're willing to provide!!

If you are willing, able and ready to help out please let me know (either directly or by commentingto this post). I'm not trying to get rich or profit off of this. Of course the plan was monetization from the start, but it's clearly not an option at this point so my next best step is to reach out to the community and try to give back for all that I've received from you all in the past.

Real Life RIA at RIAUnleashed

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:29:00 -0400

Here are the slides from my "Real Life RIA" session at RIAUnleashed. There was a really good turnout and it was an engaging and fun crowd to present for. Brian Rinaldi has done a great job with this event!

There are a few other presentations up here so check it out if you couldn't make it to the event.

SlideSix Is For Sale

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 22:45:00 -0400

After a lot of careful consideration I've decided that it is time to pursue selling SlideSix. It's been almost 3 years since I started working on the project and I've learned a ton about developing along the way.

Why sell? The truth is I have always believed, and still believe, that SlideSix has a ton of potential to be monetized. Unfortunately I've come to the realization that I just don't have the skills or time to market the product. There's no question that developing a full blown web application takes a talented team of folks. I've been lucky to do it on my own for this long. I credit that to the passion that I've always had for the project - but more so I credit the technology choices I've made for empowering me to handle it. ColdFusion, Flex and AIR are amazing tools and I'm more convinced then ever that they were the best decisions for this project and have built a very powerful foundation that I'm sure can continue to grow given the right attention from a talented team of developers. Oh, and having a designer or 2 around to pretty things up wouldn't hurt either!

If you're interested please see this listing. Further information is available upon request.

Commenting System Enhancements

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:31:00 -0400

Last week I pushed a small enhancement to allow SlideSix users the ability to completely disable commenting on their presentations. To disable comments just log in to the Management Console, select your presentation and scroll down inside the 'Properties' tab and uncheck the 'Allow viewers to post comments to this presentation' box. By default comments will be open, so you must uncheck and save to disable them.

As a reminder, you can also view/delete any existing comments on your presentations (see screenshot below). Disabling comments will not hide/delete existing comments that were posted prior to the time you disable commenting. You must manually delete them if you so choose.

What users will see when you disable comments:

Real Life RIA Powered By The Adobe Stack - CFUnited 2010

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:23:00 -0400

I created an online focused version of my slides from my Real Life RIA session at CFUnited. To check it out head past the jump.

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CFUnited Is Almost Here!

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:49:00 -0400

Wow, it's been six months since I wrote a post on the old blog here (I know you've all missed me)! The awesome news is that CFUnited is right around the corner - just a week away in fact! So, on to the important news...

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Getting Started With The SlideSix Presenter - Part 3

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:10:00 -0400

This is the third post in a series of posts introducing the SlideSix Presenter destkop application. In this post we'll look at the navigating the notes and slides panels as well as how you can use the Twitter panel to monitor a backchannel while presenting. We will also see how to broadcast live video and participate in a real-time chat session with your audience.

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Getting Started With The SlideSix Presenter - Part 2

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:01:00 -0400

In this entry we'll start to take a look at the various 'panels' within the SlideSix Presenter desktop application.

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How To Use The SlideSix Presenter - Part 1

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:48:00 -0400

I thought it might be helpful to start a short series of posts showing how to use the SlideSix Presenter desktop application. Most of the content in these posts will be coming directly from the user guide, but I'll break them up in to small chunks so they're easier to digest then the complete 24-odd page guide. Today I'll give a small intro, talk about logging in and then show some basic navigation.

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Introducing The SlideSix Presenter Desktop Application

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:33:00 -0400

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

Now Running ColdFusion 9

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:51:00 -0400

If you follow me on Twitter you probably already know, but I wanted to put the word out that I'm now running ColdFusion 9 Enterprise. From a performance standpoint, the difference on SlideSix is pretty noticeable. I'm also loving how quick the Flex Management Console is now thanks to the complete Flash Remoting overhaul that came with CF9.

Want to know the coolest thing of all about this upgrade? It didn't cost me a dime. That's right, I was lucky enough to get a completely free license to CF9 Enterprise from ColdFusion Product Manager Adam Lehman. Do you have a brilliant idea for a startup that takes advantages of the power of ColdFusion? Pitch your idea to Adrock and you may just get your hands on a free license too!

I can't wait to take advantage of some of the UI enhancments and I know that the PDF upgrades will lead to an immediate improvement in the conversion quality of some presentations. There's also a handful of other ideas I have in mind to play with. More on those later.

As a footnote, I should mention that for the most part the upgrade went fine but there was one minor annoyance. The process to get CF working on IIS7+ is widely documented, but I ran into a different issue. After CF installed I kept getting Handler Mapping errors thrown by IIS. ~~I'm not exactly sure this is the right thing to do, but the fix was to check 'Configure 32 bit webserver' in the web server connector tool.~~ See screenshot:

Update: I ran into this issue because the App Pool was configured to run 32 bit. When upgrading from 32 bit CF to 64 bit make sure to set 'Enable 32 bit applications' to false in the App Pool's advanced settings.

What's New At SlideSix?

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:07:00 -0400

There are a handful of changes that went live last weekend on SlideSix. The changes consisted of several bug fixes, but more importantly some usability enhancements that will hopefully lead to a better user experience. Here's a look at what's new.

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Building A Better Search For SlideSix - Part 1

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:47:00 -0400

After finishing up a few outstanding fixes and enhancements for SlideSix the other day I decided to give search a bit of love. Well, I didn't quite decide it; it was more of the gentle reminder from Sean Corfield about the existing search not really working all that well that prompted me to action. Regardless, I learned a few things about search that I'm going to share over a few blog posts that will use this alliteration littered title.

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Sneak Peek: SlideSix Presenter Desktop Application

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 06:11:00 -0400

I posted this on my Twitter account the other day but I thought it was worth sharing here on the blog for the benefit of those who don't follow me on Twitter. It's basically a sneak peek at the SlideSix desktop (AIR) application that I've been working on for the past few months. The app is nearly finished and I'll be using it to present my material next week at CFinNC. Here's a quick overview of some of the planned features:

Live Presenter Mode (Supports multiple monitors)
Virtual Presenter Mode (Live webcam/audio & chat)
Twitter Monitor (Instant feedback)
SlideSix Upload (Including drag/drop support)
And more...

Note: Screencast is best viewed in full screen mode.

I'm really interested in getting some feedback on the app. If you have suggestions or ideas please leave a comment.

Are You A Slide Ninja? Get Your SlideSix Gear Now!

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:27:00 -0400

I'm happy to announce the launch of the SlideSix Gear Shop. Slide Ninjas across the globe can now show their pride and support SlideSix at the same time!

To kick things off I've ordered a small batch of t-shirts from the shop and am having them delivered to Ray at MAX. He'll be giving these out to some lucky Ninjas at the CF Unconference so make sure you check it out. There are only a few freebies though, so you might want to order one today to make sure you get a hold of one of these bad boys - they're sure to make everyone jealous!!

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