Carmen Ferrara’s Weblog 2.0

As part of my push to a final 1.0 of Presio, I’m creating a lot of “how to” screencast tutorials covering key features. I thought I’d share some here. These will all be posted as part of the new site redesign as well.

In this brief video, I demonstrate how to use the new Presio Image Editor tool, and specifically how to annotate (or draw) text directly on to a slide.

http://ipresent.net/support/tutorials/image-editor-text-tool/index.html

Duration: 2 minutes 3 seconds

I am pleased to announce the release of iPresent Presio Beta 2. This is a rather substantial update to the previous beta. I have decided to release a second version of the beta and hold off on an actual product release for now. I want to ensure my initial design goals are met before releasing the final product. I have received some great feedback from initial beta users and this release directly incorporates that feedback. Please keep the comments, questions and suggestions coming.

Below, I’ve listed the key updates/features contained within this release. I also want to point out that the single biggest feature that has been added is the ability to import existing media files and synchronize them with slides to create a final presentation. This was something I had always planned on incorporating at some point in a later release, but it became evident that it needed to be in there for v1. So here it is. I’ll be doing some tutorials explaining some of the new features as well as going through the software more in depth in the coming weeks. So stay tuned.

Release Notes for iPresent Presio Beta 2 - (Version 0.9.141)
Released: 1/31/2007

• Support for importing pre-recorded media files (audio or video files) and synchronizing with slides
• Ability to specify custom Windows Media Profiles for publishing output
• Better Flash output support including a new Flash slideshow template
• Table of contents now highlights which slide and thumbnail a user is currently viewing
• Ability to export project slides
• Ability for presenter to view slide notes while presenting
• Presentation output supports IE7
• Support for importing and synchronizing PowerPoint 2007 presentations
• Many minor bug fixes

Download iPresent Presio Beta 2

It’s been several weeks since I released the first public beta of Presio and I’ve been getting some great feedback so far. I was hoping to get an update released before the new year, but it looks like the next update will be coming in the next 2 weeks or so.

Based on feedback thus far, I’ve decided to add a rather significant new feature - Synchronizing existing media files to a set of slides. This feature had originally been planned for a minor point release, but based on user feedback I’ve decided it is something I need to get in before the final v1 release. Also included in this update release will be:

• Tracking the current slide during presentation playback
• Fixed intermittent presentation pausing bug (windows Media)
• Several minor enhancements and bug fixes

Merry Christmas.

Earlier this week, I made available the first “public” beta version of iPresent Presio. Prior to this release, Presio had been used primarily by FFF (friends, family, fools - to borrow a term from angel investing parlance). While I value the feedback of those close to me, it was time to release Presio out into the wild.

To truly understand where your software is at, you need to conduct a proper public beta. Finding beta testers for a brand new product is not easy. As with most things in the sofware biz, you’ll want to properly target your users. The goal is to find “quality” beta testers, not just warm bodies. For me, that meant finding users with a familiarity of web authoring tools, streaming media, e-learning, etc. Fortunately, I have been blogging and participating in various forums over the past year and was able to collect a list of interested users through my site. I’ve already received some great feedback as well as some reported issues that I’m working through.

I’ll be blogging about some of things uncovered by beta users and will start publishing more Presios (that’s rich media presentations) on a variety of topics so you can get a better feel as to what you can create with Presio. For a quick overview of how Presio works, take a look at this presentation:
Windows Media version or Flash Version

If you’re interested in trying out Presio, please visit the beta program site. The site has all the information to get started, and includes link to download Presio.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that there were a variety of topics I’d be discussing to provide more clarity around my new product - Presio. Well, I’ll be covering Topic #4 - “How it fits in with existing presentation and training tools” in this post.

One critical aspect of building a successful software product is interoperability. Most software products will rarely operate in a silo. In most cases, your product will have other dependencies that, when combined with your application, provide true value for a user. There may be hardware or software dependencies. For example, a word processing program needs to be able to print documents to any printer. Contact management software needs to be able to import (and export) data from common formats or tools such as spreadsheets.

Creating a software package that allows users to create web presentations that combine audio, video and slides certainly has its share of dependencies. Presio needs to not only work with a variety of hardware devices; web cameras, dv cameras, usb microphones, 1/8″ microphones, soundcards, etc, but it must also work well with a variety of multimedia and image formats.

A sofware maker needs to understand that their paricular product is usually a single tool within a larger toolset that their customers pull out when necessary. So, Presio is not the end all and be all for creating rich media web presentations. Instead, it allows you to assemble a set of “assets” (which may come from a variety of sources) quickly and easily. For example, Presio does a good job at capturing talking head type video. Assuming you have decent lighting and a good background Presio will meet your needs. However, Presio is not a video editing application and as such it does not allow you to create fancy transitions or effects. But, Presio will allow you to import an avi, wmv, or mov file and will automatically synchronize it with an existing slide. This allows customers to continue leveraging their investments in existing tools (whether it be previous cost or knowledge gained). So, if you are more comfortable working with video in say, Windows Movie Maker, Final Cut Pro, Premiere, etc., no problem. Just import your clips into an existing slide and you’re good to go. See below:

This is just one example of how Presio “plays nice with others”. For audio, Presio can import wav, mp3, or wma formats as well. So, Audacity combined with Presio provides a very powerful solution for creating audio narrated web presentations. Presio also works nicely with all the major web image formats as well as with Microsoft PowerPoint.

Equally as important as being able to get data into your software application from other sources, you must make it easy for users to get data out. Presio allows any clip (whether recorded with Presio or not) to be exported out to a file as well.

So, keep in mind how your users will use your product within an existing ecosystem of other products and formats.

Just a couple of quick items. I’ve been moving along building out iPresent Online, and I wanted to quickly mention a couple of of interesting items from a technical perspective. After careful consideration (too much actually), I’ve decided to build iPresent Online on top of the Ruby on Rails framework. Personally, I do not subscribe very much to the programming language/platform wars that fly across the blogosphere on a daily basis. When choosing a platform, what matters most is: 1) selecting “the right tool for the job” AND 2) what’s makes the most sense for your business. Along those same lines I’ve also chosen to integrate with Amazon’s S3 storage service as the primary repository for published Presio presentations.

Thus far, building on top of Rails and integrating with the S3 API has been going fairly smoothly and I am pleased by the progress to date. In the future, I may post more on some of the reasons why I chose these respective platforms and my short list of other technologies considered (if anyone is interested). At the end of the day, customers only care that the software solves their problems and could care less as to what the underlying technology is. The selection of these 2 platforms will hopefully allow me to achieve that end.

I’ve been spending time over the past month or so in the Microsoft Producer user group, and have been getting some great information and feedback on the upcoming release of iPresent Producer , my soon to be released web presentation tool. (Quick note on the name iPresent Producer: I never intended for this to be the final name of the product, and so I’m in the process of renaming the product and defining its identity, as I get closer to launch - more on this later).

Anyhow, I really should be blogging more frequently, but I’ve just been so focused on development. Luckily, I’ve been speaking with some great folks over in the MS Producer forum. I really wished I had participated in this forum earlier in the process. I can’t stress the importance of spreading the word about your new product, even before it is released. The feedback and response you receive is well worth any “trade secrets” you may reveal.

However, you have to approach participating in a forum where your potential customers may exist in the right manner. Here are some tips for doing so:

1. First and foremost, a forum is no place for blatantly marketing your product. You need to contribute in a meaningful way - answer questions and share useful information using your expertise in the market. I’ve been a user of MS Producer for several years, and have a lot of experience creating and distributing streaming media. I tend to answer technical questions on the board, because that’s what I know best.
2. When answering technical questions, help the poster achieve a resolution to their problem. That means following the thread, and continuing to help until the poster is satisfied. You should view it as a practice run to the customer support that you’ll eventually provide.
3. When you do contribute a useful response/post - always include your signature with a link to your website or blog.
4. When a poster says: I wish Product X did Y. That’s your opportunity to pounce. I feel it is completely appropriate to mention that you’re building a similar product that solves the unmet need. However, I usually respond first with another alternative solution (even a competitor’s product), then I mention that I’m working on something that does Y

Anyhow, if done tactfully, contributing to forums related to your market can be a great way to introduce your product to potential customers, and more importantly a great way to receive feedback.

One of the areas I’ve been focusing my efforts has been that of supported media formats. Basically, iPresent Producer will support the following output formats:

Audio presentations:
Windows Media, QuickTime (MOV), and Flash (SWF)
Video presentations:
Windows Media and QuickTime

Additionally, Producer will support 2 output modes: ‘embedded’ or ‘stand-alone’. Embedded will create a standard webcast presentation – (ie. talking head, slide area, and other content areas using synchronization and an embedded media player). Stand-alone will create a single media file that is played back in the user’s media player of choice. For an audio presentation, the media player will display a large slide synched with the presenter’s narration. For video, the slide area will also include a picture-in-picture video of the presenter.

I’ve spent a considerable amount of time working to get this all included within the first release. Having quite a bit of experience building these sorts of applications in the past, and dealing with media format incompatibilities and the nuances of operating systems, and PC configurations – I really wanted to nail accessibility. Accessibility, in the sense that viewing streaming media should be easy for the end viewer. If the user has a Mac, they should be able to view a QuickTime video. They shouldn’t have to download and install Windows Media Player or get the latest Flash player. If the user prefers watching videos using the QuickTime player itself (as opposed from within a web page) then so be it.

Initially, I was planning to only support Windows Media for my v1 release, but the prevalence of Flash audio/video and the resurgence of QuickTime’s MOV format; I felt I needed to get this in. This is also a key differentiator amongst other e-learning/online presentation tools. Many vendors focus on a one particular output format, but I just don’t see that as a viable option. A user can arguably get any of the leading media formats to playback on their particular operating system of choice (except Windows Media on Linux), but they will most likely have to jump through hoops to do so. By offering several output options, content producers can pick a format that meets the majority of their user’s needs. But, they have the flexibility to create certain content/presentations in other formats, as the situation arises.

I thought I knew a fair amount about embedded media players, script commands, markers, the DOM, FSCommand and scripting control – but I’ve learned quite a bit more. Anyhow, I hope to begin writing some tutorials on how to include rich media within a website. Of course I’ll be using iPresent Producer to create the tutorials, so stay tuned.

Once we launch, presentations created with iPresent Presio can be optionally published to our hosted service, iPresent Online. I have not completely finalized the v1 functionality for iPresent Online, but suffice to say, it will be very lean on features. The primary purpose is to provide a place for users to easily store presentations when they do not have access to their own web server or public network location. Eventually, iPresent Online will provide all sorts of reporting, assessment, and user management features.

Anyhow, I’ve been playing around with the excellent Prototype and script.aculo.us javascript libraries, as I plan on using a bit of AJAX type functionality (where appropriate) within iPresent Online. One feature will be a slide management/viewer function where a user can easily view individual slides for a published presentation. In spec’ing out this feature, I wanted to use a fairly innovative way to provide slide viewing. Then I stumbled upon John Berry’s excellent solution on his Agile Partners Weblog - a movable slider to resize images on the fly. You can view the complete source that does this on his site or take a look at the example below. Feel free to open this link in a separate window and grab the source.