Some time ago (June) I was invited to test out the beta version of sliderocket. It is described as “a new application that will transform the way people create, manage, and share presentations on the web“. It is basically a better version of PowerPoint on the net, running through Adobe’s Flex platform. Now that I have a couple of days free time I thought I would write a small post on how I have found using it, as there has been a lot of talk about it, here, here, here.

I found that sliderocket provides everything I need to design professional presentations and that it was easy to manage and share libraries of slides and assets. For me being able to manage assets that I use frequently in presentations allowed me to make presentations a lot easier, it took the stress out of hunting through disks for diagrams/photographs etc.  Sliderocket can also search Flickr and Yahoo Images from inside the application and can add images it finds to the asset library, it would be nice if it could also pull assets from istockphoto (using the users istock account)… 

One of the more useful aspects of sliderocket I found was that I could deliver a presentation without being at the meeting (using a speaker phone) but also that I could edit the presentation almost up to the point of delivering it as I need not forward it on ahead of me! This allowed me to work from my favourite place, home.

Sliderocket also provides that sense of security, that you have a backup of your presentation and that you need not worry about what version of PowerPoint the conference facilities have! How many time have you went to a conference and they haven’t had the newer version of PowerPoint that you require? Being able to import PowerPoint presentation into sliderocket made PowerPoint (for me at least) redundant.  This does assume that the conference facilities have a internet connection and lets face it, would you really want to use a location that doesn’t have internet access?  There is also talk of an export to PowerPoint function coming soon…

Anyway, there is a small four slide presentation here, this is obviously a small part of what it can do and how it can change the way you prepare and make presentations.

My morning emails are generally a dull affair with amazon trying to sell me more DVD’s or catching up with the latest news from the new country.  This morning was more of a shock as an avid twitter user based on their UK SMS number.

Twitter is no longer delivering outbound SMS over their UK number, they are still supporting Canada, India and the US.  They have taken this step to cut costs, they suggest that even with the 250 limit on texts this can cost about $1000 a month per user.  Basically the problem being that although you send one text (which you are charged for) it can be replicated to 10 other users (which twitter pays for).   I feel a bit annoyed that they would cut the supply off with no notice whatsoever, but I am more annoyed at the British operators not being able to strike a deal with twitter.

Twitter has posted some good news though (although it is more made up good news rather than actual hard fact good news) “Twitter will be introducing several new, local SMS numbers in countries throughout Europe, in the coming weeks and months. These new numbers will make Twittering more accessible for all the folks who have been using SMS to send long-distance updates through our UK number“.  So no actual hard dates then…and you’re cut off NOW!

They have also posted some alternatives for mobile phones:

Personally I use the betwittered gadget from 32hours, you can stick it into your google home page as well as using the mobile web page.  It is quicker and easier than using twibble mobile…(sorry twibble).

A few choice reactions from the user community:

• Kilobox
• Man with no Blog
• Michael Specht
• Vizekongin (for the German readers amongst us).

So there you have it, August 14 2008, the demise of twitter begins.  It has turned itself from be a useful tool for conversation microblogs into, well, email.  A nice large step back in evolutionary terms.

Recently I have been spending alot of time with a friend that uses facebook quite a lot.  He spent most of last night uploading photographs and replying to people in his profile.  I have never been taken with the idea of facebook for many reasons, in fact the only one reason that interested me to join facebook was so that I could play chess against a colleague more easily, although there many websites that allow online chess anyway. 

I think the attraction to facebook for many people is that it does everything for you, keeps all your contacts, all your photos, does instant messaging and many other applications that you can install into your profile.  It is almost a one-stop shop for the internet.  It allows other facebook people to search for you and you can catch up with those kindergarten friends that you haven’t spoken to since your were seven.

The thing that really interests me is, once you get that request from someone saying “add me as a friend” and you tell facebook how you know this person, how do you say no?   It must be such a slap in the face to people when you say no I’d rather not add you as a friend.  Of course it is also a great way to meet back up with all those people from school and kindergarten… 

For me, if I wanted to hang on to those people as friends I am pretty sure that I would have or perhaps I am just a solitary person that doesn’t need an ego massage by having three thousand, two hundred and ninety seven friends on my facebook profile (if I had one).  I am also sure that having my ex-girlfriends as friends on facebook wouldn’t clear my conscience therefore would not allow me to sleep any easier at night (not that I have trouble sleeping, what with all the whiskey I drink), although messaging Elly Wilkinson telling her that “Hah! Mulder and Scully did get together after all!” would make me smile.  And continually harassing Em Sykes for the 800 pounds that she still owes me would certainly make looking at my bank balance easier. 

The other more intriguing side of facebook that does somewhat alarm me is the connections they have with the Central Intelligence Agency, The Department of Defense and the Information Awareness Office.  The agreement you sign with facebook is also worth looking at: “By posting member content to any part of the web site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, perform, display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such information and content and to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such information and content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing”.  In simple terms, when you post it, it’s ours and it better not be copyrighted.  I hear that there is also a clause that allows them to ask which color of underwear you are wearing, but I cannot confirm this.  The first of my two points are well made in the video on this website.

I am impressed by the facebook online community spirit that seems to band people together, I found a few ‘controversies’ in my, erm, ‘research’ of this post.  Amusingly Brody Ruckus started a group with the aim of attracting 100,000 followers.  Why?  The commonwealth times reports that  “his girlfriend agreed to have a threesome if he got to 100,000 group members”.  Apparently Brody got to have his threesome, but if you post images of breastfeeding mums this is classed as “obscene material”, reported here and here.  Now call me liberal but I have no problem with breastfeeding in public places, but apparently facebook has strict guidlines about “obscene material”.  But, hey, they are ok if you are trying to have a threesome…

So to those that have asked me to join facebook so we can keep in touch more easily, I guess facebook is not for me, and I prefer keeping my contacts in outlook, my pictures in flickr and my messaging confined to twitter…but that’s ok.

Was pleased to receive an email from Emma Williams the managing editor of Schmap guides a couple of weeks ago (have meant to post about this earlier).  Anyway, she was informing me that one of my photographs, that is available on flickr, had been selected for the latest release of their Edinburgh guide. 

I had never heard of Schmap before the initial email telling me that the photograph was being considered so I spent some time on the site going round cities that I have never been to, primarily Seattle as I really want to visit it.

Schmap provides maps and guides to cities around the world with real time access to reviews and photo slide-shows.  You can also download widgets to your desktop or your blog, in fact you can download the world mega-pack (338 mb worth) straight from the site for free… 

So, take a look at Edinburgh and you can find my photograph of the Edinburgh Airport Towerthat I took with my Nokia N95, and take a look at Schmap.

Shockingly I can’t even remember the last time I wrote a post, to the extent that I almost forgot how you actually do it.  I decided to take a look at Cuil (pronounced Cool), the new search engine that has recently come online claiming to have the largest index of web pages, three times more than Google, a bold claim.  The founders of Cuil are former Google engineers.

Still being a large advocate of Twitter I popped along to Summize to get a quick opinion poll on said search engine. 

There were some scathing reports:

• swfong4: Tried cuil again (first time it didn’t work). Results weren’t bad - different from Google. - Not sure this is a good thing.
• matthewsmith: i am going to start using the word cuil to mean lame - It’ll never catch on.
• jstew1974: After trying cuil a few times I can only come to one conclusion: Epic fail. - Ouch.
• gonzo10010: cuil, i think you are irrelevant. possibly even unwanted. - Erm…

Not all bad though:

• rickymontalvo: “Cuil” is the new “kewl”
• jamieriddell: 5 reasons why we think Cuil is the future of search… http://snurl.com/38c41

But I did have to search pretty hard to find those… Not of to a great start then.  Talking of starts, the launch daywas plagued with problems, the site was up and down much like a yo-yo and sometimes could not return results for common queries.  Of course people are so patient I am sure they went back and tried again later…

The web page color is the polar opposite of Google it uses a black screen and like Google keeps the logo a sensible size for quick loading.  A search in Cuil opens a two or three columned layout with blocks of results (including an image for each result).  A quick search for Being Primitive and this site comes up on page 6.  Try the same search with Google and it comes up as the first result on page 1.  searches for common or more prominent websites work, for example BBC, Dooce, Ford…but then we know these website addresses anyway.

Cuil, at this point, does not provide some of the more useful features that Google offers such as calculations at the top of the page, do a search for speed of sound in Google and it tells you the speed of sound.  Try the same search in Cuil and you get Virgin Galactic as the first result and Speed of Sound, the song by Coldplay, as the second result.

It’s not a difficult choice to keep using Google.  I mean come on can you really imagine saying I have been Cuiling myself today?  Still if you have not tried Cuil yet, you should…but make sure you check the results on Google after.  Cuil may have information on three times more websites than Google, but information is useless if there is no meaningful way to search it, and that is still where Google excels.