Tag Archive for 'slide show'

Back in business

Published on June 12, 2008 in Gleemy. 0 Comments

After taking a short hiatus to focus on our day jobs and other projects, we’re super jazzed to be returning to Gleemy.

We’ve started working on a number of features and improvements to the site, including more Slide Show customizations and better file upload.

We’re also excitedly working on the next customizable app scheduled for Gleemy. It’s a step up from Slide Shows. With it you’ll be able to make more personal, rich, and interactive mobile applications - all from our web based authoring tools.

…back to the code!

3 new Gleemy features

Published on February 14, 2008 in Gleemy. 0 Comments

Eugene and I have been slogging away shipping new features and bug fixes almost every week this year. The plan is to progress from private BETA to a public BETA release pretty soon.

In this post, I want to show off 3 new features.

1. New mobile Slide Show app

The J2ME Slide Show application is built in to each Slide Show made by our users.

Here’s what’s new:

  • When you view a picture that doesn’t match the orientation of your phone, an arrow appears to indicate which way you should turn your handset to see it the right way up. Previously, the picture would display the right way up always, but the sides of the picture would be cut off - not good when there’s text involved.
Landscape image with arrow indicator Landscape image with arrow indicator
Good Not good
  • The ‘Share’ feature works better. You can now send a link to your Slide Show to multiple contacts on a single screen. Sending the SMS no longer blocks the UI, but shows a funky progress animation instead.

2. New Application Profile Page

There are two parts to Gleemy - making and finding Slide Shows (and soon, other types of apps) on your PC; and downloading apps to your phone.

The Application Profile page has been improved. Here’s a screenshot:

App Profile Page

On the left is an emulator which you can fully interact with, to preview the application before downloading. On the right is a QR code which will take you to the mobile download page for the app. I’m delighted to see QR codes finally present in Gleemy, given how much I’ve been raving on about them lately!

3. New mobile portal (http://m.gleemy.com)

Screenshot of mobile portal m.gleemy.com Even though Gleemy is in private BETA, you don’t need to sign up to visit the mobile portal and download Slide Shows made by the community. The site has been improved behind the scenes with more compliant XHTML. We’ve tried to make the ads (served by AdMob) as unobtrusive as possible. Device detection is currently provided by the DetectRight web services API.

…and tons more minor improvements like higher quality thumbnails and images, faster download times, and more! Not interesting enough to describe, but still good features to have implemented.

If you haven’t signed up already, why not try using Gleemy? We now have capacity for more accounts. Simply head to gleemy.com and request an invite.

N800 Internet Tablet: Don’t worry, be crappy no more

Published on January 2, 2008 in Gleemy and Mobile. 1 Comment

I traveled to Melbourne over the Christmas break and had a fantastic time catching up with family and friends.

While taking time out, Eugene and I still wanted to keep an eye on the Gleemy server logs, and so before leaving for Melbourne I configured my Nokia N800 Internet tablet for the task.

Firstly, I upgraded my data plan with Three from $5 for 10Mb/Month to $12 for 100MB/Month. Pairing the N800 with my 6288 for an Internet connection Just Works.

I set up secure SMTP for sending mail and installed ssh for access to a shell on the Gleemy server.

Finally, I wrote a few shell scripts to notify us of important events on the server, which were delivered promptly to my N800, paired with the 6288 and usually kept in my pocket.

This set up worked great for monitoring the server and writing short emails. A bluetooth keyboard (or even, gasp, a laptop computer) would still be needed for non-trivial development, or writing long emails.

After arriving home, my use for the N800 wasn’t critical and so I promptly upgraded to OS2008. Man, is this thing slick. The UI is so much faster and snappier, the browser rocks, the on-screen keyboard feels so much better and affords fewer mistakes.

OS2007 was great last year, but was made crappy by OS2008 - a great example of Guy Kawasaki’s “Don’t worry be crappy” principle.

An innovator doesn’t worry about shipping an innovative product with elements of crappiness if it’s truly innovative. The first permutation of a innovation is seldom perfect–Macintosh, for example, didn’t have software (thanks to me), a hard disk (it wouldn’t matter with no software anyway), slots, and color. If a company waits–for example, the engineers convince management to add more features–until everything is perfect, it will never ship, and the market will pass it by.

Photo walk in Melbourne Oh, and here’s a Gleemy Slide Show I made of a photo walk I took in Melbourne. Most of these were taken with a Nokia 6120 Classic. You can download it straight to your mobile by visiting http://gleemy.com/zqy8 with your phone - or - Preview on your PC with mpowerplayer. Or do both :) 23/2/08 UPDATE: Check out the new Slide Show Profile page to preview it on your PC: http://gleemy.com/#profile/0gva

The Gleemy private BETA is now open

Published on December 22, 2007 in Gleemy and Mobile. 0 Comments

I’m super excited to be sending the first round of invites to the Gleemy BETA.

We hope those who sign up will find the site fun - by both making Slide Shows and downloading Slide Shows made by others.

After creating your account, you’ll notice the public content is presently scarce. That’s where I hope you’ll come in. I hope you won’t be shy creating public Slide Shows - of wacky holidays, people you admire, places you love, and everything fun.

For those pictures that are more personal, you can keep your Slide Show from appearing on the Gleemy Most Popular - useful for sending pictures of family and friends.

Haven’t signed up yet? Wondering what the fuss is about?

If the idea of your own pictures neatly packaged in a mobile Java app; with a title menu, widescreen viewing support, and phone-to-phone sharing sounds good to you, then head on over to http://gleemy.com and sign up for an invite code.

Let us know how you go

This is a BETA and we’ll be doing our best to fix the issues as they come up. Let us know how you go, email any thoughts you have to feedback@gleemy.com.