An exciting funky  alternative to corporate powerpoint. Check out d exciting slides available and easy-to-use interface.

   It is one of the those web app which you will swoon over and be vexed at powerpoints and boring ppts.

Its a small startup from NOrth 280 Inc., a company of young creative entrepreneurs.

Try it out yourself.

http://280slides.com/

So yesterday we saw an awesome presentation by the insanely clever Francisco from 280north (who’s managed to contribute to MobileSafari, Google Maps for the iPhone and created Objective-J since graduating form USC two years ago… shees that’s some productivity). He showcased their 280slides product, which is essentially Apple Keynote ported to the web.

Sure… it doesn’t really come close to all the functionality that “regular Keynote” has, but despite this 280slides is hands down one of the more impressive engineering efforts I’ve seen in quite some time… but what does it give me as a user? So far, the only reasons for me to switch is that it’s free and that it’s available when I don’t have my computer with me. Is this really enough?

And what about Photoshop.com? Just like 280slides, it’s an extremely well polished product and just like 280slides, it’s very clear why I would accept the massively scaled down feature set and speed, and switch to Express from using regular Photoshop, besides price and availability. So maybe they’re both targeting non-consumption, a classic low end disruption? I mean, price and availability are naturally extremely important.

First of all, the “free” aspect is most probably temporary… also last time I checked Photoshop CS still outsells Photoshop Elements, right? Second, the availability is just physical, as in it allows you to create presentations on different computers. That’s fine, but I hardly think that it’s enough for this kind of app, unless it leverages some sort of networked functionality. Gmail, Basecamp etc. aren’t relevant to compare with.

However, I think that easing the access in the virtual world might be an interesting scheme. At least for Photoshop Express. I mean, wouldn’t it be great if I could edit my pictures in the same, rich interface when I upload pictures to Flickr, WordPress, Facebook etc. Why aren’t Adobe leveraging this distribution dimension? Most CMS-platform would love to have more rich interface to handle images, specially if they didn’t need to develop it themselves. They could just wrap Photoshop Express around the uploaded picture. And Adobe could charge a fixed or usage based license fee.

That would be something. Wouldn’t it?

Hi-ya friends and net-neighbors!

I have been spending time looking at what could best be called as “products of the future”. Two stories in particular include T-Mobile becoming the first carrier to offer a mobile phone powered by Google’s Android software. JWL Reader Pieter Jordaan passed along the story to me. http://tinyurl.com/googlephone
The other piece of hardware is the Emotiv Systems neuro-headset that reads your brain’s electrical impulses and relays your emotions and facial features to an avatar on the computer screen. “What could possibly be useful about that?”, you may be asking yourself. There is no use for a computer mouse. Your thoughts tell the computer what to do. http://emotiv.com/
Both these items are being released before the end of the year.

Next, here are a few great sites I discovered this week while working on the Web …
A new website called 280 Slides, is a free, Web-based presentation program. Here you’ll find many of the same options that PowerPoint has. You can create and view presentations in any Web browser. Save your presentation to the site or download it to PowerPoint. You can also e-mail it to others. There are other cool features in 280Slides, too. For example, there are themes to help you design your presentation, and you can add photos and movies directly from the Web. http://www.280slides.com

With the cost of gas being what it is, every trip’s expense now comes into play. But Drive Pricing will help you with that. Start by adding in your starting point, then enter your destination and your ZIP code, along with your car’s miles per gallon (you can guess or there is a link to provide you with what your vehicle’s mileage is suppose to be). You can also specify the grade of gas you use. When you click Go, you’ll see how many miles you’ll be traveling. It will even calculate the cost of gas. http://www.drivepricing.com

I noticed in the Florida Times Union, there’s blank comic strip for people to submit entries. It got me to thinking about looking for a place online where I could create comic strips. Sure enough, with Pixton, it’s easy to build comic strips, either from scratch, or using one of their many templates. Just register, and begin by choosing the strip you want to use. Modify the images, add props, and click on the pop windows to enter your text. Once completed, save the strip. It’s free, it’s easy and, it’s fun … http://www.pixton.com/for-fun
I created one just for the fun of it called “George W and the Olympics” … http://www.pixton.com/comic/7e6i2qz4

<==HuMoR==>

Two California Highway Patrol Officers were conducting speeding enforcement on I-15, just north of the Marine Corps Air Station at Miramar .
One of the officers was using a hand held radar device to check speeding vehicles approaching the crest of a hill. The officers were suddenly surprised when the radar gun began reading 300 miles per hour. The officer attempted to reset the radar gun, but it would not reset and then turned off. Just then a deafening roar over the treetops revealed that the radar had in fact locked on to a USMC F/A-18 Hornet which was engaged in a low flying exercise near the location. Back at the CHP Headquarters the Patrol Captain fired off a complaint to the USMC Base Commander. The reply came back in true USMC style:
Thank you for your letter. We can now complete the file on this incident. You may be interested to know that the tactical computer in the Hornet had detected the presence of, and subsequently locked on to your hostile radar equipment and automatically sent a jamming signal back to it, which is why it shut down. Furthermore, an Air-to-Ground missile aboard the fully armed aircraft had also automatically locked on to your equipment location. Fortunately, the Marine Pilot flying the Hornet recognized the situation for what it was, quickly responded to the missile system alert status and was able to override the automated defense system before the missile was launched to destroy the hostile radar position.
The pilot also suggests you cover your mouths when cussing at them, since the video systems on these jets are very high tech. Sergeant Johnson, the officer holding the radar gun, should get his dentist to check his left rear molar. It appears the filling is loose. Also, the snap is broken on his holster. Thank you for your concern.
Semper Fi!
(thanks, dad)
+++++++++++++++++++++
You Know You’re a Mom When …
You count the sprinkles on each kid’s cupcake to make sure they’re equal.
You hide in the bathroom to be alone.
You’ve mastered the art of placing large quantities of pancakes and eggs on a plate without anything touching.
You cling to the high moral ground on toy weapons; your child chews his toast into the shape of a gun.
You hope ketchup is a vegetable, since it’s the only one your child eats.
You find yourself cutting your husband’s sandwiches into cute shapes.
You can’t bear to give away baby clothes - it’s so final.
You hear your mother’s voice coming out of your mouth when you say, “NOT in your good clothes!”
You stop criticizing the way your mother raised you.
You hire a sitter because you haven’t been out with your husband in ages, then spend half the night checking on the kids.
You use your own saliva to clean your child’s face.
You say at least once a day, “I’m not cut out for this job”, but you know you wouldn’t trade it for anything.
(thanks, Jean)
+++++++++++++++++++++
Becky prepared a pasta dish for a dinner party she was giving. In her haste, however, she forgot to refrigerate the spaghetti sauce, and it sat on the counter all day. She was worried about spoilage, but it was too late to cook up another batch. She called the local Poison Control Center and voiced her concern. They advised Becky to boil the sauce again.
That night, the phone rang during dinner, and one of the guests volunteered to answer it. Becky’s face dropped as the guest called out, “It’s the Poison Control Center. They want to know how the spaghetti sauce turned out.”
(thanks, Margaret)
+++++++++++++++++++++
I was in the express lane at the store quietly fuming. Completely ignoring the sign, the woman ahead of me had slipped into the checkout line pushing a cart piled high with groceries. Imagine my delight when the cashier beckoned the woman to come forward, looked into the cart and asked sweetly, “So which six items would you like to buy?”
(thanks, Bonnie)
====================
And that’s the week’s collection of Web. Next weekend we will be out of town, so there will not be a JWL by email. Since I enjoy blogging anyway, check the blog jimonline.wordpress.com for the JWL.

Til next time, may God continue to bless you and keep you safe.

c-ya!
Jim
Jim’s WebLetter
Discover the best of the Web
C-my-site at www.jimonline.com

I’ve only just recently begun to understand why people use Powerpoint, I come from a web and multimedia background. I came across 280slides.com recently, and its a powerful web 2.0 application that will be only shortlist when I don’t have my laptop nearby.

CLICK TO READ MORE

Una de las cosas que más me sorprendió en la keynote pasada es ver a Apple anunciando el MobileMe y metiéndose en un nuevo terreno (bueno, no tan nuevo si contamos con el .Mac ese, pero es que nunca lo probé ni tuve interés ya que las alternativas gratuitas eran mejores). Para dotar de valor a su producto, Apple ofrece algo que se le da muy bien: experiencia de uso. Las aplicaciones web presentadas parecen casi de escritorio, con drag’n'drop, transparencias, iconitos con número al arrastrar, y, aunque en principio google no ha de temer nada, la competencia de la gente de la “doble-O” debería fijarse en esto.

Pero vayamos a lo que me ha hecho escribir este post: 280slides.com. Otro servicio para crear presentaciones via web (y van…) pero que en este caso es un calco del Keynote de Apple, es decir una buena aplicación, simple y potente. Nos deja crear unas slides curradas, meter formas, transparencias, mover todo, y con una interfaz web increible (me ha recordado al potente lienzo de edición de YahooPipes). Además incluye un grandioso WTF: deja exportar la presentación a ese formato tan querido por todos: PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx).

Lo que más me ha gustado, es que tras SproutCore, hay otra alternativa más a crear interfaces potentes via web: Objective-J. Por ahora no sé mucho, más que hay un proceso para convertir de este lenguaje a javascript “de toda la vida”. Seguiremos informando, y de mientras podéis ir enredando.

PD: porque nadie ha traducido WTF a PQC?

The guys who comprise 280 North aren’t actually working on any Mac applications. I tracked them down because what they are doing — bringing the quality and usability of the Mac experience to the web — is remarkable. Their web application, 280 Slides, turns making beautiful, web-based presentations into quick work. It’s built on a platform called Cappuccino, using what they’ve dubbed Objective-J (named for its similarities to Objective-C) — a library they created which provides a highly useful layer of functionality to standard javascript. According to 280 North, Objective-J provides a web development platform that is more Cocoa-like by removing a lot of the lower-level variables that are the bane of most web developers. Easy cross-browser compatibility, anyone?

2 of the three members of 280 North are former Apple employees, working on the iPhone and iTunes, respectively. They state that 280 Slides isn’t so much “Apple-inspired” as it is “good-inspired,” but the Keynote resemblance is hard to deny, especially in comparison to other, less-polished web-based presentation apps. 280 Slides is still a work-in-progress, but these guys are coding hard and fast to build what is going to be an excellent application. Check out the video (after the jump) and then take a peek at 280 Slides.