We’ve had a couple exciting releases recently I wanted to be sure to tell everyone about.  There’s some fun new features to explore, and a whole bunch of bug fixes.  Since we are a beta product, we really value all your feedback about things you may uncover while you are using SlideRocket, so we wanted to start telling you more about the issues we are finding and fixing.  This isn’t an exhaustive list of recent bug fixes, but highlights some of the bigger ones from the last couple of releases.  We will be posting these kinds of updates regularly from now on, and we hope you find them helpful.

First off, let’s talk about new features:

• Folders: The biggest thing we’ve pushed out recently is our new collaboration folder structure. You can read all about that here.
• Recycle Bin: A bunch of you have requested (in UserVoice and beyond!) a recycle bin, where you can put items you no longer want in your library without deleting them completely.  Well, now you have one!  When you drag and drop presentations/slides/assets into the Recycle Bin, they will no longer be visible but will be available for 30 days should you decide you want them again. One of the nifty things about our Recycle Bin is that there is actually one for each library (Presentations, Slides, Assets, Themes).  When you drag a presentation to the Recycle Bin, the various Slides, Assets and Themes in that presentation will automatically be put in their respective Recycle Bins.  This way, if you want to restore any part of your presentation, you are able to do so without having to restore the entire presentation.  Of course, you can also drag individual Slides, Assets and Themes into your Recycle Bin.
• PowerPoint Import: We completely overhauled this feature. Previously, our importer had you choose between importing and making things editable (which would not work for things SlideRocket can’t recognize), and importing as flat non-editable images to preserve 100% fidelity.  We’ve made this much easier, as well as improving the overall import functionality.  The default option is now a merged version of the previous importer – everything that we can edit will come in editable, and those things we can’t yet (such as SmartArt) will come in as flat images so the fidelity of your PowerPoint is always preserved.  You can also still choose to import everything in your PowerPoint as a flat image if you like. We will keep improving on this and adding functionality, of course, but we’re pretty psyched with the new importer, and would love to hear what you think. We’ve seen some nice tweets about it like this one, and appreciate any and all feedback!
• Tables: Ditto on these – we did a big overhaul here as well.  While this isn’t technically a new feature, we’ve improved them so much we kinda think it is.  The biggest changes you’ll find here are that it is much easier to work with bigger tables, multi-selecting of cells is also much improved, and manipulating cell size is now super easy. Again, please let us know what you think!

And here are some of the bugs we have fixed in the last couple of releases:

• Keyboard shortcuts in IE are up and running – please let us know if you find any shortcuts that aren’t functioning the way they should
• We’ve dramatically improved our “Undo” functionality, and it should now be consistent. Again, please let us know if you are finding any Undo glitches – we definitely want to hear about them
• We’ve fixed a couple of issues with hyperlinks: “previous” and “next” hyperlinks now work, and duplicating a presentation with hyperlinks in it now preserves those in the presentation copy
• Notes were being copied across all slides in a presentation; this is now fixed
• The “tab” key.  This wasn’t working for everyone before. It should be all good now
• You can now add bullets easily to textboxes that already contain lines of text
• All “Invite” statistics, including time viewed and length slide viewed, are now corrected and shown
• When rewinding a video in a Web Meeting, your attendees are now dropped to the right place
• If your company deletes a user, that person’s folders now get reassigned to someone so nothing is lost
• When a new shared folder is created, a permissions dialog now pops up so you can set folder permissions immediately
• A warning dialog that all permissions will be removed now shows when an item is moved from the shared folders to the private folders
• When a presentation is checked out for editing, it now specifies who is editing it
• Some library slides were missing names; this is now fixed
• A few people were seeing that upon adding a slide to the library from a shared presentation, the slide was then locked for the creator; this is now fixed
• Selecting a folder or search in one library no longer affects folders or searches when moving to a different library
• When changes are made to images, you are now always prompted to save changes when exiting SlideRocket
• You can now delete a theme even if it is in use in presentations
• Purchased images will now immediately show in your Asset Library
• Wipe/Sparkle builds no longer flash before playing
• If the first slide in a presentation has a transition, it now plays correctly in the full-screen player

Again, this is just a smattering of what was in our recent releases.  Hopefully, this info is helpful to you, and we will be doing these posts with every release going forward.  Let us know if you have any thoughts/questions!

One of the most powerful aspects of SlideRocket is the ability to easily collaborate with your colleagues. What could collaboration mean for you? Well, it means you never have to walk into a meeting again and be forced to utter these words: “Oh, I’m so sorry – looks like this is last quarter’s data.” It means you never have to search through gazillions of old presentations to find one slide you are looking for. It means if you change your logo, your message, your brand colors or just about anything about your organization, you can have your entire team up to date and on message instantly. It means no more emailing massive attachments and waiting for new drafts of your decks.

Pretty much, it means you will save time and money, your organization’s communications will be in sync, you will be able to solicit and receive feedback from your peers in real time, and you will be able to get the right message to the right audience at the right time. All of this, of course, will help you win new business (and look good while doing it!). In other words, it means presentation collaboration happiness.

As of today, we’re giving you 100% more happiness.  When you login to SlideRocket and go to any of your libraries (Presentations, Slides, Assets), you will now see two sets of folders and some set searches.  These folders are super cool, and here’s what you need to know about them:

My Private Folders

This section will contain content that can only be seen by you.  You can make new folders, and organize your private content however you like – you’re the only one who will see anything you keep in this area!

My Shared Folders

Now, this is where it gets fun.  If your company lets you, you can create folders in this area and assign permissions to the ENTIRE FOLDER.  That means anything you drag into that folder will automatically adopt those permissions. For example, I have created a “Marketing” folder. In this folder, I have given Nat Robinson and Mitch Grasso edit permissions. Now, when I have created a bunch of new Marketing presentations, instead of having to go through each one to give Nat and Mitch permission to edit them, I can just drag it into the Marketing folder and, voila! They can now see those presentations when they click on the Marketing folder in their accounts, and they can edit away.

Here’s what’s cool – you only see the folders you have permissions on. That way, SlideRocket does its part to help keep your presentation workspace clutter free!

Now, what if I have a presentation that I want to put in the Marketing folder, but I also want to share it with Brian Hollinger, who heads up our Inside Sales? No problem! I have a few options:

1. I can add Brian to the Marketing folder, and give him either read-only or edit permissions, which means he will see everything in the Marketing folder
2. I can highlight the item and click the “Share” icon if it is a presentation, or “Edit Permissions” on the right if it is a slide or asset, and add Brian
3. I can right-click on the item, click “Share,” and add Brian that way.

As you can see, the first option has broader implications.  Brian will now have permission to at least view, if not edit, everything in the Marketing folder. If you don’t want this to happen, but you want him to see this one thing, your best bet is to use option two or three.

You may also have a situation where a particular item doesn’t fall neatly into a folder, but you want to share it with certain individuals. You can do that too! You’ll notice two special folder types with brackets around them at the top of your “Shared Folders” section: “My Shared Items” and “User Shared Folders.” These are bracketed because they don’t behave the same way as the other folders. You can’t delete them, change permissions on them, and you can’t move them.  But, they come in super handy for the problem you are trying to solve. In order to share something with specific individuals without creating a separate folder, you simply need to follow these two steps:

1. Drag the folder or item in question into the “My Shared Items” folder
2. Follow options 2 or 3 above to share that item with specific people

So, if I have a presentation that I want to share with just Mitch, once I follow the steps above, something super cool happens. When Mitch logs in, he will now see a “Tracy Frey” folder under his “User Shared Folders,” and low and behold, when he clicks on that folder, he will see the presentation I have shared with him. Pretty sweet, huh?

A couple of things to be aware of when playing with our new folders:

• Just like on your desktop, you can’t have an item in two places – once you move something, it lives where you put it
• Feel free to drag folders as well as items – also just like you would on your desktop!
• If you drag an item or folder from your “Shared Folders” section into your “Private Folders” section, it will remove all the permissions that previously existed on that item or folder.  Please think carefully about whether you want this to happen
• If you are looking for something in particular, don’t know it’s exact name to put in the search box, and don’t want to hunt through bunches of folders, you can use the set “Searches” on the bottom of the left rail to look for stuff – the same way you’ve been doing this in SlideRocket up until now
• You can still tag anything you want! You’ll see tags in the set “Searches” area, and you can add tags there and tag away to your heart’s content. Tags function exactly the same as they always have.

That’s the basics about how our new folders work. We will have some thorough documentation about folders up very soon (Thanks Tara!). In the meantime, please play around with the new folders, and let us know what your feedback in the comments.  We believe folders will take your organization’s presentation collaboration to the next level, and of course we look forward to hearing what you think.

We have some other new features we just released as well – more info on those in a bit, so stay tuned!

We just wanted to let everyone know that we will be performing some maintenance this evening.  We’re excited to show you the cool new features we’ve been working on!  More info on that in a bit.

SlideRocket will be down while we are upgrading, so if you are trying to login and you can’t we promise we’ll be back soon!  We have a bit of a special case with this evening’s upgrade, which involves the Offline Player/Desktop Presenter.  We will be releasing a new version of this, but we have to wait to do so until after our initial release.

This means that all of you who are using the Desktop Presenter will also need to upgrade to the latest version, or you will not be able to cache any new presentations to it.  You should be able to access the new Desktop Presenter later this evening.  I will update this post when it is all set.

Of course, we’re sorry for any inconvenience our maintenance may cause, but we think you will all be happy with the new toys coming your way!

UPDATE: The new Desktop Presenter is now available, so please upgrade to the new version (Beta v.75).

We just wanted to let everyone know what we are aware that SlideRocket is not loading for people right now.  It appears our hosting provider is down at the moment, and  We are working closely with them, and they are doing everything they can to bring the service back up as quickly as possible.

We apologize terribly for the inconvenience, and will keep everyone posted.  Please email support@sliderocket.com with any questions.

Thanks,

The SlideRocket Crew

Update: Our provider is back up, and everything seems to be good. Thanks to everyone for your patience.

For those of you who aren’t on our email list (and don’t you want to sign up, by the way?), here’s all about this month’s promotion:

This month, in honor of the new Star Trek, we’re boldly going where no SlideRocket offer has gone before. Subscribe to an annual Business Plan for two or more users and we’ll beam 30 SlideRocket Marketplace credits per user into your account.

Two users would be 60 credits, three users 90 credits, four users 120 credits, etc. You can use your credits anywhere in the SlideRocket Marketplace universe to buy stock photography, cartoons, icons and graphics, or to print and deliver your presentations overnight (sent to you at warp speed, of course).

To engage with this amazing offer, just send us a subspace message or activate your communicator on 415.436.9134, and select option 2.

You have until the end of May to become one with this offer. Sign up now, resistance is futile

I attended Pecha Kucha Night (PKN for the initiated) San Francisco last Friday. I’ve been before but this one was hosted by Autodesk in the Autodesk Gallery at One Market so there was a double benefit of being able to peruse the gallery AND see a bunch of great 400 second presentations from talented creative folks.

First of all the Autodesk Gallery is well worth a visit. It’s a showcase of exhibits that celebrate design and lets you experience it in a very tactile and immediate way because many of the displays are interactive. I thought the 3D television was cool and because I’m a surfer the hollow-body surfboards from Oregon’s 42 Surfboard’s caught my eye too but there’s truly something for everyone. The gallery is open to the public the first Wednesday of every month between 1:00pm-5:00pm and they have new exhibits all the time. If you want to keep abreast of what’s happening there you can follow them on Twitter @autodeskgallery. You can also check out their online gallery if you can’t make it there in person.

If you haven’t heard of Pecha Kucha it’s an efficient presentation template that lets the presenter deliver 20 slides each for 20 seconds for a total of 6 minutes and 40 seconds. If you’ve ever sat through a long and boring presentation you’ll appreciate the way the PKN template forces brevity of thought and expression, halts interruptions and enables the presenter to really focus on their message.

Pecha Kucha Night was founded by Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein of Tokyo’s Klein-Dytham Architecture to give creative folks a forum to meet, network, show their work and originally to attract crowds to SuperDeluxe an experimental event space in the Roppongi district of Tokyo. Although founded by architects the evenings are open to pretty much anyone willing to present and I’ve seen model makers, inventors, sculptors, photographers (both amateur and professional), urban designers, industrial designers, graphic designers, film makers, artists, political activists and pretty much everything in between. You’re never quite sure what you’re going to get and that’s definitely part of the fun. Fun presentations? Yes, it’s possible.

PKN is held monthly in 192 countries so if you’re looking for an evening out with a great crowd and the chance to be inspired or to help inspire others with your ideas and experiences contact your local PKN and get your 20 slides together.

Official Site – http://www.pecha-kucha.org/

PKN on Twitter – http://twitter.com/pechakuchanight

Quick Fact: Pecha Kucha is Japanese for chit-chat and is usually pronounced in three syllables like “pe-chak-cha” although it’s entertaining to come up with your own way to say it.