All finished with the new demo videos.  I like the audio quality compared with the last ones.  Check them out at our site, or watch them here (from uTube). Let us know if there is anything you want to see in the videos that we didn’t think to include.

Admin

Marker

Student

The first version to include all of the tweaks that we have been making to COMARKER tm is up on our test server.  More importantly though, COMARKER 1.0 includes a payment module through paypal. The whole package looks pretty rad! That may be because I am so used to seeing the beta, while talking about all the features of the new version, so our users can be the judge. I’ll be making new screen-capture videos over the next few days using Camtasia, so expect to see those in a couple of weeks.  Now back to trying to break it.

The COMARKER™ team is checking things off to do lists at a furious pace.  The sales site promised so many moons ago is finished and so are the first drafts of the screencapture videos that will inhabit that site.  I have uploaded the videos to YouTube and here they are:

A demo of the student account

A demo of the marker account

A demo of the administrator account

The voice you hear is my own. I think that the vidoes are still a little coarse, but they are done. And we are adding new functions so quickly that I’ll have to make new ones by the time we launch anyways. Speaking of product launch dates, stay tuned!

We have arrived at a state of list equilibrium.  A few months ago, we made a list of benchmarks that our program had to pass before we sent invites to our beta testers.  Well, we reached the end of our list last week, and I am not the only one on our small team to remark that it felt strange. The feeling is akin to that cliche, where the novelist tries to resist the inevitability of submitting a completed manuscript to her editor, so it gathers dust in a box on the corner of the writing desk.  The awkwardness is further magnified by our need to explain the workings of the program to our testers.  Novelists have it easy, they can’t explain the inner workings of their art, or they risk looking like pompous jerks.  However, if we fail to adequately instruct our users on the various functions of COMARKER, then they may never use it.  We discussed the beta release in several meetings, but no one ever put up their hand to ask how we will tell our beta testers what to do.

In the interim, we are going to preload all of the beta accounts with test documents that explain COMARKER’s functions.  Beyond that, we will be using a slick piece of video editing software called Camtasia that will give us the power to make screen capture videos and lay down instructional voice-over tracks. These videos will be inserted into the program, for first time users to watch as they explore each of COMARKER’s functions. The crew at 37signals, once again, provides a convincing model; the first time a user signs in to their Basecamp account, they have the option to view instructional videos for the application’s many functions. When I first signed up for Basecamp, it was actually the videos that sold me on putting it to work for our company.
We have worked hard to make the COMARKER web-app easy to use, but first impressions last a long time, and hopefully our approach to online help for first time users will make for a great impression that sticks.

I suppose it is possible to develop a web application in a vacuum, but why would anyone want to. The web at present is filled with inspired creations by big brains all over the world. Some of the things that inspire us are:

The Freitag F-Cut tool – I just love how it involves me in the production process of the bag I love in such a beautifully fluid way. Freitag bags are functional, durable, industrial art. I just wish that they made one with wheels.

John Maeda’s blog, “simplicity” – I read through all the back pages, and still pop by now and again to refresh my memory. He isn’t writing it anymore, he left MIT for the lush, green pastures of RISD, and is now publishing his thoughts through the RISD blog. The inspiring bits are his rules for simplicity; simple in themselves, they shed light on why some designs succeed and why some fail. Simplicity is difficult, but Maeda makes it accessible.

37signals, Basecamp – it is our office. We have partners in three countries (Canada, the USA, and Taiwan), and our president is spending Christmas this year in India. Basecamp has given us just enough structure to organize our plans , record our accomplishments and communications centrally. Then we found their book, Getting Real: The smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web application. At first I was pretty upset when I read it, because we had come to many of the same conclusions that they had, only we had to slog through weeks of mistakes and false starts to arrive there, but I came around, because at the base level we were on the path to simplicity from the beginning. They espouse creating something that solves your own problems (that is what we’ve always done). They advise delivering less than the competitiors (That is what inspired COMARKER’s genesis in the first place; our competitors’ applications are too complicated to be really useful). And they caution that bringing in outside investors is a mistake, unless the project can’t be funded internally (we have been way too busy to look for any investors).

Illegible, red ink scrawl on the back page of all of my college essays, and unexplaned ticks and marks all over the text. Someday, when the last red Bic ballpoint pen has finally run out of ink, I will run around my house, like a soccer player who just scored the winning goal in a world-cup game. I will be able to die a happy man.

I can’t think of any more right now. I’m all riled up, having just imagined the death of the red marking pen.