Of PicLens/Cooliris, MRSS and Presentation Slides
by Shah
A while back, a friend introduced me to PicLens. It was still in beta but was usable and so cool. It’s now called cooliris. It’s an extension to FX which turns some sites into a 3D wall. At first, I found no use to it until I laughed piclens on my browser while working on a touchscreen project. I found it very cool (when used while having touchscreen) and totally easy to browse through my Flick pictures and youtube videos. PicLens (I find it hard to use the new name) made me think of the way of things are in the sci-fi world.
Last year, I thought it was kinda pathetic that the MRSS (which is an open standard, mind you) adoption rate had been going on so slowly. Well, not all sites have galleries but most developers don’t give a frak about MRSS. At least, if more people/users use clients which support MRSS, the status quo may change.
It’s easy to get your site MRSS enabled. Say you’ve written your feeds or generated your feeds (because you’re lazy. No worries, I am too. I use RSS Reporter often when I’m using SQL Server) and and have amended the XML to make the feeds be of MRSS. Assume that your feeds file is called girlygal.rss and is uploaded on the web server. All you need to do to enable your site is to enable RSS Autodiscovery.
<head><link rel=”alternate” href=”girlygal.rss” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”” id=”wallofgirlswlol” /></head>
Check out Emily’s Photo Site. Have a look at the MRSS feeds.
Do use MRSS. Also, PicLens/Cooliris helps you out by displaying your pictures and videos on the 3D wall, and it’s even better if the users of your system don’t mind using Firefox and installing Cooliris.
Cooliris also has an add-in for Microsoft Powerpoint which helps when making up presentations - it converts the slideshow into a piclens enabled gallery.
Speaking of presentations, I’ve some issues with people who confuse a slideshow and a powerpoint presentation. A slideshow can be a presentation. Well, it is. A powerpoint presentation is one which has been done using Microsoft Powerpoint. At one time, I was asked to deliver a powerpoint presentation - which I did using Microsoft Powerpoint 2K7, only to be nagged later on, about the reason for which I had not used a prev. version. Seriously, just ask people to give a slideshow. Flash can be used. The slides can be in PDF. It’s all about portability. Of course, the best format of a slideshow remains the most portable - HTML. Now, if you’re going for web pages, it’s best to make it piclens enabled. FX is a portable web browser. It can have PicLens extension installed. Sure, it’s a bit sad that Linux is not supported…yet!
Extract from the FAQ
Our ideal plan is to eventually make our Firefox version work cross-platform, but its timing is not yet clear due to our current resource constraints. As you can imagine, making Cooliris work across all platforms is tough work for our small team. We’re trying to make sure our currently supported platforms are fully stabilized and robust before supporting other platforms. We appreciate your support and understanding.
Well, give it some time and it will be available for Linux. I wouldn’t mind giving a hand to rakan21 in getting it to work - if Cooliris allows him to work on it.
Anyway, back to the topic statement. So, this add-in rocks. Once installed, fire up Microsoft Powerpoint, and make your slideshow. Click Add-Ins.
Save your PicLens Gallery. You’ll find index.html, photos.rss (the mrss feeds file,) and other folders to hold your media. Fire up index.html in FX and display the slides with piclens.
Though one may say tha this method is dependent on Microsoft Powerpoint. NO! Like I’ve mentioned earlier, you can write your own MRSS. Say, I’ve designed the slides using Krita, Gimp or Photoshop, and made some thumbnails. All, I need is the MRSS feed. Example:
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″ standalone=”yes”?>
<rss version=”2.0″ xmlns:media=”http://search.yahoo.com/mrss” xmlns:atom=”http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom”>
<channel><generator>My OWN MRSS - NO ADDIN! Ha!</generator>
<title>Introducing Wacko hair 2008</title>
<link></link>
<description></description><item>
<title>Slide 1</title>
<link>slides/slide1.JPG</link>
<media:thumbnail url=”thumbs/slide1.JPG” />
<media:content url=”slides/slide1.JPG” type=”image/jpeg” />
</item><item>
<title>Slide 2</title>
<link>slides/slide2.JPG</link>
<media:thumbnail url=”thumbs/slide2.JPG” />
<media:content url=”slides/slide2.JPG” type=”image/jpeg” />
</item></channel>
</rss>
<link rel=”alternate” href=”photos.rss” type=”application/rss+xml” id=”gallery” /> is added within head tags of the HTML file.
Note: You can add movies as well. The media content in your MRSS should be like:
<media:content type=”video/x-flv” url=”movies/somemovie.flv”/>
So, use PicLens/Cooliris, stop saying powerpoint presentation instead of slideshows, and make up slideshows using MRSS and HTML. Rock on!
