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StageHand for iPhone, good but not Ignite ready

being the nerd I am, and that my wife married, I thought to myself. “self, i said, let’s use StageHand for Ignite Denver. That way you aren’t tied to a laptop, and can be a good host.”

“Self, I replied, you’re so smart, and rather handsome too, that’s a super idea! We couldn’t use stage hand at 360|Flex San Jose because of the poor audio from a Macbook Air, but we’ve solved that and let’s do it.”

Having now tried to use it twice, I think I can write a good review of it. In a one slide deck environment, I think it would rock. I had it all ready to go at 360|Flex.

In a multiple deck environment, even on a single machine, no such luck. I went through all my decks (i ran them all on my machine) and named them with a number, so they’d be in the proper order. When i connected Stagehand to stagemanager, that work was for naught. The decks appeared in what looked like random order. It wasn’t alpha, wasn’t numerical, maybe it was file size? I dunno, but iwasn’t useful.

The other problem was connection. I’d load up stage hand, and it couldn’t find Stage Manager. Closing Stage Manager usually solved that, but that’s kind of a pain. Then sometimes, I’d manage to be connected, but Stage Manager, would lose it’s connection to Keynote, needed to be restarted.

I think leaving my iPhone on and unlocked might have solved that, but that’s not super practical, at least in an Ignite setting, where the slides adv on their own.

So ideally I’d connect, kick off a slide, spend 5 minutes doing something else, connect again, kick off the next slide. That didn’t work and I ended up more or less manning my laptop, boo!

I was able to use it for my welcome slides, though it wasn’t very fast, which might have been the load on the machine, with 13 keynote decks open, I dunno. But when I tried to use it for the others, the above problems made that impossible.

Hopefully as StageHand/Manager grow and mature as apps, these things get ironed out. I totally love the idea of it, so I really hope so!

Tags: Ignite Denver, iPhone

Ignite Denver, September 10th!

It’s on! Tomorrow night, 6pm, Fado Irish Pub!

A great group of techies and other interesting people will be getting together, to talk about some really cool topics; cigars, the history of Rome, Digital Theatrics, etc.

Make sure to register if you’re interested in attending. It’s free so no fence sitting!

We’ll be holding a pub quiz before the presentations, the winning team will get a $30 dollar iTunes gift card (1 for each team member of course!). The trivia starts at 6! We’ll start the presentations around 7ish!

The current line up is:

• Kevin Hoyt - The wonderful world of Cigars
• Rob McNealy - Social media for low tech companies (AskAFloorGuy.com)
• Peter Batty - Future Location and Social Networking - Location aware applications are a hot topic in the social networking space at the moment. This presentation will talk about a different approach to this space, focusing on future location - where will you and your friends be in the future? This is harder to implement than an approach based on current location but more useful if you can do it successfully. We will talk about some of the challenges in this area and the many cool applications of this technology.
• Brian Holmes - how to swear in French
• Jim Hutchison - The glamorous world of Entertainment Business lighting and how rockstar-ish it can and cannot be, followed by a side order of ridiculously simply difficult lighting math chased with industry information and quirky stories.  Living like a rockstar is fun!
• Andrew Hyde - TechStars is a entrepreneur boot camp that every summer selects and seed funds 10 startups.  From an inside viewpoint, what is the experience like?  What are the biggest lessons, and the biggest challenges of starting the startup.
• Scott Dudley - Digital Theatrics
• Dave Taylor - Filmbuzz (get your hollywood news fix!)
• Jun Heider - 5 minute intro to the world of Hackintosh
• Tony Hillerson - The Best Statistical Graphic of All Time
  

Register now! There’s still time!

Tags: Ignite Denver

Ignite Denver, open for business!

That’s right kiddies! The blog is up! the Email address is active. The fancy new logo straight from the O’Reilly presses is done (check it out, right there to the left!), and we’re good to go.

I went for drinks with my wife tonight to make sure Forest Room 5 would work, and I think it’ll do just fine. We may actually secure both rooms so we have plenty of space, w00t!

We’re taking submissions to present so if you got something to say, email us.

Mark your calendar Denver, Boulder, Highlands Ranch, Centennial, Casa Bonita! Ignite Denver is coming!

(Yeah I stole the Casa Bonita bit from 93.3, sue me)

Tags: Ignite Denver

Been a little quiet

What with 360|Flex San Jose in under 30 days, planning Ignite Denver getting officially started, working on a really cool project for UM, keeping busy on The Flex Show, oh and trying to have a life, man oh man.

360|Flex: We’re in the home stretch, which means spending money, mainly. Ordering shirts, books, signage, plenty of cool things I’m not telling you about so I don’t spoil the surprise, etc.

It’s about this time we start wrangling the speakers for their presentations, which is a lot like herding cats. Really creative and brainy cats, but still, LOL.

Ignite: I’ve got some assets from O’Reilly (right), they’re working on a cool Rockies specific logo, which I can’t wait to see. I’m sending sponsor invite emails out today and this is the official “call for papers” as well. I’m hoping we can bring together the kick ass thinkers that make Denver/Boulder the ‘Silicon Mountain’ that we are. Whether speaker or sponsor, please email me (ignitedenver@gmail.com) and we can get this thing started!

UM: I’ve been on a pretty cool project with Universal Mind since June sometime, it’s been very fun, I’ve learned a lot and worked with a ton of cool folks. It’s due to run through the week of 360|Flex (How’s that for timing). I’m really hoping to we on more projects with them, I’ve really enjoyed my time these past two months.

Flex Show: Jeff and I have been busy trying to get a bit of an episode buffer built up so that we’re not as rushed with interviews, that’s been going rather well, so I’m pleased with that. We’ve had some incredible interviewees, that frankly blow my mind. It’s a privilege to speak to them, what’s more, most are speakers at 360|Flex, so that kinda doubly rocks. I’m really excite to be a part of the show and can’t wait to help Jeff with our video series (which is in episode 2 now, great work Jeff!)

Life: The ever illusive ‘life’. Between one of our dogs, essentially falling apart before our eyes in the span of 4 weeks, to traveling to Indianapolis scouting locations (mmmm for what I wonder), to being fully engaged in work, it’s been a busy time family-wise. Nicole and I have managed to get in a few hikes, which are always welcome. We went and saw a movie for the first time in a dogs age it seems, we’re getting the house a little more in order, 8 months after moving in, sheesh the stuff piles are never ending. I’ve had the unfortunate luck of having two clients turn dead beat, which blows, so that’s added some truly whack stress, since it’s hits us in the pocket book. But what ya gonna do, other than sic the lawyers on ‘em.

So that’s sort of a catch up on what’s been keeping me from blogging as frequently as I’d like. I’m hoping to really turn up the ignite posts as we get speaker submissions and add sponsors.

Tags: 360Flex, Flex Show, Ignite Denver

Ignite Denver! Let’s do this thing!

OK if Portland can have an Ignite, and Paris can have an Ignite!! Then by damn Denver is gonna have one, and it’s gonna rock!!!

We’ve got too many kick ass techies and tech startups (Brightkite, Eventvue to name two), tons of High tech consultancies, developers out our butts, tech entrenprenuers galore. It’s time we came together and ignited!!!

So…..

This is still in the early planning stages, I’ve got a posse (Denver Dave, and Adam Flater) now I’m looking for:

1. Venue ideas. Free or cheap is the name of the game. Some place with a bar, and a stage :)

2. if you think you have what it takes to give an Ignite talk, You know 20 slides auto changing 15 seconds, then email ignitedenver@gmail.com.

Come on Denver/Boulder/DTC let’s do this! Once we get a little further along, we’ll get the official O’Reilly kiss of approval and get this party started.

Spread the word!

Tags: Ignite Denver