Vyew now requires Adobe Flash 10.2+
Vyew users must now have Adobe Flash version 10.2 or greater installed on their system. Users can upgrade here: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
Mac PowerPCs affected
Flash 10.2+ is not supported on Mac PowerPC computers. Users with Mac PowerPCs will need to upgrade their systems or will no longer be able to use Vyew.
Possible work-around
For the more computer literate, there is an unofficial workaround to upgrade Mac PowerPCs to Adobe Flash 10.2 as outlined here.
You’ll need:
- A PowerPC Mac running Mac OSX 10.5 Leopard, or 10.4 Server Unlimited License.
- A copy of Pacifist for Mac (shareware).
- The latest .dmg of Adobe Flash Player 10.2
To install:
- Install Pacifist into your app folder.
- Mount the Flash Player .dmg by double clicking.
- Right click the Adobe Flash Player install file and select “Show Package Contents”.
- Open the folder “Contents”.
- Open the folder “Resources”.
- Copy “Adobe Flash Player.pkg” to your desktop.
- Right click the Flash Player.pkg.
- Select “Open with…” “Pacifist”.
- Click on the “Install” button in Pacifist.
- Restart your computer.
Vyew v4.22 – New features for November 2011
Improved Page Manager
Improved page manager
- Search within the Room – Search for text within comments, documents, page names or text tool within the room.
-
Easily search and download files in a room.
Pages/Files Tab – With the Files Tab, you can view all the different files that have been uploaded to this room, find which page they’re on or download them.
- Thumbnails help you visually search for a specific page.
- Dock to Side- Click DOCK to keep the Page Manager always visible on the side of the room.
Organize your invitations
In previous versions, all the Rooms you were invited to were kept in a single folder. Now you are able to drag them out to your own folders for more flexible organization. Note that the rooms you've been invited to will still also stay in the “Rooms I'm Invited To” folder to maintain your list of invitations. Whiteboard/Drawing Improvements
Precise location of Text tool - previously, when placing the I-beam text tool mouse icon, the text did not type exactly where it was placed. This has been fixed.
Vyew v4.18 (Released Aug 1, 2011)
A few things we’ve been working on:
- Comment Flags — Comments can now be marked with flags such as Todo, Done, Question and Important (Star)
Vyew v4.15 (released May 10, 2011)
Here’s what we’ve been working on over the past month:
- New Feature: Subscribe To Comments – When responding to a comment in a room, now you can get an email notification when someone else responds to it. Anyone else who comments on that thread also has the option of subscribing.
Please switch to Vyew 4
We would like to encourage all of our users to switch their account to Vyew 4. We are no longer developing or supporting Vyew 3. Read more
Frequent Vyew disconnects?
A few months ago I noticed that Vyew disconnected frequently (every couple minutes) from my home. It wasn’t just a Vyew problem, it happened on my Unix Terminal window as well… it would become jittery. The difference between these two applications and other websites, is that they rely on real-time connections to the server, whereas other websites, are stateless (connect and grab info when needed, instead of keeping an open connection).
Eventually someone mentioned that it might be a WIFI interference issue. Since there were so many other homes around mine who all had wifi, the signals were bumping into each other.
The solution that worked for me, was to change my Wifi channel from the default of 6, to 11. If you are having this issue, try it out.
Go to your router administration, usually http://192.168.1.1 in your browser (some brands may vary). Look for Wireless Settings or Wireless Administration. Look for Channel, which will give you a selection of 1 to 11. Pick 1 or 11.
The above, is a temporary solution. Ideally we want Vyew to work in all types of scenarios, so we have some ideas to minimize the problem while in Vyew.
Making Vyew faster
One of our main priorities is to make Vyew load faster. We have been devoting some time to this, and will continue to do so. Our first step in aiding the load process is to remove the “html frames” that are wrapped around each Vyew Meeting. This will decrease load times by about 1 – 1.5 seconds.
The no-frames version of Vyew is ready to roll out, and we will be doing so today (Friday March 4) on one of our servers. This change will be transparent to everyone, but for the weekend, a notice will appear at the top of the screen informing them of this change. In case any problems are experienced, please click the link to contact support as we will be monitoring your responses throughout the weekend.
The Google Earth Time Capsule
Filed under: Random
I’ve been thinking a lot about Google Maps lately[1]. It’s hard to remember what we used to do before Google Maps (well, before Mapquest). All the new dimensions of the internet map era make life so interesting, like finding obscure off-highway dirtbike trails, that only locals know about.
There are still so many barriers this technology has yet to cross. I have a prediction to make. Bare with me here as I day dream a little bit… Read more
Crafting a Clear Message
This is the second post in a series about presentations.
“Do only what is necessary to convey what is essential. Carefully eliminate elements that distract from the essential whole…. Clutter, bulk and erudition confuse perception…, whereas simplicity allows clear and direct attention.” −Richard Powell
In my last post, I mentioned the “elevator pitch” test, in which you practice speaking your presentation to a friend in 45 seconds. This important exercise forces you to boil down all your crazy, rambling ideas to the bare essentials.
Including too much information in a presentation is like underlining everything on a page. If everything is important, than nothing is important. If everything is a priority than nothing is a priority. You must be ruthless in your efforts to simplify, but not dumb down, the message to its absolute core. [1] Read more
Editing Scheduled Meetings
Start the Meeting Wizard
You can start editing a scheduled meeting, adding more attendees or changing the meeting time, 2 ways:
In the Home tab, in My Meetings at the lower left, click on the meeting.
In the room, click on Invite, then See who has access…
…then in the invitation list, click the Edit icon for the meeting.
Editing the Scheduled Meeting
Adding Invitations to the Meeting
The Invitation Wizard will show a list of all the currently invited people. To add people, type in their email addresses, comma separated. Click Next.
Changing the Meeting Time
Here, you can edit the scheduled meeting time. Click Next.
In the final screen, clicking FINISH will save the scheduled meeting information and re-email everyone who was scheduled to attend.
Deleting Invitations
See here.
Vyew featured in Google Chrome’s Web Store
A few months ago Vyew was invited by Google to join their new Web Store. This week, we’re proud to announce Vyew as one of the Google’s featured apps in the Web Store. You can think of the Web Store like the appstore is to the Ipod. It provides users with a simple portal to explore and install web apps into their Chrome browser.
In order to take advantage of the Web Store, Read more
Server Outage, Dec 1st, 3:52-4:15pm
We apologize to anyone who experienced a problem. One of our servers sprung a memory leak which we have patched so that the issue will not happen again. No meeting data has been lost.
We will continue working to improve our montoring systems so that we can be alerted faster if such a problem should occur in the future.
Vyew 4 – Open to the Public
We’ve been talking about Vyew 4 for a long time now. It was a huge project, and we’re excited to say we’ve finally got a stable version. Starting last week, all newly created Vyew accounts are automatically switched to version 4. Read more
Better (Online) Presentations in 5 Steps
The first in a series about online presentations. By Tim Hon. Posted Oct 7, 2010.
We’ve all been there − been forced to listen to a terrible presentation while day dreaming about killing the power to the entire building. For a generation, we’ve grown up with PowerPoint, and now, we have a generation of bad presentation-givers. Disagree? You might one of them; most of us are without knowing it. Seth Godin, a marketing and presentation guru, got so fed up he even compiled a book on it.
In an era of online presentations, making eye contact and reading your audience presents a large hurdle. It’s even more critical that the speakers’ delivery and visual aids work as a team. Read more
Vyew 4.0 Beta – Fixed intermittent missing pages
Last week a bug was discovered in which certain pages on the beta product were missing. The data was not lost, it was just not loading. We have fixed it and will be updating the beta server. This bug was reported to occur less than 10% of the time. If you experienced this bug and require a missing page to be replaced, please contact support with the exact Book name/ID and page number.
Vyew 4 Interface Overview
This article will help you transition from Vyew 3 to Vyew 4. As of April 2011, about 60% of our users are on Vyew 4.
How do I know if my account is Vyew 3 or 4?
To check what version you are on, go here: http://vyew.com/switchversions
What’s the difference Vyew 3 and Vyew 4?
- There are 2 minor things are not in Vyew 4: (1) Stamp Tool, (2) MP3 Support (will be fixed). Learn more.
- Vyew 4 Interface has been changed to make it easier to use (we hope, your feedback is important to us).
- We added some new features… Read here for more info.
Announcing Vyew 4.0 beta
We apologize for the lack of status updates. We are working hard and are excited that Vyew 4.0 is almost here! Today we have released another beta version which has many bug fixes. Although it is not 100% ready, all I can say is we are very close. Stay tuned!
The Vyew team has been working hard on a new version we are very proud of. We’re still working out the final kinks, but we have something thats ready to be used. Read more
Database maintenance notice
Over the weekend we ran routine maintenance on our database servers. Today we are re-syncing all our user accounts across all servers to make sure all data is in sync.
Between 11:15am and 12:37pm today (PST Pacific Time), one of our servers fell out of sync, so it may have appeared to a handful of our users, that they had lost some data.
All servers are back in proper working order and no data has been lost. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Reassurance
I just want to reassure all our users:
- Data integrity and security is our highest priority
- Vyew is continually sync’d and backed up across multiple U.S. locations
- All Vyew rooms auto-save to the servers every 3 minutes
- Incremental backups are made every night
- Complete snapshot backups made every 3 days
Summary: What happened today, was not a loss of data, but data going out of sync for about 1 hour.
Vyew Progress Update (Dec 09)
A few changes this last month:
- Desktop Sharing – We are working to make this feature more stable and work more seamlessly among presenters. We have installed a few new changes which should facilitate a smoother experience. We are still working on a few more stability features to be released next month. If you still have any problems, be sure to submit a test report here, and use the Vyew Accelerator for desktop sharing.
- Dynamic Button – The button plugin allows collaborators and up to open external link URL’s automatically for everyone in the room.
- Bug fixes – A lot of minor bug fixes including single apostrophes in book names sometimes had problems redirecting when opening.
Coming up…
We have been working hard on our next major version release, Vyew 4.0. We hope to have this launched early in 2010.
- New, easier to use interface
- Faster interface response times
- Faster drawing tools response times
- Higher security
- and much more…. to be listed later.
Upcoming System Maintenance
The Vyew system will go down for routine maintenance on:
.
Thursday Dec 10 / 10:00 pm (Pacific)
- EST: Friday Dec 11 / 2:00 am
- Mexico City: Friday Dec 11 / Midnight
- London: Friday Dec 11 / 7:00 am
- Moscow: Friday Dec 11 / 9:00 am
- Hong Kong: Friday Dec 11 / 3:00 pm
- Sydney: Friday Dec 11 / 5:00 pm
Downtime will last for about 30 minutes. Thank you for your understanding.
Vyew: A Collaborative WarRoom
A war room is a place that is used to provide centralized command for communications. Unlike a conference room, a war room is dedicated to a specific objective where information is readily available and displayed at all times. Personnel can come in and out to contribute new data and thoughts over-time, or in real-time meetings.
Vyew is a browser-based environment for communication, sharing content, enabling workflow; and all are captured, integrated and managed. Vyew increases the productivity of multiple participant activities … in real-time, any-time and over-time, replicating the functions of the physical war room.
The white paper on the Collaborative WarRoom™ can be accessed here.
Vyew Service Interruption Resolved (Wed Nov 18)
Early this morning we had network issues with our storage server. This did not at all affect the data on the server, but only the connection to the data. NO DATA WAS LOST. These issues have been resolved, we apologize for the inconvenience. We are now taking steps to ensure this problem doesn’t happen again, and adding more detailed network monitoring sensors so we will be alerted earlier if the problem does occur again.
If were you are in a room that content loading problems, refreshing the page would’ve fixed it. If you had problems uploading, we believe the initial upload DID work, so a browser refresh should fix it. If not, try re-uploading again.
If you still have any other problems please contact us immediately.
Development Notes – October 2009
- ADD: New “Convert PDF to JPG” importing option. For PDF’s which has complex graphics, like a lot of lines or color gradients, they used to make the Vyew Room very slow. This option solves the problem. (More Info)
- FIX: Sometimes imported powerpoints were coming in too large in the screen.
- FIX: Scheduled Meetings had required a user login. Now they do not.
- FIX: Some users who used strange characters for their password were having login problems.
There haven’t been too many recent changes to the current product. This is because we are hard at work producing our next major version release. We hope to have this done by December 2009. It will have significant upgrades in these areas:
- Speed and Responsiveness
- Ease of Use
- Stability
Server Outage — Oct 12, 11:00pm PST
We apologize. Some of you experienced a server outage while we were running some maintenance scripts on our server. There was a technical error that is now resolved.
System Maintenance Friday Oct 9 Noon-2pm PST
Today we will be working on the servers. Your meetings will not be interrupted, and Vyew will remain online, but you may experience slight delays while connecting to your meeting.
Vyew Keyboard Shortcuts (Hotkeys)
Increase your speed and productivity by using keyboard shortcuts. Where relevant, we have made an effort to make Vyew’s hotkeys consistent with hotkeys from other common applications such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Word.
| KEY COMBO | TOOL/COMMAND |
|---|---|
| When Typing using the Text Drawing Tool | |
| Shift-Enter | Stop editing |
| Ctrl-Enter | Stop editing |
| General Commands | |
| Ctrl-z | Undo |
| Ctrl-x | Cut |
| Ctrl-c | Copy |
| Ctrl-v | Paste |
| Ctrl-Shift-W | Delete current page |
| Ctrl-+ (PLUS) | Zoom in |
| Ctrl- - (MINUS) | Zoom out |
| Commands When an Object is Selected | |
| Delete | Delete selected object |
| ARROW KEYS | Nudge selected object |
| Shift-ARROW KEYS | Move selected object |
| Ctrl-UP | Bring selected object to front |
| Ctrl-DOWN | Send selected object to back |
| Page Navigation | |
| Ctrl-RIGHT | Next Page |
| Ctrl-LEFT | Prev Page |
| Ctrl-Shift-LEFT | First Page |
| Ctrl-Shift-RIGHT | Last Page |
March 2009
This month we’ve been mainly working on corporate/enterprise features and did some minor fixes to the UI.
- Fixed Bug: VOIP (Push To Talk) lost connection sporadically when passing the mic around.
- Non-owners can now remove their own video/webcam screen
- Unlocking locked objects now easier – just click on the object, then the unlock button in the lower right corner of the object.
- Removed “Sync Viewable Area” from sync menu because it caused problems when used among many collaborators who scrolled/zoomed at the same time
New feature changes in Vyew
Collaborators now have fewer rightsChanges in Vyew that affect you
- Collaborators can only edit/delete their own objects and cannot delete pages
We have removed some rights of the “Collaborator” usertype because we felt that Collaborators should be contributors of content and ideas, and the editorial work should be left to the moderators/owners. So as of tomorrow Collaborators can’t edit or delete drawings, images, or text created by other users.
If you trust your participants enough to let them delete other peoples content, then you should make them a Moderator.
- New Voice Server
We have deployed a new VOIP (Push To Talk) server that more stable and reliable. We are interested in your feedback on how much better (or not better) it is.
- The Vyew Public API
If you are a developer and have an web app of your own, it can now interact with VyewBooks. More Info
February 2009
Collaborator Rights have been changed
We have taken away some rights of the Collaborator user type to minimize accidental deletions and re-inforce the collaborative workflow: collaborators contribute content, and moderators/owners edit it.
- Can only modify their own objects – Now, Collaborators can ONLY modify/delete objects that they have created. That includes drawings, notes, text, and imported files.
- Cannot delete pages – Collaborators cannot delete pages at all, they can only create new pages.
New Voice Server
We have deployed a new voice server which should improve the voice quality and availability of the Voip (Push To Talk) feature. Please let us know if you notice an improvement (or non-improvement).
Minor Changes
- Dynamic Button (Vyew Script) – The Goto Page function now uses Page Names instead of Page Numbers
- Sidebar Comments – Collapsing/Expanding Sidebar comments is now synced accross all pages in the Vyew Room
- Downloading Files – When clicking on a file, a download button appears in the right corner. There was a bug with this feature — it didnt work when the file was locked. That bug is fixed.
Faster Support for Customers
Did you know? Paying Vyew Customers have priority email support?
Pay customer support emails are handled first. To take advantage of this you must submit your support emails through our website contact form. Read more
Vyew server-side API Released
Are you a developer? Vyew now has two types of API’s:
1. Client-side API = so you can build plugins in Adobe Flash that import into Vyew
2. Server-side API = If you have a webapp of your own, you can integrate it with Vyew to create Vyew meeting rooms, import content etc.
January 2009
We have been busily preparing to convert much of the Vyew application to a faster Flash 10 platform which will increase speed, security and stability in the product.
- Fixed a bug in the Video Pod which caused a lot of CPU usage.
- Invitation Email fixes – Made some changes to outgoing emails so that now there is a much less chance of them getting stuck in spam boxes.
- Flash 10 fixes: Chat and downloading the original file had problems in Flash 10.
- Backend security fixes
October 2008
- Vyew Public API released to allow partners to integrate with Vyew.
- Flash 10 Fix – Uploading failed for people with Flash 10 because of new security settings in Flash.
- Fixed: People with a ton of Vyew Rooms and files were experiencing crashes when opening the “Import file from other book” dialog.
- Fixed: Copying and pasting multiple objects had a bug, now when pasting multiple objects now preserves relative position among eachother.
- Fixed some bugs in Audio Recording.
- Changed the way SYNC Mode works. Previously, when SYNC Mode was on, scrolling was also synchronized. Now, there is an option for this in the SYNC Mode menu.
Vyew 3.0 Article on Webware
Josh Lowensohn of Webware wrote a great review of Vyew 3.0 on September 16th. Here’s the link.
Vyew Releases Vyew Version 3.0
Vyew 3.0 Uniquely Combines Real-time and Always-on Collaboration and Contextual Discussion on Any Digital Content Using Any Browser on Windows, Macintosh or Linux
BERKELEY, Calif. – September 15, 2008 – Vyew, a leading provider of browser-based visual-collaboration and web-conferencing software, today announced the release of Vyew 3.0. Vyew 3.0 improves the experience of web conferencing and visual collaboration with contextual discussions, voice comments, webcam support and other communication enhancements.
Vyew 3.0 is the only conferencing and collaboration platform selected and profiled in the “Collaboration” category in a PC World article, “25 Best Business Software Tools and Web Services,” published on September 7, 2008. A video demonstration of Vyew 3.0 is available here.
Stanford Engineering Everywhere Launches using Vyew
On September 17 Stanford School of Engineering distributed a news release announcing the launch of Stanford Engineering Everywhere (http://see.stanford.edu), a new online portal that offers engineering courses from Stanford University for free. Here is a link to the news release.
Vyew provides a conferencing and collaboration framework for Stanford Engineering Everywhere in an integrated environment that includes lecture videos and transcripts, handouts, assignments, solutions and discussion forums that can be duplicated and used for annotation or collaborative learning by any individual or educational institution.
PC World: Vyew – 25 Best Business Software Tools
Vyew is in good company with Salesforce.com, Google Docs, and others in a PC World article, “25 Best Business Software Tools and Web Services.”
Vyew is the only conferencing and visual-collaboration platform listed in the article.
Here is a link to the article.
The article was syndicated by the IDG to:
• CIO
April 2008 (Version 3.0)
Version 3.0 constitutes all the major additions in the last 3 months, including:
- New Desktop Sharing Engine (see details below)
- Voicemail Notes
- Sidebar discussion area for comments
- Edit images inline
- Push-To-Talk VOIP and Webcam
- Background Importing
More specifically, since last month, many of the changes made to the system were in the backend to create more stability and tighter security, including:
- New Desktop Sharing Engine — The Java based desktop sharing engine is more stable a little bit faster than the last version. When desktop sharing starts, a control bar will popup, so you can start/stop sharing without having to go back to the Vyew browser. In the past, we tried to minimize the browser during the Desktop Sharing startup, but this created problems within certain browsers. Now, you must minimize the browser yourself.
- Desktop Sharing Zoom Mode — Desktop sharing can now be seen in a 100% Zoom mode, which auto-scrolls and crops the area of where the presenters mouse is. This makes viewing a presentation at 100% much easier. Try it out!
Vyew Partners with FreeConference
FreeConference Launches Beta of SharePlus™ Desktop Sharing
BERKELEY, Calif. – November 5, 2007 – Vyew, a leading provider of browser-based visual collaboration and web conferencing software, and FreeConference, the pioneer of free audio conference call services, today announced that they have entered into a strategic partnership to create new conferencing services using each other’s proprietary conferencing platform and technologies.
Under the agreement, both companies are embedding the partner’s service into their respective solutions. Vyew subscribers who want conference calling while collaborating online can click on a “Free Conference Calls” button within Vyew for instant access toFreeConference.com’s reservationless conference call service. This combination provides the first free web conferencing service with free integrated audio.
