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Add-ins
MeetingPlace iCreate
Reviewed by Geetesh Bajaj
Introduction
Wanadu, Latitude and MeetingPlace
iCreate - Register as a New User
iCreate's PowerPoint add-in
A Test Presentation 01
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Introduction
Around 30 million PowerPoint presentations are created everyday.
Probably, a small proportion of them need to be re-purposed as
online rich media content that can be delivered and managed. Let
us assume that this proportion is as miniscule as 2% - that translates
to a market of 600,000 presentations each working day. Consider
the phenomenal amount of potential already available in this nascent
area - and you won't be surprised to discover at least 10 major
players in the market. Many of these players are going through
a consolidation process that involves mergers, takeovers and relaunches.
Back
Wanadu, Latitude and MeetingPlace
Our product for review - iCreate has been through it all. It started
as a PowerPoint to Flash conversion tool from Wanadu, a company
that was later acquired by Latitude, the leading provider of integrated
web and voice applications for the enterprise. Latitude's award-winning
MeetingPlace solution that enables real-time collaborative meetings
through web browsers, groupware applications and telephones (PBX,
cellular as well as IP phones) is particularly well-placed to harness
synergies emanating from using the iCreate product within their
broad concept.
Not surprisingly, Latitude has integrated the iCreate product
within its MeetingPlace framework to provide a complete value-added
solution that might strengthen the already firm existence that
MeetingPlace has in the web and voice conferencing market. That's
all the more significant since Microsoft acquired its chief competitor
PlaceWare a few months ago (PlaceWare has since been relaunched
as Microsoft Office Live Meeting).
For the rest of this review, we'll focus entirely on iCreate rather
than the full MeetingPlace spectrum. For more info on MeetingPlace,
please visit their website:
MeetingPlace
- Latitude
More info about iCreate can be found at:
iCreate
My contacts for this review were Michael Kaye of Latitude Comminications
and Lora Lee of Connecting Point Communications - I wish to thank
them for helping me with this.
Back
iCreate - Register as a New User
Before anything else, you'll need to register as a new user at:
http://tryicreate.mymeetingplace.net (see
screenshot)
You can either login using an existing account or register for
a free trial account. Once you opt to register, you'll need to
fill a profile form with info such as name, username, password,
email address, etc.
In due course, you can expect to receive an account activation
email in your inbox which confirms that your MeetingPlace iCreate
account has been enabled. Thereafter, you can login with your username
and password.
Back
iCreate's PowerPoint add-in
Probably the first thing you should do after registration is to
download the iCreate PowerPoint add-in. This download weighs around
7 mb currently - however, you'll need to have Sun's Java Runtime
Engine (later than version 1.3) installed on a computer that will
author iCreate content. Fortunately, MeetingPlace provides an alternative
download of the iCreate PowerPoint add-in that includes the JRE.
This download weighs around 21 mb.
The iCreate PowerPoint add-in only functions on Windows NT (with
Service Pack 4 or later), Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Surprisingly,
the installation routine proceeds with an installation on Windows
98 as well - also, MeetingPlace provides no info about compatible
operating systems on the add-in download page.
PowerPoint versions 2000, 2002 and 2003 on Windows are supported
by the iCreate add-in.
Installation is a quick affair - once the setup routine has been
through, you can expect to find a new MeetingPlace menu within
your PowerPoint interface (see screenshots below).
As you can see in the Publish to Flash sub-menu, you can output
content both locally and online. In most of iCreate's competing
programs, you can either publish to Flash locally or on a server
- iCreate is probably the only program that allows you both options.
Back
A Test Presentation 01
My first test presentation is a beginner's look at Learning Management
Systems - it's a simple presentation that spans a few slides -
one of these slides includes several text boxes that have transparency
values ranging from 20% to 100%. Also, it uses Type 1, TrueType
and OpenType fonts - although all except one of the fonts are standard
Windows fonts that are included as part of the OS. The non-standard
font used is ITC Officina Sans - but that's also part of Adobe
Type Manager Lite's installation.
Publishing this presentation through iCreate's online component
did not render the fonts properly - the local conversion on the
desktop performed flawlessly though. I asked Michael about this
- here is his response:
The trial server is a standard Windows 2000 Server. iCreate
will convert only those fonts that are installed on the server
otherwise it does a closest fit. Generally, we sell the iCreate
to a department or enterprise in which case the buyer has the
responsibility to install the fonts that its' users are using.
So, typefaces do convert as you would expect as long as they
are installed on the server. As you probably have noticed, the
typfaces convert well when you do local conversion since you
have the fonts installed. In either case, you can get a report
that lists fonts that were not converted (i.e. installed).
A PowerPoint converted locally is identical to PowerPoints converted on the
server. However, locally converted presentations are watermarked until the
user purchases a license.
I thereafter replaced ITC Officina Sans with Trebuchet MS and
the conversion to rich media Flash performed flawlessly - you can
see the repurposed presentation here (opens in a separate window):
What
is a Learning Management System?
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