
Show HN: Use your phone to present slides on any screen - alakin
http://uslide.net/
======
alexqgb
LOVE this, with one _major_ caveat. I hate, Hate HATE the ads. It's a visceral
level of rage that I find remarkable since that's not how I generally respond
to in-app ads.

They're just so very very wrong in this context, mainly because they're
deliberately distracting. For someone trying to focus on delivering a
presentation, this is 100% unacceptable. It would be tolerable (barely) if the
ad never changed, but when the damn thing changes every few seconds, it's more
than enough to break one's concentration. And that is LETHAL for public
speaking.

I know HN guidelines discourage the use of caps for emphasis, and I almost
never use them for this reason. But my negative reaction was SO strong that
it's worth breaking protocol just to emphasize how awful those intrusions
really are.

Aside from that one hideous, terrible, awful, repulsive, glaring deal-killer
of a flaw, this app is brilliant. Bottom line: I'd pay $5 for a version
without ads. I'd refuse to use it with ads.

~~~
alakin
Which QR code app are you using?

~~~
alexqgb
Scan for iPhone (the one they recommend on their site).

~~~
alakin
Very strange, I use that too and never see any ads. Thanks for bringing this
up - going to look into it.

~~~
alexqgb
Oh wait, I'm an idiot - of course this isn't your app that's showing the ads,
because you don't have one. It's the QR app, which I downloaded just to try
your service, and mistakenly thought of as yours. Sorry about that.

Turns out that the app's "More" menu contains a upgrade option that will
remove the ads for $0.99. Problem solved.

~~~
alakin
No biggie man. I must have paid for mine so long ago that I forgot they had
ads!

~~~
keithpeter
Suggestion: pop a note on your landing page about in-app ads in the QR app. If
someone posting on HN can get crossed wires about where the ads come from, Joe
Random Six Pack Marketer is definitely going to get mixed up.

(I'll eventually have to change my BlackBerry won't I?)

------
gala8y
I really like your idea and its pretty self explanatory once you watch the
demo. I also like that your demo is somehow hidden - you can't just watch it,
you just use the product for the first time and learn it. Don't change it -
it's fun and makes for a 'wow' moment.

After some time I started to wonder why I would need a QR... well... QR must
be pairing a unique computer/ip/browser (?) with the phone, right? Nice.

I would not bother to add too much explanations on the main page - now its a
little mistery and I like that demo is 'hidden' (see above). Also, dont add
that both presentation machine and phone must be connected to the internet -
it is evident and even if it is not, well, people will figure it out.

Edit: As others mentioned, need for network connection introduces some serious
uncertainty. I just get it and would never take a plane (slide 5?) without a
copy of my presentation on me.

Have not been presenting for quite a long time, but will surely give it a go
when I do.

 _We recommend Scan for (iPhone) or Google Goggles for (Android)._ You might
want to fix ()'s: (for iPhone) (for Android)

Thumbnails for slides on the phone must be your next feature, am I right?

~~~
imissmyjuno
>I also like that your demo is somehow hidden

I don't. I opened the page, stared at the massive QR code, tried to get an
idea about the product based on the right-hand side list, and closed the page
still unsure how the product works exactly.

~~~
enjo
I know there _is_ a demo somewhere... I have no idea how to find it.

~~~
imissmyjuno
That's not the point. The point is that I don't want to try the product until
I know what it does…

------
rolleiflex
Brilliant work. I'm starting to use it, and I'd pay for it.

For me, it replaces:

0) Having to carry my MBP around if the only use is the presentation,

1) Plugging my Macbook Pro in, always carrying a Thunderbolt/vga and
Thunderbolt/dvi adapter,

2) Trying to fiddle with almost always flaky cables to get projector working,

3) Setting up a ad-hoc wifi network, connecting my iPhone to that network,

4) But before that, removing the other saved Wifis because somehow both MBP
and iPhone tends to ditch that Wifi and connect to the other ones available
that has internet access, by default,

5) Open BetterTouchTool Remote on my iPhone,

6) Connect to the MBP from the app,

7) And finally start presenting.

I end up doing a presentation every week, at least. Job well done. I'm your
first customer if you sell it.

~~~
wingerlang
But you'd still need to have a computer to go to the website right?

------
jbellis
Cute, but as someone who presents at conferences many times a year, I would
never rely on a network connection.

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jakozaur
Nice MVP, but it's not ready enough to use it.

I would need at least:

\- offline mode, even if everything goes down it should work using the remote
+ I would like to know that we lost connection. Not sure if it's already
working.

\- authorization using QR

E.g. my best use case for this site: lightening talk session. Able to have
multiple presentations linked to each other and be able to rearrange them from
different computer.

------
alakin
Hey guys, creator of the site here, I'd love to hear the community's thoughts
on my first serious MVP effort!

~~~
Shenglong
I'm still trying to figure out what your product does, and how it works.
Questions that come to mind at first glance (although I'm sure I can reason
some through, and take guesses... and probably think of more):

\- I just download this onto my phone?

\- Where would the presentation be stored?

\- What do I have to do on the presenting machine?

\- What does the remote look like?

\- Is the remote going to force my screen not to lock?

\- Will my screen be bright and distracting to my audience?

\- Why is there no information? Is this malware?

\- How do I get rid of the Tip box which is covering text, because I'm using
200% zoom on Retina?

\- Why is there a log in? There's no accompanying register.

\- What software does this work for?

Also, your logo is really fuzzy, and your HRs don't match up... but that's
just me being picky!

~~~
liampmccabe
Pretty terrible feedback. It's one of the most simplest apps to use.

-I just download this onto my phone?

"Scan the QR code with your phone. Once you're connected, you can use your
phone to present slides on this screen."

-Will my screen be bright and distracting to my audience?

Seriously?

Alakin, ignore most of these questions. I couldn't get the back button to work
but apart from that, fine job!

~~~
sangaya
Actually, those are great questions. I don't download apps, or scan random
codes unless I understand what the effect will be.

Why should I scan a QR code on his page with no expectation of the results?

------
corin_
Error in Firefox Nightly 22.0a1 (2013-03-21) for me, and it's repeatable:
<http://i.imgur.com/UhtZcpw.png>

In both Firefox and Chrome the QR code on the homepage only appears after a
refresh or two.

Overall really nicely done, though the two reasons I wouldn't use it
personally are 1.) Confidentiality (most decks I would ever want to present I
can't upload to some random MVP site) 2.) Branding (I'd want to be able to
white label, or self-host).

~~~
shrikant
Maybe it's a bug in Nightly? The app worked perfectly on my Aurora build
(21.0a2)

~~~
corin_
Probably is, but thought I'd mention it in case the cause isn't something that
will have disappeared by the time this version becomes Aurora/standard
release.

------
joshmlewis
I scanned the QR code and then pressed next/back a few times and then it said
connected on the screen. Then I wasn't sure where the demo was even though it
said to try it out. I eventually saw the little link at the bottom right hand
side and clicked on it. Then it presented the slides but kept going
automatically very sporadically and nothing I did stopped or moved anything.

You might want to give a better walkthrough and explanation. :) Really cool
though if it is solid. You have to be careful with slide control because this
is LIVE and people want things that are absolutely solid and going to work
99.99% of the time. One mishap and you've probably lost that customer if it
was in a live setting.

~~~
alakin
Hey thanks for the comment! Any chance you still might have the URL for the
remote, so I could figure out what happened there?

~~~
joshmlewis
No I can't find it offhand. If youd like some design help I'd be interested.
I've been looking for another project to design for a side project. Email is
in profile!

~~~
alakin
All good. Email sent!

------
derwildemomo
Great idea and nice execution. The demo works great and there's definitely a
wow-moment.

It's a bit unfortunate that uploading a keynote-presentation threw an error (
didn't say what the problem was, just that the presentation couldn't be
converted ) and uploading a ppt messed up the charts. So, maybe it would be
wiser to simply just accept pdf-documents and rely on users to do the
conversion – it's a complicated task, versions change all the time and
mastering pdf alone is maybe enough work for a mvp. just my two cents.

but you definitely got a user.

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verelo
pretty cool, could be very handy for sales presentations but its unusual to be
lucky enough to get access to a network of a company you are pitching to.

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iuguy
If I can make a suggestion, build an official iphone and android app for this,
and charge 99 cents.

You can then add the ability to do live annotations to presentations from the
phone/tablet and keep that exclusive to the app.

This whole app is brilliant, I hope it really takes off for you and you make a
metric fuck-ton of money out of it. Superb idea.

------
leetrout
This looks really cool, fantastic idea!

Unfortunately the site doesn't work with IE on Windows Phone 8. Can't click
either of the green buttons seen in this screen shot- <http://sdrv.ms/X4gN6>
(possible a bootstrap issue).

Hopefully I can snag my wife's droid tomorrow and give it a whirl!

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imagross
One of the things preventing me from using this all the time is that I can't
click through the presentation manually on my computer. At least if the
internet connection failed, I could have that as a backup plan and continue
with any presentations.

------
saraid216
I'm not sure it's good enough if it doesn't say, "Welcome Mr. Stark" when I
connect...

~~~
alakin
Haha, that scene was definitely part of the inspiration for the project.

IronMan Clip:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=N5pg9qvPOO8#t=11s)

------
brettcvz
Overall, very slick. I'd recommend also being able to upload a presentation
from the phone (by selecting it from gmail, dropbox, etc) so I could do the
majority of the setup on my phone and minimal on the presenting computer.

------
CoryG89
This is pretty cool, I like just being able to scan a qr code and start
presenting. However, I just finished creating a presentation using Reveal.JS,
it would be awesome if I could upload my reveal markup and use that.

------
valgaze
It seems like there a ton of these clever "control a webpage with your phone's
browser" demos that they probably deserve their own shorthand name.

Is there already a name to shorthand this whole process/idea? "screen
pairing"?

~~~
whatshisface
"Remote controls"?

~~~
valgaze
Sure, but I really mean the whole process that makes this sort of thing
special (using a uniquely generated code, making a QR, having to come up with
transmission methods from phone, etc)

------
mosselman
A friend of mine and I coded the same thing a while back. There are many draw-
backs like the aforementioned network reliability.

Still it was pretty fun to see the slides move when we moved a finger across
the phone's screen.

------
kekelo
Nice thinking with the QR-code pairing, it's really easy to get started with.

I will give it a spin and see how it differs from <http://presefy.com> \-
which I'm currently using.

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koutsi
This is old news. <http://presefy.com> does this even easier. No need to use
QR-codes. So setting up is faster and easier.

~~~
kekelo
I've now tried both and have to say that they are both easy to use. Still I
like Presefy (<http://presefy.com>) more because it's so easy for anyone to
remotely view the presentation from my unique presentation url and not a
randomly generated url.

------
richo
When I connect with my phone, I still have to log in?

Why can't you embed a token in the QR code? I use huge pads for passwords and
typing them in on my phone is traumatic and awful.

~~~
alakin
I know what you mean. Working on this aspect, for sure.

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mbudde
It doesn't seem to work in Firefox for Android. I scan the QR code and the
page says I'm connected but when I click "Try Uslide Demo" nothing happens.

------
jroseattle
Can I open up a uslide-controlled presentation on another browser and see the
slide changes? That would be mega-handy for our remote presentations.

~~~
alakin
Sure - just enable the share feature (top right corner when you log in) and
you can just email a link to the broadcast from the remote interface (at the
top).

Feel free to contact me - my twitter is in the profile.

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nuttendorfer
Reminds me of Photobeamer (<https://photobeamer.com>) which is equally cool!

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shocks
I can't get this to work? I scanned the code but the page I get doesn't work
on my phone.

I am using Firefox 22 on PC, Firefox browser on phone.

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infinitone
This is actually pretty neat and I would def. use it. One note, i'd add on the
linked page is more/better/visual explanation.

~~~
alakin
Def agre, will probably film a little video explaining how to connect the
phone. Thanks!

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mqzaidi
Looks awesome from the demo,but I can't sign up because you are classifying my
perfectly valid .me email as invalid address.

~~~
alakin
This is odd - is anyone else having this issue?

If you dont mind, could you please send me your email address? anton at uslide
net

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DonaldDerek
You can achieve the same on <http://preso.ly> using your SlideShare account ;)

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splatzone
Nice, but it should be possible to progress the slideshow with the
mouse/keyboard if the phone connection dies.

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Usu
Absolutely love it. +1 for the ability to continue with the keyboard should
the network melt down.

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lakeeffect
Its like Nokia's photobeamer.

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lie07
This is brilliant.

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tekniiq
do people make slides on their phone?

~~~
modarts
It was explained on the site that you upload your presentation or document to
the site when you've create your account.

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andyl
Love it. I liked that the intro text was minimal, and I just started seeing
slides flip on screen. Unexpected!

~~~
andyl
By the way - I've got a corporate app that has a file-store for presentations.
This would be a perfect add-on - is there a way to embed/integrate with your
app?

~~~
alakin
Hey, thanks for the comment - we will probably be looking to integrate much
later. Focusing on the core product at this point.

