Stationery Creator

Once you select a template, you will see what elements can be editable very easily. There are over 70 custom designed templates for many industries.

To add an image you simply click on the image placeholder and select your image. You are not prompted to upload and wait.

To change your text you simply type in your data. The templates have hints such as “Enter your name” but you can enter anything you want and in any order. One very exciting feature is the way we use designer fonts and make sure it looks the same on all computers. No need to use the typical web based fonts.

You have multiple ways you can edit your image without the need of using 3rd party software. You can use our zoom tool and place your image exactly where you want.

You can also improve the way your image looks by altering the Brightness, Contrast, Saturation and Hue. Again no need to use 3rd party software such as Photoshop.

The default colors of the template have been set, but you can easily change that by selecting from a huge list of colors. You can easily create your own list of colors that map to your brand and save that as a color item.

A really cool feature is if you only want to add your name and not your email or add an image, you can. There is a “Preview” button that will show only what you have filled in and that is what will be saved. You can always add or delete items at anytime.

Most emails from businesses contain a disclaimer, to add one simply click on the disclaimer button and paste your text.

In here is your finished product, in no time at all you have a custom email stationery.

The product has 70 custom designs for industries such as Real Estate, Medical, Law, General Business etc.

For certain clients, everything is pre-populated with their logos, brand colors and fonts.

Tracking and Analytics

You don’t simply get nicely designed emails but the ability to track at an unbelievable level of when, where, how the email was read.

You can track the email you sent out and even see if links within were actually clicked.

Video for Zendio

Last week when Google had the Les Paul doodle my son Vincent was so impressed by it he was playing and recording songs for 2 days. When Google removed the guitar app he was so upset and everyday has been looking to see if Google would bring it back or if another cool app would appear.

Finally yesterday Google had a lunar eclipse as one of the O’s in the google logo. Since you really couldn’t interact with it as the Les Paul app he thought about hacking it and decided to build his own.

He was able to code it in 39 lines of code, simplified the lunar eclipse by having only 4 images and manipulating them by applying filters and gradients. It took him a few hours to build and looks forward to creating an original doodle to be posted on Google such as these http://www.google.com/logos/fan.html

He also wants to attend a Techcrunch hackathon ever since I told him about a 14 year old who attended the NYC event.

Vinny is 9 years old and he has been designing and developing on his computer for years. His favorite programs are Adobe Flash, 3D Studio Max and AfterEffects

On August 31st NewTeeVee wrote an article that is my opinion was simply incorrect - Video: Flash on Android Is Shockingly Bad.

The article was written by Ryan Lawler and in all fairness he did not say things that were incorrect but he did allow a video on his post created by Kevin Tofel that was so biased and technically had absolutely zero creditability. I actually had to respond by not only writing a blog post but by building a demo to show how all the conclusions by Kevin were incorrect. On Twitter, Ryan posts “Having never used Flash on an Android phone before, I’m shocked at how bad the user experience is. Check out the video: http://bit.ly/bHaKkM”. I don’t think saying having never used flash… excuses you from allowing someone who obviously has zero technical cred to voice his opinion on your post.

Ryan states “While in theory Flash video might be a competitive advantage for Android users, in practice it’s difficult to imagine anyone actually trying to watch non-optimized web video on an Android handset, all of which makes one believe that maybe Steve Jobs was right to eschew Flash in lieu of HTML5 on the iPhone and iPad.”

So the million dollar question is how long will it take to optimize web video on an Android handset. I was able to create a significantly different user experience without altering a video or video player in mere minutes. Obviously resizing the controls will help with users actually being able to click on controls but since Flash is vector based, resizing while maintaining quality is simple. I did it here - Flash video on Droid 2. I believe in the very immediate future Flash will be allowed in the iPhone, perphaps SkyFire. One must look not only at the present as this article did but at the possibilities, and Flash is in a great position in the next 6 months to jump leaps and bounds.

Do I blame Kevin for slamming Adobe, I’ve done in the past. But I based my ideas off facts and sinking Flash Player 10 being released several weeks ago as horrible is simply incorrect. The flash developers have simply not caught up to Adobe. And I love it!!!

UPDATE: NewTeeVee’s Ryan Lawler wrote a new article “Is Flash on Android “Shockingly Bad” or ‘Shockingly Great?’”. My video above and quotes are mentioned.

Most will not realize what happened today, but the release of the Droid 2 today changes everything in the Technology space. Today the mobile wars just got very serious. The IPhone/IPad which has been the darling of the press for the past year is in serious trouble. Why, in one word – Flash player 10.1.
Steve Jobs has said Flash Player is garbage, useless and antiquated and that HTML 5 is the wave of the future. In one device and OS the Droid 2 has put a big kick in the ass to Steve Jobs.
Why do I think this – because I was able in 2 hours to port my video player web based application to be mobile enabled. No code changes, just resized objects and it worked exactly the way it works within a desktop browser.

I didn’t have to buy a MAC at least $2,000, develop in c ancient, upload to the Apple app store, get approved, get rejected and still have to pay $99 and a 30% commission. I just did what I have been doing for the past 15 years ftp to my site and send out the link. No dictatorship or censorship of what I built.

In one app I can verify support for rtmp streaming video, class support, dynamic creation, animation, event handling etc. The ability to support flash player 10.1 is huge, nothing, nothing, nothing will be able to compete against this, period.

Bottom line, the Droid 2 is going to define what Mobile is.
The users of Android will possess the ability to view the entire internet, whereas the Iphone crowd will not have access to at least 30% of the net.

The bottom line is can Adobe and Apple stop acting like Harry and Lloyd and get Flash on the IPhone?

I got to meet Michael Arrington and Erik Schonfeld from TechCrunch, these guys had written articles on my work for Joost and Hulu.

Michael Arrington – Will Joost Address The Copycats?
Erik Schonfeld – Hulu Gets An Unofficial Desktop App In MyMediaPlayer2

I got to meet Marissa Mayer – Vice President, Search Products & User Experience from Google.


Marissa sat down with me to go over the “Youtube Builder” I had created for TechCrunch HackDay.
All I can say about Marissa is how brilliant she is, as soon as I addressed a feature she was ” oh you are trying to create a … “, obviously I can’t disclose the feature but wow. I was impressed.

On the first day of the conference I looked back and I saw a familiar face, Liz Gannes. Liz was the first writer to cover my video players. She was so nice and it was great to meet her.
What If Joost Were a Web App?

Boxee’s CEO Avner Ronen was speaking at the conference and he was being interviewed by some press. I ran into him and introduced myself “Hi my name is Paul Yanez I build video…” and he replied I know who you are. I thought that was the coolest thing. We spoke for several minutes and exchanged numbers and I look forward to continuing our conversation.

10 minutes before the StartUp Battlefield I was backstage coding. Probably the craziest and coolest thing I have done in my professional career. Meanwhile I had press trying to video record me in an interview.

I got to meet the TechCrunch writers MG Siegler, Leena Rao, Robin Wauters.

OMG, Evelyn was such as pro throughout the Hack weekend and the conference it was so cool to meet her.

Zach and Rich are the coolest cats in this space and they rocked TechCrunch Disrupt. They made it into the Final Five.

The Graffiti felt right being in NYC again.

My kids posing.

SANTA MONICA, California (March 11, 2010) – MOVIECLIPS.com, home of the largest and most diverse collection of free, licensed movie scenes anywhere on the web, today launched a new media player, the Movieclips Player, custom-built by pirate developer Paul Yanez. The Movieclips Player is game-changing for film lovers, delivering clips in their original aspect ratio, and making it super-easy for users to find, edit, and share their favorite movie scenes. The announcement was made by MOVIECLIPS.com co-founders, Zach James and Rich Raddon.
Yanez gained Internet notoriety last year when he created a rogue, open source media player that streamed Hulu content, ads and all, while Hulu was still in beta. He did this in his spare time. And he released it for free.
“We wanted the ultimate movie clip player and we thought of Paul, he is the best,” said James, “ We were familiar with Paul’s controversy with Hulu when they shut down the stream, and we watched a very public cat-and-mouse game that in the end, nobody won — especially not movie lovers.”

The Movieclips Player’s four unique features:
• Size matters: The Movieclips Player is one of the first embeddable players to respect the original aspect ratio of every feature film
• Gives bloggers and Facebook users the tools to “trim-and-share” clips down to just their favorite movie quotes: “You talkin’ to me?”
• Editing and sharing happens within the Movieclips Player environment – the toolbar just slides up to reveal more tools
• Full movie dialogue search engine built into every player
“Only people who care about films as much as we do would go to this length to ensure a great viewing experience.” said Raddon, former Director of the Los Angeles Film Festival. “We had the chance to set a new standard, and to actually rethink how to connect with movies online. We made it easy to watch a clip from Inglourious Basterds or Elf, edit the clip down to your favorite quote, and share it on Facebook or a blog, etc.
You can also learn more about the film or see related clips, search full dialogue or buy the DVD – we built that into a single, elegant player, so everything is only a click away.”
“In the end, it’s just a player,” added James. “But how we approached this player – who we hired to build it and why we incorporated these features – says something important about how we view the world and why we started this company. By giving movie fans the tools to watch and share their favorite scenes easily, the studios suddenly have allies recommending their products. Every time a movie fan shares a clip from The Big Lebowski or This Is Spinal Tap on Facebook or on their blog, it’s a reminder to their friends of each movie’s value in our lives.”
MOVIECLIPS.com took its service worldwide in late February and opened up access to its API for approved developers, giving this community the opportunity to innovate using MOVIECLIPS.com’s library of more than 12,000 clips, each tagged with rich metadata, Find and share clips from your favorite films, and get details about becoming an approved MOVIECLIPS.com developer, at movieclips.com.

About MOVIECLIPS.com
Launched in December 2009, MOVIECLIPS.com is a premium online video destination offering audiences the largest and most diverse collection of movie scenes. MOVIECLIPS.com allows fans to find, watch and share more than 12,000 movie clips from the libraries of most major Hollywood studios. Each clip is tagged with up to 1,000 pieces of data (dialogue, actor, director, action, mood, etc) to make the most searchable collection of movie scenes on the web. Go to movieclips.com for more information.

You gotta love Facebook and the power of the internet. After Vinny posted his illustration of the Hulk within days was offered a project to make a company logo. A friend of a friend needed some Adobe Illustrator work done and my friend thought of Vinny. After seeing the logo, the owner of Concentric Clothing asked Vinny if he wanted to continue with a new project. Redoing the clothing line’s shirt artwork in Adobe Illustrator, see below.

My son Vinny just turned 8 and he has been designing and developing on his computer for years. This is his first professional project. Vinny is becoming very independent deciding to buy 2 pizza pies for the family on a Monday night instead of the usual Friday pizza night. Vinny created all the inks and coloring in Adobe Illustrator CS4. To see larger versions click on the images above.

A few days ago Steve Jobs said that Adobe is lazy and that the new iPad doesn’t have Flash because ‘whenever a Mac crashes, more often than not, it’s because of Flash”. “No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5.” I wrote about this here.

I wasn’t upset with Steve that’s his job to push his product and if that means putting down your competitors than so be it. I was upset with Adobe for never defending themselves whenever Steve did this, and it has happened multiple times.

I am glad to see Adobe’s CTO Kevin Lynch posted this response on his blog which was covered by Techcrunch “Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch Defends Flash, Warns HTML5 Will Throw The Web “Back To The Dark Ages Of Video”.

I wonder if Leon was brought into Adobe to give advice on how to handle Mr Steve Jobs. Either way, good job Kevin.

Jobs recently held a town hall meeting at Apple and said that Adobe is lazy and that the new iPad doesn’t have Flash because “whenever a Mac crashes, more often than not, it’s because of Flash”. “No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5.”

So in few sentences Steve basically calls Adobe incapable of producing quality software, irrelevant and calls them lazy which is perhaps the worst thing an engineer could be called. Just think of what the mood at engineering department at Adobe headquarters is like right now. Do you honestly believe that they will get any quailty people applying now?

Can Adobe get a CEO with balls who can actually do something when stuff like this happens? I had to look it up on Google, the president and chief executive officer of Adobe is Shantanu Narayen. Good job Shantanu .

Seems like Shantanu needs a few ideas so here goes.
Shantanu, could Adobe not release CS5 for the Mac and see how relevant Adobe is to the purchases of Mac’s and see if Steve changes his tune. The main reason people buy a Mac is to be creative and the programs most creatives use is Adobe. Am I missing something here, can Adobe at least delay releases to the Mac. Honestly if Steve Jobs said anything like this about Microsoft when Bill Gates was in charge, tell me Bill wouldn’t have unleashed hell on Apple. But Adobe just takes it and will soon be so insignificant no one will will even bother to insult them.

Shantanu, how about calling out Apple on Objective C and how horrible it is to develop in it. And that the main reason of not letting Flash on the iPad is to not unleash millions of Flash developers onto their platform.

Shantanu, how about going on the offensive and saying how Youtube and all web video would not exist unless it was for Flash. How about questioning Apple on why Flash works fine on Android, why doesn’t it work on the iPhone? Shantanu say anything, do anything, but being silent and taking the high road is not the right play.

cnet arrticle

In the early part of 2007 Joost was the shit. They had articles being written about them almost daily and each one of them were all praising Joost as the next big thing. There was no reason to believe that this wouldn’t be the case, they had the infamous Kazaa and Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis as founders. The founders had succeeded in everything they touched and had made billions together and this was going to be another industry the pair was was going to cause havoc to.

For 6 months I was amazed at the presentation of Joost, fullscreen video with overlays that contained menu navigation and widgets. Anyone saying that they were not the first to do so in this manner or scale is either lying or simply does not know what they are talking about. Everyone in the video space today owes alot to the innovation Joost created back then.

There was one annoying thing that kept happening in the first half of 2007, I had to update the Joost desktop application almost daily. It basically would not work unless I updated the entire application, granted it was beta software but come on, this is 2007 and I am still doing this?

In the same timeframe I was seriously thinking of starting a blog. I had installed Wordpress, had a design for my blog and within a few hours of writing my first article I realized I was just simply horrible in expressing my ideas in words, so I scraped the blog plan. My first article was,”Joost should be web based”, basically to drop the desktop approach and become web based. Since I couldn’t write a lick I did what was instinctive for me which was to reverse engineer the Joost desktop application into a web based Flash application. Flash was simple to me and was web based, lightweight and auto updated and could do everything the Joost desktop could do.

I sent my Joost web based app to a few friends the night before my birthday who I trusted and were the best user experience, designers, project managers and engineers wanting to know what they thought. My friends started sending the link out and my app became viral. I remember this clearly because the next day I am on Moonlight beach and then eating at a restaurant on Route 101 just chilling on my birthday and I am being called by blogs asking me questions for their articles.

Newteeve did a writeup and others soon others followed, then my app went on the homepage of Digg.com.

The whirlwind had started, I got sitdowns with the CEO’s of just about every video company, I met with Chad, the CEO of Youtube and his team, met with Yahoo. I was being flown around the country to meet CEO’s and VC’s because of my blog concept, this was totally cool.

The obvious thing I thought would happen was that Joost would contact me and we would work together. I remember Chad asking me “What does Mike think about what you are doing”. I just didn’t answer him because I had never heard from Mike.

I obviously thought Joost would change and adapt a web based approach. My app clearly showed the public wanted this, the blogs, Digg, users all voted and wanted a web based player. Joost’s CEO Mike Volpi one month later promised to do so, but he did not do so for well over a year. Guess what happened in that timeframe, Hulu. Hulu took the Joost concept and went web based and just crushed Joost, Joost never recovered.

Two years later, over the summer of 2009 I got a call from a senior person at Joost asking if I would like to collaborate on my Hulu Adobe Air player for Joost. I had the pleasure of working with the talented creative and engineering teams from Joost on my Adobe Air player of Joost.com.

Because of Joost I now have thousands of emails from users who have downloaded software I have built in the past 2 years. I now have the ability to now build a concept and have thousands immediately view it and give me feedback, this is huge. If not for Joost I would never have this ability, so I am forever thankful to Joost.

To me, I believe Joost was ahead of its time and I am very sad that this has happened. Today we have lost a company which should have made it, but didn’t.

The manner in which Microsoft released the beta of Silverlight 4 at the Professional Developer Conference on Nov 18th shows me one thing, Microsoft is not only very serious about being the leader in the RIA arena but they are looking to crush the competition, namely Adobe Flash.

First, the speed in which this beta was announced, just 3 months after the release of Silverlight 3. The release of Silverlight 3 was huge, but this beta just completely blows it away. The demos presented at the PDC conference by Scott Guthrie were simply great and just sent the developers into a frenzy.

Secondly, the new features in Silverlight 4 are simply unbelievable. The new features include:
Webcam and microphone support
Printing
Library sharing with WPF
Rich Text
Clipboard access
Right click support
Mouse wheel
Drag and Drop from desktop
MVVM
WCF RIA Services
New Windowing API’s
Notification pop-up support
HTML support
Keyboard in Fullscreen mode
Hardware device access

The planned release of Silverlight 4 is in the first half of 2010.

I love how folks are not agreeing with me on the end of Adobe Flash and sending me emails, the bottom line is that I see this as the modern day “Browser wars” when Microsoft went all out against Netscape and crushed them. I see Microsoft doing the same in the RIA space and Microsoft is going all out to win. Microsoft doing a release like this in 3 months, I ask myself how many resources were ported over from other products to this release?

Developers can start building apps but the player is not pubicly available
Silverlight 4 Beta Information – Get all your downloads here
Silverlight 4 Beta – A guide to the new features
Silverlight 4 runtime

The first is that Adobe cut 9% percent of its workforce on Nov 10th, this is the second huge cut by Adobe in the past year. In my opinion, Adobe is a Desktop publishing company and not a software devleopment company and when/if further cuts occur, they will happen on the Flash teams, not the Photoshop teams.

The second big thing to occur is the yesterday’s article by Techcrunch on was the announcement of a ‘Seesmic for Windows’ client. The entire article seems like a huge jab/left hook at Adobe Air and it’s limitations and all the new capabilities Seesmic will have because of the switch to the Windows platform.

What you will see as a result of Seesmic moving to Windows is a constant reminder of the Windows platform due to the nature in which Loic delivers releases, which seems to be almost weekly.

In my original article I basically stated that you could do the same exact things in Silverlight that you could do in Flash. I was hesistant to state that Silverlight was more powerful because I wanted to reach the flash community in a calm rational approach.

Seesmic coming out like this will be the first in many to come on the limitations the Flash/Adobe Air platform as compared to the Microsoft platform.

Two weeks ago I believed it would be 2 years before all the real applications/games on the web would be in Silverlight and Flash would be used for nothing more than creating banners. I think it will be sooner than that now.

The Debate
You may have seen numerous articles on the Flash vs Silverlight debate such as this one. I believe that the articles being written and discussions that are taking place are simply asking the wrong questions.

The discussions should not be between the specific details of Flash and Silverlight. But it should be at a higher level, such as “How long will it take me to become a professional in Silverlight?”, by professional, I mean someone is compensated for their work. Just think of the possibilities that are opened up by learning this product, you basically open yourself up to a whole new industry.

Learning Curve
So if I am right, the million dollar question is – How long is it going to take to learn this new software product?
In my honest opinion if you are a Flash developer as soon as you start the program you will know about 60% of it right out of the box. Simply due to the similarities between Flash and Blend, practically the same tools, timeline, stage, properties, layout code etc. The following videos I have made are about 30 minutes in total length and will get you up to about 80%. Think about that, 80% knowledge of a new product and you have invested less than an hour.

Animation
Introduction to Animation in Microsoft Expression Blend 3

Integration with Adobe
Importing graphics from Adobe Illustrator into Microsoft Expression Blend 3

Customizing Cursors
Implementing a custom hit area in Microsoft Expression Blend 3

Drawing
Exploring the Gradient tool in Microsoft Expression Blend 3

Layout
Exploring the Canvas control in Microsoft Expression Blend 3

Video
Creating a Silverlight video player in Microsoft Expression Blend 3

Layers
Exploring the Objects panel in Microsoft Expression Blend 3

Creating Buttons
Creating a Silverlight button with Microsoft Blend 3

Styles
Creating a Resource Dictionary with Microsoft Blend 3

Hit Area
Implementing a custom hit area in Microsoft Expression Blend 3

Money
When all is said and done, it comes down to money. If a developer is as knowledgeable in Flash and SilverLight, the Silverlight developer will be compensated more, PERIOD. The flash job opportunities mostly come by way of the Advertising field and game development worlds and the projects built are measured in days.

The Silverlight opportunities will come by way of Engineering based companies. Engineering companies mostly work on projects that are measured in years.

The Bottom Line…
For the last 10 plus years when asked what I do, I would proudly say “I am a flash developer that ….
Moving forward my answer will be “I create user experiences and I use products a,b,c.

Try Silverlight for 60 days for free. I feel like it’s 1998 all over again and can’t believe more people aren’t aware of this movement. I am going to do everything I can to push Silverlight in front of everyone whether they are developers, users or clients.

Either way we will be the winners from this, us the developers. Microsoft and Adobe will be forced to improve.