very quick feedback from the demo vid alone: - free registrations should not occur on the order history list (presumably?) - allowing for proper localized amount formatting in input/output is a feature, as you very adequately find out while demoing - there is something really wrong with the checkout procedure (1) it is not running SSL !!!!! wtf, security/privacy 101 (2) it makes you enter card details, just to send you to PayPal/Google anyway? Just leave your 'customers' be in peace, and trust only Paypal/Google with their data. That way, your demo doesn't set off all alarm bells [besides giving the odd unneeded bad example] by collecting card details in HTTP mode Professional demoing: - make sure you hack the address bar into something representative. Even the most un-savy user could bring himself to 'echo 172.16.0.101 store.mojoportal.demo >> /etc/hosts' - If something bad happens, don't blush or try to hide it. Instead, perhaps point out the way errors are reported in a way that helps users understand the situation and perhaps report back useful details (automatically) to the site admins.

Oh, and a preview button would just have been wonderful to prevent that mess :)

Hi,

Thanks for your feedback.

I assume you are talking about the video for Event Calendar Pro

1. If SSL is available it will use it, if not it will warn about it. I cannot afford an SSL certificate for the demo site. It is also not possible to demo paypal or google checkout. I mean it is possible to demo PayPal in a video but I didn't demo it because its not the same experience in the PayPal sandbox, you have to login to your sandbox account to even use the sandbox as a test user, its very complicated and on the demo site I cannot enable it to use the PayPal sandbox as for anyone to test it, they would have to know my sandbox credentials. I cannot demo google checkout on the demo site because without an SSL certificate google can't post the transactions back to the site. A self signed certificate doesn't work, it must be from a valid certificate authority. SSL is enabled on this site and PayPal and Google Checkout work in the store on this site the same as in Event Calendar.

2. No, it makes you register on the site before you can checkout, but it does not require you to enter any billing info if you click the PayPal or Google Checkout buttons. In my demo video I was demoing with Authorize.NET because for reasons mentioned its much easier to demo, and this does require entering billing info. I can also demo Authorize.NET on the demo site easily. Yes, it would be nice if I had an SSL certificate on the demo site, but its using the Authorize.NET test server and no-one should enter any real billing info there as the warning indicates on the page.

I don't understand the rest of your feedback:

Even the most un-savy user could bring himself to 'echo 172.16.0.101 store.mojoportal.demo >> /etc/hosts' - If something bad happens, don't blush or try to hide it. Instead, perhaps point out the way errors are reported in a way that helps users understand the situation and perhaps report back useful details (automatically) to the site admins.

So I made my demo video using a machine on my local network with ip address shown, so what?

What do you suggest I'm hiding? What specific bad things are you concerned about that you think I'm not handling?

A preview button where for what?

Best Regards,

Joe

free registrations should not occur on the order history list (presumably?)

Why not? What if the user needs to print his registration again so he can bring it to the event for admission?

allowing for proper localized amount formatting in input/output is a feature, as you very adequately find out while demoing

In fact it does properly localize it to the currency configured in the settings. I don't know what you mean I found out in my demo. There was one point where I backed out the $ sign when entering a ticket price, but in fact it would have parsed it correctly since the currency is configured for USD, and if it was configured for EUR it would also parse the symbol for that correctly when entering the ticket price and it formats it correctly according to the setting everywhere it is displayed.

Oh, and a preview button would just have been wonderful to prevent that mess :)

At first I didn't understand what you meant as I thought you were still talking about the Event Calendar, but I figured it out that you mean the blog comment form doesn't have a preview button. That is a valid criticism of the blog.

My plan is to build a better comment system as part of the framework so it can be used in multiple features not just the blog. I want it to be possible to enable comments on any content in the site including products. Once I have this done I will migrate existing blog comments and use the new improved comment system in the blog as well.

There are actually 4 things I want to build into the framework so they can be used across features without having to implement them over and over, those 4 things are Comments, Content Rating, Content Versioning, and Content Tagging.

Best,

Joe

Hi Joe,
thanks for all the responses. I now understand that the demo vid is not actually using much that resembles the payment system *actually* in mojoPortal Store. (which only leaves me wondering why you include that in the demo vid since it actually gave me a few negative (and wrong) impressions. The good thing is that I have little in the way of criticism left there :)
I still apologize for the formatting messup that was my post :)_ that didn't make things easier to understand and I appreciate your patience in trying to work out what I meant.
On the 'professional demo-ing style' I had to remarks. I think it is pretty inexpensive to make your demo look a bit more appealing, indeed only by cosmetically fixing the url. People will always be sensitive to things like that.
The bit on 'hiding' stuff... I never said I thought you were hiding stuff, but I felt you made it *look like* you could be hiding the proverbial 'corpse in the cupboard' when you backed out of an unexpected application error ermm.... surprisingly quickly. It is my experience (when demoing to a business board) that it makes a lot more of an impression if you just explain what went wrong, and how the application handles (will handle) it.
Lastly: if you only redundantly removed the $ dollar sign... don't!!! Users will do exactly the same thing you wanted to do initially. It doesn't *look like* it would work when the developer himself in the demo vid hurries back to remove the dollar sign muttering under his breath : "ooh let me just remove that quickly". In fact, any prospective buyer would induce that accidentally entering a dollar sign could likely result in one of those error-pages that happened on the other occasion...
So in fact: your response is "Don't sweat it: everything is in order (/will be ok)". My point is, since you are (are you?) trying to sell this as a product, you should make it a priority to get that message across to your potential customers. Any shadow of a doubt, and people will stay out of the water.
My summary: Read "Joel On Software"! Selling software involves more than just building great apps alone!
Thanks and keep up the good work Seth

Hi Seth,

I think your critique is good. The take away for me is I need to do another take of this demo video. Probably what I will do is break it up into smaller separate clips on more specific topics. That way if I mess up again maybe it will be on a smaller piece.

Cheers,

Joe