You may have noticed some pretty cool tricks we do in different parts of the application.  If you haven’t, check out this video:

One of the things that kept bugging me was our animations in Firefox and Safari were lagging behind  Internet Explorer.  They were just plain choppy.  Some time ago I found that the problem was related to the shadows we added to each section on the page.  The effect was stunning and we could do it without the traditional HTML gook it required to pull off.  The drawback?  It wasn’t supported by Internet Explorer.  (No surprise there, Internet Explorer… well, never mind that.)  Initially, the problem was really bad.  So bad, you noticed scrolling choppiness.  But with Firefox 3.5 and Safari 4, the problem virtually disappeared.

Unfortunately, it was still too laggy. So we dropped the shadows completely. Does it look as nice as before? No. But it is a much better experience in the end.

One of the biggest barriers many applications have is the sign-up process.  You have to balance the information needed to create an account, with the effort a user goes through to enter that information.  Many times the user looses in that tradeoff.  I wanted to make the sign-up process as easy as possible for our apps.  In fact, we need only 4 items from a user: first and last name, email, and a password.  (And, by golly, we will soon combine first and last name into one field):

One Step Registration

Further, the goal of Raveal is for others to discover you.  We spend quite a bit of effort in getting our Raveal profiles indexed with major search engines.

The side affect of these two things is that many “Search Engine Optimization” douche-bags have caught on and are creating accounts for spamming search engines.  Of course, none of us here have any patience for these practices and shut down the accounts within minutes of being created.  Luckily, the flow is just a trickle.  However, I do fear that if the number of spam accounts increases, we’ll have to put measures in place that increase the amount of effort new users spend on getting setup.  And that pisses me off!

So we’ll do our best to not mess up a good thing while keeping these spamtards out of our system.

Typically, any application service created in the past few years runs “in the cloud.”  Ours was no different.  We opened our doors running on a grid provided by 3Tera (http://3tera.com).  They have a unique twist on virtualization that really stands apart from the rest of the industry.  They take object oriented programming principals and apply them to virtual machines.  This can be described by a simple comparison between VMWare and 3Tera:

• With VMWare, you have to startup a virtual machine and then log in to the OS to configure settings.
• With 3Tera, the OS resides in a “black box.”  You configure settings with the black box.  Internally, when the OS starts, the black box hands off the settings to the OS.  I.e., the OS never has to be started to configure it.

Much like creating a class in programming, the class has functionality hidden from view.  You set values for class fields and it does something for you.  What this means is you can easily create a catalog of virtualized OSes that are trimmed down to task specific appliances.  E.g., you have a DB appliance and a Load Balancer appliance.  You then reuse these appliances in your applications by pulling them out of the catalog and configuring them.

The technology is pretty amazing.  Unfortunately, for various reasons, the solution wasn’t working for us.  We were seeing a significant amount of nodes in our cluster failing due to hardware and software bugs and datacenter mis-management.

So we began the process of moving to a different platform.  As these things do, it took longer then expected.  But that’s okay, because, in the end, the migration happened flawlessly.  As of  2 AM EST last night, all of our services have been moved over to Joyent (http://joyent.com).  For those hip on hosting providers, you’ll notice that this move involved a switch from Linux to OpenSolaris!  Yes, we are all converts now and absolutely adore what OpenSolaris has to offer.

You should see a bit of speed increase in accessing the apps.  Latency might be a bit better for our European customers as the DC is in New England now.  If you notice anything strange, feel free to contact us over at http://support.flowz.com.

We are now presenting *all profiles beneath the main showcase. This is using the same visual layout that you get when you use our visual search engine. Visit the showcase.

Remember, the goal of Raveal is for companies and clients to discover *you*

More to follow…

(*all being all profiles that have at least a minimum amount of info and are marked public)

The first bit of super awesome comes in the form of an expansion of the Raveal portfolio.  Riddle me this: How do you include more detailed background on your past projects?  (Hint: it doesn’t belong in your resume.)

If you answered portfolio, you would be correct.  Your portfolio is your work history.  What you have done.  For just about ever, portfolios were limited to creative types.  People whose work could be displayed on a piece of paper tucked away with many like it in a mobile carrying case.  The problem is, most of us non-creative types also needed to present work that can’t be described by a picture.  Without a portfolio, we would need to stuff all that content into our resumes.  Lucky for the hiring managers, there was a golden rule: A resume shant be more than pages two.  Unfortunately, with the advent of the Monster.com era of electronic applications, the golden rule simply disappeared.  People stuffed more and more junk into their resumes.  Resumes devolved into useless dead trees.  A.K.A., “The Kitchen Sink Resume.” Many articles and blog posts popped up, all predicting the end of the resume.

Well, if you take out all the junk that doesn’t belong, resumes are still useful.  So that’s just what we did with Projects– gave a home to all that “junk.”

Starting today you can now add projects to your portfolio.  What is the difference between galleries and projects?  Well, to put it simply, a gallery is a collection of files, a graphical presentation.  A gallery doesn’t tell a story.  A project is different.  It allows you to explain in words all about projects, initiatives, cases, sales drives, or whatever else that you worked on.  Alternatively, a project could just as well be called a free-form-text-and-inline-image document.  Essentially a structured MS Word document.  Here is what it looks like:

Project Editor

Of course, inline, multimedia content is allowed.  Here is the portfolio view:

Public Portfolio

Now, the next tidbit is great.  Projects are cross referenced in your resume:

Projects are cross referenced in your resume

This allows hiring managers to drill down into detail when they need to:

Project "quick view" from the resume

They aren’t bothered by the excess detail until they want to be.  This feature is very powerful and we believe it will absolutely help people get hired.  We’re very excited to get this out to our users.  We’ll have more tips and tricks to come in follow up posts.

But there were some places we could improve.

The following features are immediately available to all Raveal account holders today.

The old PDF was a traditional format, using only black and white colors and sans-serif headings with serif body text.  We now provide you with a choice between the original, “Traditional,” style and a new, “Modern,” style.  The modern uses the Myriad Pro sans-serif font throughout and brings in some blues and grays.  It looks great.  You can change your preference from the Dashboard under “Style & Theme.”  Check out a short comparison of the two:

Two styles: Modern and Traditional

Previously, file descriptions were left out when they were inserted into the PDF.  We now include them.  Additionally, if there are files that could not be included in the PDF, say a SWF or HTML file, a notice is added at the bottom to visit your profile online.

File descriptions next to file

We sweat the details.  Who is the one actually using the PDF?  The hiring manager or the client you sent it to.  Let’s make it easy for them to work with it.  Raveal adds bookmarks for each section to quickly jump around.  The last bookmark takes the user right to your online profile.

Bookmarks for those reading your resume

What if you didn’t get the job or it is postponed?  What if your resume goes on file with the company?  Raveal adds metadata to the PDF so that it is properly indexed with whatever computer or system that will be storing it.  Your profile will be found again!

Metadata to search your PDF

Not just the standard title/author/etc metadata, but Raveal also adds profile specific keywords.

Keywords to search your PDF

That’s it for now.  We are working on some other great tools to give you.  I can’t wait to talk about them!

Raveal Stickers

If you are looking for something more shiny, you can put a “mini-profile” on your site.  This is a live summary of your profile on Raveal.  There are two layouts: vertical and horizontal.

Mini-Profile: Portfolio

For those with just a resume, the summary is made up of key elements of your resume: years experience, location, objective, and summary of your last two positions.

Mini-Profiles: Resume

You can find this on your dashboard under “Spread the word” > “Link your profile”.

I’d like to introduce you to an idea we have been shaping for some time.

“You are your own company.”

Let me explain.

Your career requires the same marketing, sales, and brand strategy that companies do.  Whether you like it or not, you have a brand already.  You have a voice.  And you need continuous improvement of your service offerings and financials.

Just like a company builds a brand to stand out and influence a purchase, you need a brand to establish the same for your career. A brand is not an old dusty resume that you have not touched in years or a posting on the sea of job boards that exist today. A brand is a 360 degree view of who you are and it needs continuous effort to be established and effective.

Raveal can help you understand, formalize, and publish your Personal Brand.

Who are you? What are your beliefs?  What do you stand for?  What are your achievements?  What are your skills?  What are your ideas?

These and more all make up your Personal Brand.

Until a few years ago, your Personal Brand was entirely encapsulated in your resume.  We all know how limiting a resume is.  Does anyone actually remember that it is ideally 1 page in length and at most 2?

This is why we created Raveal.  We are creating new and innovative ways to help you stand out of the crowd.  A resume just does not cut it anymore.  Believe me, I have had my share of reviewing resumes and interviewing people throughout my career.  They all start to look the same after awhile.

Now, I don’t want to sell resumes short here.  You will always need one.  Like the technical specifications on the side of the new computer box or the nutrition information on a box of cereal, consider it your career specs.  But nutrition information and technical specs don’t provide your employer with the big picture of who you are.  You still need to sell your Personal Brand.  And that is where Raveal comes in.

Most Personal Brands are created without even knowing it.  They are creeping into various social, resume, and industry websites.  They are unstructured and unpolished.  And there has been a lot of bad press lately around employers finding damaging “mistakes” on social networks.  But “social” can be good a thing.  If you have a voice in your industry, no matter how small, that is a good thing.  It shows you are passionate about your work.  If there are even people listening on the other end?  It shows you are a leader in your industry.

Unfortunately, your brand is scattered through 2, 3, maybe 5 different networks.  Good luck putting all of that into a cohesive message your potential employer or client can listen to.

With Raveal, you showcase who you are and what you are about.  ”Your Brand.”  This includes a standard resume (your specifications), a showcase of you accomplishments (proving your specifications and talent), and the ability to aggregate your social “Voice” from across the internet (illustrating your views, ideas, and leadership).

With these tools, you can make yourself marketable –Rise to the top of your field.

Flash Gordon Theme

This theme is great for users that have many galleries.  It handles lots of files very well.  It makes great use of screen real estate.  The audio introduction is just a button instead of a line of text.  Instead of showing the name of a gallery, it shows the first image in the gallery as the tab.  It’s a great effect.

This new feature is something that required more work then we initially thought.  It required significant infrastructure and new expertise.  It was worth it.

When applying for job positions on Raveal, you are allowed to give an introduction to the company that posted it.  This is just text but the concept is right on.  Starting now, you will be able to make audio introductions along with your job application.  Think of it as Cover-Letter-Two-Point-Oh.  Remember, employers see many, many resumes during the course of a new hire.  Are you a good communicator?  Now you can show them at a crucial point: before they ever even call you for an interview.  This is just one more way Raveal will help you rise to the top.

A simple play button to introduce yourself

But what about employers that are not on Raveal?  What about potential clients?  We can’t leave them out.  You can post an audio introduction on your profile pages, as well.  Visitors coming from the Raveal search engine, from Google, from your direct link, or wherever will be able to hear you tell your story.  Without you ever calling them!

I wish everyone could have been at the meeting where we mocked this up.  It is exciting.  We think it is revolutionary for those on the job hunt.  I’m sure you will too.