San Dimas Project Beta Overview

by Mike Hamilton Jun 19th 2007

We first reported on the coming San Dimas project, from eBay, back in April when it was announced at the Web 2.0 Conference. At then we told you about being able to buy the first invite to the beta test. Well we didn't buy the firs invite but we did get an invite to the beta from when we signed up back in April.

Over the weekend we got our invite to the beta testing of the San Dimas project. The application is designed to be a client side interface to eBay. The project is written using the new Adobe AIR platform. So when we went to the download page we were told that the installer would install Adobe AIR as well.

After a few restarts of the installer due to our firewall blocking the installer, we refreshed the page, and was able to start the install of the San Dimas project. When we did we were greeted by the not so comforting screen below saying the Publisher was UNVERIFIED and it was asking for UNRESTRICTED access to our system. We completed the install and you can see some shots from the application itself after the jump.

When the application first started we were greeted with the obligatory "thanks for ~~doing our work~~ beta testing" screen. Once that was cleared away the screen to provide our eBay log-in information was shown.

Once you are logged in you are greeting by the nice home page, which has most if not all the information you could want to know quickly. The main portion of the screen is taken up with images of items which will take you to the search results for that item. Below that is a section that can be used to submit feature requests and bug reports. On the right is a sidebar showing information from "My eBay" showing your watched items, items you are bidding on and a listing of the top searches.

Then you have icons in the top right and bottom right to access the different functions of the application. From those in the bottom right you can quickly see what items you are watching, which you are bidding on, and what ones you need to pay for or recently paid for. In the top right you can get to the part of the application to search for items you want, as well as history of items you viewed recently, and settings to change what filters you want applied in your browsing.

In the next part we will show a walk through of the searching using San Dimas.

Tags: eBay, San Dimas Project, SanDimasProject

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Me said 1:26PM on 6-19-2007

This looks slick.

How does the invite system work?

Mike Hamilton said 1:40PM on 6-19-2007

Thanks for reading and commenting. To try to get in on the beta, all you have to do is to go to the San Dimas Project site at http://www.sandimasproject.com/ and click the "Sign Up for the Beta" and enter your information.

Dr Rumble said 2:49PM on 6-19-2007

All right, thanks. I'm looking forward to trying out eBay's 2.0 experience.

Alan Lewis said 8:09PM on 6-19-2007

Hi - I'm the San Dimas product manager. Thanks for helping us test the product, Mike, this is a "real" beta, not just a marketing gimick, and your work is appreciated.

We will be digitally signing the installer soon - hopefully within the next few weeks, so the scary installer screen should be less so soon.

As Mike said, users can sign up at projectsandimas.com, and will be invited on a first-come, first served basis. In other words, do it NOW before more people find out about it :-)

-Alan

Alan Lewis said 8:11PM on 6-19-2007

Actually - http://www.projectsandimas.com and http://www.sandimasproject.com both point to the same website.

-Alan

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