The Spirit of Innovation!

1981. Out of the tens of thousands of students that pass through the University, only a select group have a vision and courage to take such a risk of creating their own degree that nobody has ever heard about and maybe nobody will ever hire. This idea frightens most students.  

I am so fortunate and grateful to the University of Utah, Bachelors of University Studies program and Dr. Shaw. Its new program allowed student to design their own University degree.  

I was enrolled as a Computer Science Major. I was teaching computer programming labs as a teacher's assistant in both Merrill Engineering and the Business school. I noticed business students and engineering students had  completely different ideas about developing computer applications. How they thought, spoke, approached problems were different. 

I didn't fit into either group. But I could easily communicate and understand each group. That is when I envisioned becoming the middle man. I felt I could interview the business people, analyze and understand their information and functional needs and requirements of a new computer application. Then design the system in the correct format that the engineers could easily use to code the software.

I proposed the concept to Dr. Shaw. who became my sponsor in the B.U.S. program. I titled my degree Analysis of Computer Based Systems. A couple of years later, Dr. Shaw informed me that my B.U.S. degree was being used as a template for the University to develop what turned out to be one of the most popular and highest paying degrees for graduating students. It was called Management of Information Systems. 

In the summer of 1992, John visited his programmer buddy Clark Whitehead, who was in charge of University’s Administrative computer operations. During that visit, Clark’s programmer staff showed John a very small, very pixelated digital video clip about the size of a postage stamp. John was quoted saying, “this is the future”. 

Immediately after, John shutdown Digital Performance, his first company providing government information systems consulting. He started taking classed in the Windows Operating System and Advanced BASIC programming language. 

He experimented until he figured out the algorithm to play these small digital video files full screen in smooth natural motion. Equally as important, John’s algorithm could play the video files on off-the-shelf Windows 95/NT personal computers. Consumers did not need to purchase accelerator board to plug into the PC. This was often needed for the high graphic demand playing gaming software. John’s program is believed to be the first full screen video player software with advance features such as real-time resizing for the Windows 95/NT environment. It is unknown if Apple had such a full screen video player at that time. 

John founded ImageMind Software in 1994. Before releasing ImageMind’s first product, the graphic designer told John he needed a company logo. John did a short meditation and an image of the VHS video record view port came to mind and became ImageMind’s logo. 

The year was 1993.  When one door closes another will open for Cruz. And this time was no exception. Cruz caught his next vision when his old University classmate showed him a small video playing on a PC, something he never seen before. Cruz restructured his life around that single moment. He learned the Windows operating system, refreshed his knowledge in Advance Basic programming language and studied the hidden program libraries inside the Windows operating system. 

Cruz consulted with Microsoft technical programming support about writing Windows screen savers. The tech team was very helpful in providing the general idea, until they heard of John’s idea, to make a full screen video screen saver. The technical programmers told John that it is impossible to play video full screen in Windows. John replied, “not on my PC”.

Cruz full screen video screen saver gave many customers their first full screen digital video viewing experienced on the Windows PC. The screen saver allowed users to select various short video clips to play as their Windows screen saver. The video John used was donated by KUED, at the University of Utah. John digitized parasailing videos, galloping horses, nature video and colorful fish swimming video among the six that were shipped with the product. 

John’s video screen saver was unique because it did not require customers to buy additional PC hardware to play video. It worked on off-the-shelf Windows 95/NT PCs. The product was first sold in Egghead stores across the USA and later expanded distribution into various electronic retail stores. 

Why were screen savers important? On the early personal computers, any text or image would burn-in the PC monitor if displayed for more than a few minutes. Therefore, Windows would automatically start a program that displayed moving images and line drawings on the screen. Playing video was certainly a much more sophisticated screen savers of the time. 

The retail product included eleven 3.5” diskettes. Each video clip lasted only seven seconds due to the required file size and limited PC disk storage. 

 (PC Magazine Best Product Award) 

The year was 1995, John F Cruz had successfully released his first retail product Full Screen Video Screen Saver for Windows 95/NT in EggHead stores. Many magazines reported on the product. Now John wanted to redo his video screen saver, but using the most impressive video in the world. Of course, that belonged to none other than Discovery Channel, known for its beautiful, creative and visually stimulating nature and wildlife videos. 

John approached Discovery Channel several times at tradeshows without getting any meetings. Finally, they asked John what did he want? John explained his video screen saver product. And the new CD-ROM technology that was just introduced to the market and replacing diskettes with a faster read/write and high storage capabilities. This allowed video to be packaged for longer play times with better resolution and more variety. Discovery Channel agreed and John began programming Great Moments of Discovery Full Screen Video Screen Saver at his Salt Lake City condo in 1994. 

December 12, 1994. Discovery Channel's press release announcing Great Moments of Discovery Full Screen Video Saver written by John F Cruz. The product was shipped with 30 colorful videos using the high quality nature footage produced by Discovery Channel and TV New Zealand's Natural History Unit. 

The year was 1996. The video screen saver products captured the attention of investors Mr. Stevens, Mr. Creer whom proposed an investment into ImageMind. This gave John F Cruz the opportunity to develop new innovations. John could incorporate his video player algorithm into new and first to market products giving many people their first experience to create their own digital video and share with others. 

John F Cruz designed and programmed his next software product called Video Express Viewer for his company ImageMind. Video Express Viewer was a first version full featured digital video player for Windows 95/NT. The software featured many new video playing options not yet seen on the market. John later designed the product to resemble a TV remote control with many advance features including video view password protection, real-time resizing and special effects on control buttons not seen in any other software product of the time. 

The enhanced version was supported by the talented programming efforts of Craig Johnson and Stan Williams, with Jeremy Gehring responsible for Internet website and online distribution, customer support, and software testing. 

Video Express Viewer was on shelves in various retail stores next to John’s video screen saver product. However, as the popularity of the Internet grew, ImageMind released a limited featured free version which could be download from the Internet. After popular tech TV show CNET reported on Video Express Viewer, download sites with the limited version crashed due to the user demand. Other networks such as FOX Tech Report covered Video Express Viewer. 

The retail box also had a special story. Over lunch, John drew a picture on a napkin of video coming out of a computer monitor to reflect Video Express Viewer’s feature. The napkin was giving to a graphics artist who took a picture of the computer monitor on John’s desk for the graphic used on the retail box. Video Express Viewer was shipped on CD-ROM which included some of the Discovery Channel video clips from the Great Moments of Discovery Full Screen Video Screen Saver that John had already developed.

 Today in 2023, home user’s average Internet connections speeds are fast at 8.6Megabytes per second and we have YouTube as the most popular streaming video sharing portal. However, in the year 1996, Internet speeds were 14.4kilobytes pers second, 28.8kps and 56kps bandwidth speeds. So YouTube was not possible. Or was it? 

In 1996 John F Cruz and ImageMind developed Video Express Album. Video Express Album was a digital content hosting web portal like YouTube that allowed people to create an account and upload either recorded or imported personal voice or video files. These files could then stream over the Internet allowing friends and family to watch without downloading. Sounds like YouTube, doesn’t it?  

Video Express Album was a brilliant product vision. But this product was at the mercy pending a faster Internet. User created content was still too much of an obstacle for most home users. Thus came another lesson for Cruz’s journey. You must innovate to the market conditions. 

The year was 1997. DOT COM was the phrase used to talk about tech companies. The Internet was evolving. Connecting to the Internet required a modem for most home users. Faster connections started to become available, but very expensive. The most popular app on the Internet was email. Pictures were shared as file attachments. However large files still took considerable time to download.  . 

John F Cruz believed he could take email to the next level by making a system that sends full screen video emails as easy as sending text emails. He knew the ins and outs of streaming technology. He conceived a streaming video email service whereby people could record a private video message, send it to anyone anywhere in the world and there was no downloading a file to play the video. This could change the entire concept of the email industry. 

By 1997, John F Cruz and his ImageMind team had developed numerous software products for digital video playback. Many of the products John designed gave many people nationwide their first video viewing experience on Windows 95/NT personal computers. ImageMind products also gave many customers their first experience to record and share their own personal audio and video files. 

As the Internet was developing, major companies were developing ways to ergonomically share media online. And thus the development of video streams on the Internet vs full file downloads. 

This technology was unknown to many in the consumer market, except for the power users that jumped on the latest technologies. ImageMind quickly incorporated this new technology in its product development. It captured the attention of media and customers like the simplicity of use that ImageMind designed into its products. 

John F Cruz reviewed the new technology called streaming media. Several companies were competing to become the defacto standard at the time. John favored Microsoft’s Window’s Media (later renamed NetShow). Microsoft had available developer technical support. This was a big factor. Secondly, because John already had a good working relationship with Microsoft HQ and was given early access to Windows Media, which prior to official release was code named COUGAR. 

Microsoft interviewed John Cruz for his impression and experience where streaming technology was headed. John recalled his first experience of viewing his first digital video in his friend Clark Whitehead’s office. John repeated his initial vision and said in the interview, “it’s the future”. 

Microsoft went on to become the leader in streaming technology. Now streaming technology is as common place as the Internet itself. Streaming media on computers and electronic devices did indeed become the future. 

The year approximately 1998. Software distribution and APPs changed as the Internet began to offer faster and more stable connection speeds at affordable prices. John F Cruz changed the design of Video Express Email from a retail product purchased in stores to an online service. 

The Video Express Email system became its own web portal. Customers logged in. An ImageMind APP written by Stan Williams and Craig Johnson, would automatically download allowing customers to records audio or video emails into scalable streaming files. Jeremy Gehring configured system graphical presentation and technical operation as setting up the new online payment procedure. 

Customers now could buy online and immediately start to use the Video Express Email service. This was an attractive distribution module that many software companies also starting using. The new version of Video Email started to grow market share.

Eventually the Video Express Email system was fully automated. There was no hands-on management needed. No human interaction. The system ran itself, until the system was turned off due to the hosting server companies shutting down. The DOT COM crashed arrived. It was unfortunate that John F Cruz could not proceed to design the Video Express Conferencing. 

1998-99. When John F Cruz started his company ImageMind in 1993, the Internet was unknown and just being released to the consumer market at very slow bandwidth rates. The standard for software distribution were the numerous retail stores including EggHead Software, Computer City and CompUSA. ImageMind Software now had 3 retail products selling in these stores, Video Express Viewer, Video Express Email and Video Screen Saver. 

This software distribution model was changing and ImageMind quickly adapted to this change. As the Internet developed, email became popular as well as personal website sites and online forums. People were going online.

Seeing this trend, John F Cruz designed the Video Express Portal which his programming team turned into reality. 

The Video Express Portal main products were now immediately available for online purchase and use such as click record and send media email without file attachments, send up to 10 minute audio messages without file attachments and embed your own videos on your website. Added to the products list was media instant messaging, the first of its kind and Campaign manager that allowed marketers to send streaming videos email campaigns to a list of email and report back who watched the video message.

The year was 2000. Seattle was getting ready to implode its famous Kingdome. Microsoft’s streaming division saw this as a way to show off its advances of its streaming technology called NetShow. So they contacted John F Cruz who was a leading developer using Microsoft’s streaming technology. John accepted the task to develop a website that visitors could celebrate the upcoming Kingdome implosion. 

John designed a website called “Implode a Friend” and featured world-famous implosion videos that could be emailed to friends and family. When the email was received, a message reading “You’ve Just Been Imploded” displayed in the email and the selected implosion video would start to stream. 

The Implode a Friend website became a huge success. Visitors could send implosion videos to multiple friends. And those friends would then go to the Implode a Friend website and send to several of their friends. The traffic grew so quickly that the streaming files were moved to one of Microsoft’s largest server hosting partners. The design of Implode a Friend was entirely programmed within ImageMind’s talented programming team.

The “Implode a Friend” website met all of Microsoft’s objectives and successfully supported the now famous Seattle Kingdome implosion hall of fame. 

John F Cruz designed a website called “Implode a Friend” and featured world famous implosion videos that could be emailed to friends and family. When the email was received, a message reading “You’ve Just Been Imploded” displayed in the email and the selected video would start to stream. 

The Implode a Friend website became a huge success. Visitors could send implosion videos to multiple friends. And those friends would then go to the Implode a Friend website and send to several of their friends. The traffic grew so quickly that the streaming files were moved to one of Microsoft’s largest server hosting partners. Stan Williams, Craig Johnson and Jeremy Gehring supported the development of the website.