Slidedeck is a jquery slideshow plugin for WordPress. For users unable to build a content slider, this might be a nice option. Slidedeck comes in two versions: a free version and a PRO version. The PRO version costs, but you have the ability to customize the plugin further.

Even with just the free version, it is a pretty good jquery slider. You can specify the size, what type of posts (example: recent, featured, or popular posts), and the navigation type.

To implement the plugin into your site, you can either include a PHP generated code snippet into your theme or create a different slideshow for individual posts (example: blog entries with multiple photos.)

If you use this plugin for your content slider, you will have to put the image in your post, and no, not just as a thumbnail, but within the post (grabs the first pic available.) I really would like to see this plugin take advantage of including that option in the future at least for the freebie version. It would make things a lot easier. However, even if there are no images, the text for the post will take up the whole area at least.

Have you tried this plugin?