Adobe in Technical Communication and eLearning

• Web Conferencing via ConnectNow — Host online meetings with easy-to-use web conferencing
• File Sharing and Storage — Rather than sending large e-mail attachments back and forth, simply share your file online with a URL that is always the same
• Online Adobe PDF Creation— Easily create Adobe® PDF documents from your existing files in Microsoft® Word, Excel®, PowerPoint®, and many other applications
• Adobe Buzzword beta — Write, edit and comment on documents with your team
• Acrobat.com Presentations beta — Work with others to create stunning presentations
• Acrobat.com Tables beta — Collaborate on data and information typically shared in spreadsheets or simple databases
  

Here are useful resources for all things Acrobat.com, in the way of Tweets, which I posted earlier today. Note the links in the tweets below are live:

• [Breaking Adobe News] The NEW Acrobat.com is now Live: http://bit.ly/62EPj3 about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

• For the full #Acrobat.com experience, download the NEW version of the AIR app. http://bit.ly/4mP8XJ about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

• You can also share large files in Outlook via Acrobat.com with this integrated add-in (updated): http://bit.ly/6bMl35 about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

• incidentally, if you have the Acrobat.com AIR app installed, launch it, you'll get an update notification. Click Update. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

• Acrobat.com also works on your mobile device, powered by scanR®, more info here: http://bit.ly/4Ly6gn 43 minutes ago from TweetDeck

• Working on eSeminar for how Technical Communicators can leverage the Acrobat.com Cloud for conducting Reviews w/ SMEs #techcomm 5 minutes ago from TweetDeck

• Check out what it's like to view a Shared file on Acrobat.com. Just shared this PDF publicly: http://bit.ly/5vQTpu 16 minutes ago from TweetDeck

• @c4lpt I'd like to recommend our new Acrobat.com Online Office Suite to your list of Top Learning tools in same category as Google Docs. 41 minutes ago from TweetDeck

• My Adobe Team #FollowFriday this week is @acrobatdotcom. Trust me, you'll want to follow them. about 22 hours ago from TweetDeck

Additionally, here are previous blog posts I have published on Acrobat.com:

• Sharing Large Files on Twitter via Acrobat.com

• Embedding PDFs in Blogs via Acrobat.com

• Acrobat.com Integration in eLearning Suite and Tech Comm Suite

Finally, here are some early reviews on the new Acrobat.com:

• [ReadWriteWeb] Adobe's Upgrades Acrobat.com, Launches New Mobile App
• [Examiner.com] Adobe unifies and enhances Acrobat.com
• [VentureBeat] Adobe’s Acrobat.com comes to smartphones

To learn about breaking Adobe News, follow me on Twitter @rjacquez.

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Login instructions: Once you register, you will receive a confirmation e-mail, which will include a URL for you to join the Connect Pro room the day of the event. I will conduct a series of audio tests as participants begin to join.

Click here to make sure your system is properly configured to participate in this Acrobat Connect Pro event.

Audio: The audio portion for the eSeminar will be available via your computer speakers ONLY, through Voice over IP (VoIP) and thus no phone number is provided

Description: The Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) platform continues to gain momentum with more than 200+ Million installations in less than two year and on 11/17/09 Adobe announced the availability of the public beta of Adobe AIR 2.0.

On December 15, 2008, eWeek Labs selected AIR as one of the Top 10 Products of the Year. eWEEK Labs staff wrote: “The product that comes closest right now to the true vision of this next-generation Web application is Adobe AIR. Descended from Flash, AIR makes it possible to build powerful and interactive applications that have all of the benefits of both Web and desktop apps ...”

In this eSeminar, you will learn the ABCs of Adobe AIR and the reasons why AIR is the ultimate platform for the next generation of Technical Documentation. We will also go over the reasons why leading companies like the New York Times, eBay and TweetDeck are building powerful applications on Adobe AIR. And finally how Adobe is using AIR to deliver cutting edge Web 2.0 Community Help for our Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2 customers.

Related Recording:

• Twitter for Technical Communicators: Recording now Available

AIR,eSeminar,TechComm,Technical Communicators,TCS2,RoboHelp

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Why is Flash Player 10.1 unlike any previous version?

You are probably wondering why is this release such as big deal? Two reasons, namely: 1) This is the first time the same version of the Flash Player will be available across Windows, Mac, Linux, Netbooks, as well as Mobile devices.

You may recall the earlier, less powerful Flash Lite for mobile devices, Flash Player 10.1 is the next generation.

And 2) This is the first Flash Player version that comes out of the collaborative efforts of the Open Screen Project, which is an industry-wide effort, led by Adobe and which also includes close to 50 partners, including ARM, Cisco, Google, HTC, Intel, Motorola, Nokia, nVidia, OpenTV, Palm, Qualcomm, Verizon Wireless and others.

Singular experience, multiple devices

The vision shared by members of the Open Screen Project is simple: Enable consumers to engage with rich Internet experiences seamlessly across any device, anywhere.

Partners in the Open Screen Project are working together to provide a consistent runtime environment for open web browsing and standalone applications — taking advantage of Adobe® Flash® Player and, in the future, Adobe® AIR®. This consistent runtime environment will remove barriers to publishing content and applications across desktops, mobile phones, televisions, and other consumer electronics.

With the explosion in the number of mobile devices, the eLearning industry has been actively exploring Mobile Learning (mLearning) and the challenges are well documented, namely the lack of a consistent runtime across multiple devices, which eLearning developers can rely on.

This is why I'm personally excited about today's announcement and the reason I Tweeted the following:

In case you missed it, at Adobe MAX, Kevin Lynch demonstrated Flash Player 10.1 running on various mobile devices. Here's a short version of his demo:

Additional Resources:

• Adobe Flash Player 10.1 on Labs
• The Open Screen Project
• Partners in the Open Screen Project
• The Adobe Flash Platform
• Adobe eLearning Solutions

eLearning,mLearning,Flash player 10.1,rjacquez

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I hope you like it and incidentally, I have announced on Twitter that I will be giving away a free copy of Adobe Captivate for Mac when it becomes available to one of my followers, which I will randomly pick when I reach 2,000 followers.  To participate, all you have to do is follow me @rjacquez. If you are already following me, no need to do anything else.

Click the image below to launch the recording:

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The Photoshop.com team shared the following screenshots of the app,
which I have made into a Captivate Slideshow. Click Play below to check them out.

Additional Resources:

If you have an Android phone, I'd love to get your feedback regarding this app, please send me a Tweet @rjacquez

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I started the eSeminar making a case for why Twitter is the perfect platform for Technical Communicators.  Here are some reasons I listed:

• Twitter is the perfect platform for you to become an Information Facilitator
  
• Twitter gets you closer to your end-users
  
• Twitter gives you unbiased feedback about your products and services
  
• Twitter enables you to drive traffic to your documentation
  
• Twitter can raise your corporate visibility
  
• Twitter enables you to follow conferences without being there
  
• Twitter is an essential business tool
  
• Twitter enables you to discover new information
  
• Twitter is Simple: Anyone can follow you and you can follow anyone else
  
• Twitter is FUN
  

I also shared my personal reasons why I use and love Twitter.

If you missed Twitter 101 for Technical Communicators, or want to watch it again, heres' the recording.

TIP: I typically set my desktop resolution to 1024 x 768 for best recording results, however because I was showing apps, which require high resolution, you will notice some distortion in the demonstration part of the recording. Something you may want to try is to click the "Scroll" button at the bottom left of the Connect Pro window, which will help you zoom in closer and follow the action around the presenter's mouse.  To the right is what the button looks like in all Connect Pro recordings.

Related Blog Post(s):

• A running list of Twitter Best Practices

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Great interview!

For the same reasons Ian and his team chose Adobe AIR as the platform for developing and deploying TweetDeck to their millions of customers, our RoboHelp team is betting on Adobe AIR Help as the next generation of User Assistance (i.e. Online Help).

With the launch of Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2, which includes RoboHelp 8, the ability to generate Help based on Adobe AIR, as well as the included Help systems in TCS2, which are entirely based on Adobe AIR, have been one of the highlights of this release and we are happy to see customers excited about the potential of this platform.

If you are new to our story around Online Help based on Adobe AIR, here are some resources to help you learn more:

• A Tour around the new TCS2 Web 2.0 inspired User Assistance

• If you have Captivate 4, RoboHelp 8 or FrameMaker 9, press F1 to try the Help in Adobe AIR format. If you don't you can try these applications from the cloud HERE. Once you are in, launch any of these apps and press F1.

• Download a sample AIR app created by Adobe RoboHelp 8

• Seminar Recording: Web 2.0 Documentation using Adobe AIR and RoboHelp 8

• Check out "Community Help" on Adobe Labs, which is based on Adobe AIR

tweetdeck,adobe,air,flex,interview

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1. Choose your Twitter username wisely

Simply put, the shorter the username, the better. If you haven't signed up for a Twitter account just head over to http://twitter.com and click "Sign up now." One of the most important decisions you will make is selecting a username, which will be your very own unique ID on Twitter. In doing so, consider the fact that a Tweet is limited to only 140 characters, so every letter counts. This becomes even more important when someone ReTweets (RT) your Tweets, which will include your original tweet plus your Twitter username, plus RT. Again the shorter your username, the better.

If you already have a Twitter account and want to change your username to a shorter version, just head over to your Twitter account, and in the Account tab, you can change it.  I recently changed my Spanish account from rjacquezEspanol to rjacquezES and it's already working better for this account.

2. Upload a Picture of yourself

Nothing says Newbie or Spammer like using the default Twitter picture one gets after signing up for an account. Twitter is about having great conversations and it's nice to see a picture of the person with whom you are conversing. I highly recommend you upload a picture of yourself, rather than a cartoon or another picture of something other than you, your followers will appreciate it.

3. Add a More info URL to your profile

This is an important piece of your profile and I recommend that you make this your blog. If you don't have one, I suggest you join the blogosphere by starting your own blog.  Your Blog and your Twitter account will go hand in hand because Twitter provides an easy way to add links to your blog posts.

4. Add a One Line Bio

This is limited to 160 characters, but it's just as important as uploading a picture of yourself and a URL to your profile, because most people will decided whether to follow you or not based on your Bio.

5. Add a Background image

Consider your Twitter page your very own personal website and just as a website has a look-and-feel, so should your Twitter page. While Twitter does provide a Design section where you can pick a background image and colors, I recommend that you spend time creating a custom background, which showcases what you are into and what you tweet about. I designed my own Twitter background using a free Photoshop template I downloaded from Rames Studios' page. There are plenty of free Twitter backgrounds out there, including those from http://www.twitterbackgrounds.com/which are easy to apply to your own page.

6. Don't Protect your Tweets

Social Networking sites like Twitter are about sharing, discovering, learning and having great conversations, and thus protecting your Tweets completely defeats the purpose of everything Twitter stands for.

7. Don't auto-DM your new Followers

Perhaps this has happened to you, too, you find someone interesting to follow and as soon as you do, you get an unsolicited Direct Message (DM) from the user, with a link to join a group or download something, or worse yet promoting a money-making idea. What a turn off and likely the number one reason to get unfollowed immediately. In my opinion, if your actions on Twitter are respectful and professional and your Tweets bring value to your followers, they will go out of their way to learn more about your products and services.

8. Always add context when Tweeting URL links

Lately I've seen too many tweets containing only a hyperlink, which makes me a bit suspicious and I rarely click the link, and when I see a consistent pattern, I usually unfollow the Twitterer. I feel that it's common sense (and common courtesy) to explain what you are Tweeting about and what the link you are posting is all about.

Here's a tip for TweetDeck users: in the Settings dialog box, you can enable "Show preview information for short URLs," which will do just that before you choose to visit the link.

9. Make your Tweets ReTweet-friendly

When someone ReTweets your Tweets, they are helping you spread the word by sharing your tweet with their own followers, so the least we can do is to make it easy on the people who are ReTweeting for you. One way of doing this, as suggested in the comment below by Matthew Bibby, is to make sure you leave plenty of room (perhaps as much as 20 characters) in the original Tweet.

10. More to come...

 Related Topics:

• Twitter for Technical Communicators: Recording now Available

twitter,best practices,rjacquez,tips and tricks

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1. Shantanu Narayen, Adobe's CEO, will open the conference

This year, we are delighted to have Shantanu welcome attendees to our conference and provide the opening comments and in general, set the tone for the day. Among other things, Shantanu will speak about Adobe's commitment to the field of eLearning.

2. Clay Shirky will deliver the Keynote

We are fortunate to have Clay Shirkly, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, especially because of the impact Social Media and Informal Learning is having on eLearning today.

3. Learn Best Practices from top eLearning Customers

   We have a "Best Practices" track where the following customers will share eLearning best practices and lessons learned: Xerox, Rexi Media, Franklin Covey, Florida Dept. of Law Enforcement, Thomson Reuters, Constellation Wines, Brookwood

4. Be the first to see a sneak peek of Adobe Captivate for MAC

I will personally be delivering a sneak peek session at the conference, where I will showcase our development progress of Adobe Captivate for MAC. Furthermore, I will also be showing an eLearning project we are working on, which has to do with offline eLearning and it's based on Adobe AIR.

5. Meet the fine people at Adobe who work on your favorite software

Throughout the conference, you will have the opportunity to meet Adobe employees who work specifically on the Adobe eLearning Suite, Captivate, Acrobat and Acrobat Connect Pro. Furthermore, during the closing general session, attendees will have an opportunity to pose their questions to the Adobe experts. This is an opportunity to hear about new technologies and get a better understanding about learning innovation in virtual classrooms, interactive content, simulations and games.

6. Network with other eLearning Professionals

This is your opportunity to meet and network with other eLearning Professionals who use the same eLearning toolbox that you do, and who are likely thinking about the same things you are, Social Media, Informal Learning, Virtual Classrooms, Rapid eLearning, Twitter, Mobile Learning, etc.  Speaking of Twitter, if you haven't done so, please consider signing up and be ready to tweet your view of the conference by using the #als09 hashtag.

7. Adobe Captivate Beginner and Advanced sessions

Regardless of your level of expertise with Adobe Captivate, there are plenty of session to take your knowledge to the next level.

8. Learn more about the Adobe eLearning Suite

This conference is a great opportunity for you to learn more about the benefits of the Adobe eLearning Suite and how all the tools in the Suite are well-integrated and provide everything you need to create rich eLearning experiences.

9. Learn about Connect Pro as a Learning Management System and as a Virtual Classroom Solution

Both Peter Ryce and Randah McKinnie, from the Adobe Connect Pro team, will be on hand at the conference and will also deliver presentations on why Acrobat Connect Pro Training is a great LMS solution and Tips and Tricks for delivering Virtual classrooms respectively.

10. Check out what participants have to say about last year's Adobe Learning Summit

Last year's conference was a smashing success. Check out what participant's said about last year's conference.  Click HERE and the video at the top of the page will begin playing automatically.

11. Adobe Learning Summit 09 is co-located with DevLearn 09

I know I said 10 reasons, but here's an extra one. This year's ALS conference takes place on November 9th and is co-located with DevLearn 09, which begins the very next day, 09/10, so if you are going to DevLearn, please consider also attending the Adobe Learning Summit.

Hope to see you there!

adobe,learning summit,eLearning,als09,reasons,devlearn,shantanu narayen,clay shirky

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Think about it, at this very moment you customers are having conversations about your products and your brand whether you choose to participate or not. I'm happy to say that I, along with many other Adobe colleagues are fully engaged in these conversations with our customers and I highly recommend that you do, too.

I don't think it would be an overstatement to say that thanks to Social Media, we are experiencing a fundamental shift in the way we discover, share and consume information. This was the topic of my closing presentation at this year's Technical Communication UK conference.

Today, we are witnessing an explosion of information and it's estimated that new technical information is doubling every 18 months with much of this content being user-generated.

I see a tremendous opportunity here, where Technical Communicators can become Technical Information facilitators. After all, as I often say, no one knows your company's technical information better than you do.

More specifically, from all the Social Networking platforms, I see Twitter as the perfect solution Technical Communicators should embrace.

To get you started, I'm hosting a Twitter 101 session for Technical Communicators, where I will share from personal experience how you can become the go-to person for your customers looking for technical information about your products and services.

Click HERE for more information and to Register.

Follow me on Twitter @rjacquez

twitter,technical communicators,rjacquez,eSeminar

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