Archive for November, 2009

Thank You Adobe Customers!

Posted on November 26, 2009 by RJ Jacquez | Comments (3)
In today’s fast paced world we live in, my favorite holiday is Thanksgiving because we get a chance to pause, go analog, and reflect with our families on the things we are most thankful for.  

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This year, I have a long list of reasons to be grateful for, including my family, my son, my wife, my parents (my dad will turn 80 years young in January), and my brothers and sisters.

I’m also thankful for my job, which I absolutely love, and which is only possible because of our Adobe customers. At Adobe we are very fortunate to have some of the most passionate users in the world and for that we are very thankful!

So today whether you are in the States celebrating Thanksgiving with your families, or outside the United States,

  • I thank you for using our Adobe products!
  • I thank our Certified Trainers around the world for being great Evangelists of our products!
  • I thank our Adobe partners for building technologies, which take out products beyond the included out-of-the-box functionality!
  • I thank our Twitter followers for being tuned in and engaged with us!
  • I especially thank my eLearning Suite and Technical Communication Suite customers

For our US customers, we hope today you have a great day with your family and Happy Thanksgiving!

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Take a break, watch Avatar Interactive Trailer Powered by Adobe AIR

Posted on November 25, 2009 by RJ Jacquez | Comments (1)
You probably have seen the trailer on TV for the upcoming Avatar motion picture from
20th Century Fox, but what you haven’t seen are the behind-the-scenes videos,
including interviews with the cast, which are provided exclusively via the Interactive Trailer powered by Adobe AIR.  		 

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This interactive application pauses at certain key points, to allow the viewer to jump out and watch a behind-the-scenes video, then jumps back to the trailer. The app also features feeds from Twitter, and YouTube.

I find the whole interactive experience amazing and the way Social Media is being used to build momentum for the premiere, simply brilliant! I highly recommend that you take a break and check it out!

To download the AIR application, click the image below to navigate to the download page.

Here are a couple of reviews for the Avatar Interactive Trailer powered by Adobe AIR:

 

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Using Scripting in RoboHelp 8 for Automating Tasks: A Practical Example

Posted on November 23, 2009 by RJ Jacquez | Comments (2)
One of the most powerful new features in RoboHelp 8, which rarely gets mentioned, is the new Scripting
engine, which Incidentally is the same scripting language also used in Photoshop,
Illustrator, Bridge, Soundbooth and other CS4 products. 		 

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Put simply, the RoboHelp Scripting Language is a Javascript-based scripting language that exposes APIs to invoke most of the basic functionality of RoboHelp in an effort to automate complex or repetitive tasks.

For developing new scripts, all of our Adobe applications with scripting support use Adobe ExtendScript Toolkit CS4, which naturally ships with Adobe RoboHelp 8.

For more information about ExtendScript Toolkit CS4, please click HERE.

Here’s a practical example of a RoboHelp 8 Script

A common question we hear from our Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2 customers is how do I recreate warning/tip/note tables created in FrameMaker in RoboHelp 8, where the images used are in the Reference Pages.

The following recording shows how two scripts can be used, based on the following two scenarios:

  1. If you use a two-cell table in FrameMaker.
  2. A slightly modified version if you use side-heads instead, to create warning/tip/note paragraphs.

To apply this to your documentation, please watch the recording in its entirety and at the end of it, you will have the ability to download both scripts and put them to work with your own FrameMaker files.

Click the image below to navigate to the original Tweet, which includes the link to the recording.

Related Blog Posts:

 

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The Next generation of Acrobat.com is Here

Posted on November 21, 2009 by RJ Jacquez | Comments (1)
Today (11/21/09) Adobe has launched a new and much improved version of Acrobat.com, our
Online Office Suite, which includes the following online services:		  

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  • 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:

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

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

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

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New eSeminar: Adobe AIR 101 for Technical Communicators

Posted on November 19, 2009 by RJ Jacquez | Comments (0)

When: Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 9:00am Pacific Time

Registration: Click HERE to Register

Duration: 90 minutes to accommodate for questions

  

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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:

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What Flash Player 10.1 means for eLearning and mLearning

Posted on November 17, 2009 by RJ Jacquez | Comments (0)
You may have heard that today (11/17/09) Adobe launched public betas of Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2.0 on Adobe Labs.
I wanted to share my excitement about the launches, and my thoughts regarding
what these two technology milestones mean for Technical Communicators and eLearning Professionals. 		 

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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:

 

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A Sneak Peek of Adobe Captivate for Mac

Posted on November 10, 2009 by RJ Jacquez | Comments (12)
I’m currently in San Jose, CA, attending Adobe Learning Summit 09 and DevLearn 09 and yesterday, in one of my sessions, I showed a sneak peek of the much anticipated Adobe Captivate for Mac software. The session went really well and I wanted to share publicly the same demonstration I provided.  

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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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Adobe Debuts Photoshop.com Mobile for Android

Posted on November 6, 2009 by RJ Jacquez | Comments (0)

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Nov. 6, 2009 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today introduced the Photoshop.com Mobile for Android™ software, extending Adobe® industry-leading digital imaging technology to users of the Google Mobile™ operating system. The release comes less than a month after the launch of Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone, which quickly established itself as one of the “Top Free” applications on the Apple mobile platform. The Android application equips consumers with quick and easy image-editing tools, color adjustments and instant photo-sharing capabilities. Photoshop.com Mobile optimizes the camera-phone experience by allowing users to browse for their photos online and on their phone, directly from the application. The application is free and available today at the Android Market.

  

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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:

Product Page URL

http://mobile.photoshop.com/android

Watch the Demo Video

http://mobile.photoshop.com/android/howtovideo.html?sdid=FBNUA

Follow Photoshop.com on Twitter @photoshop.com

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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Twitter for Technical Communicators: Recording now Available

Posted on November 4, 2009 by RJ Jacquez | Comments (8)
Yesterday (11/03/09) Christie Fidura and I hosted an eSeminar entitled Twitter 101 for Technical Communicators, and I’m happy to report that we had a great turn out and it went very well.  

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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):

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