10 years ago, this is how the Acrobat page looked.....

http://web.archive.org/web/20030602212156/www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/main.html

I think I still have those trousers somewhere.....

As a result of the call blitz I'm running a few online eSeminars this week, if you want to find out a little more and perhaps register too, here's the url you need....

http://www.adobe.com/uk/special/acrobatsolutions/index.html

just take a look and hit the "Register" button. The eseminars are running on Tuesday and Thursday and I'll be looking at....

• Manage collaborative reviews in multiple formats. Track, collect and organise feedback faster than ever, share files safely and streamline approvals electronically.


• Turn paper-based workflows into electronic formats. Cut costs drastically, find and re-use existing information and increase responsiveness.


• Keep sensitive information in the right hands. Control user access, set permissions and passwords, redact confidential data and certify finalised files.


• Simplify your archiving and document compliance. Preserve official documents in PDF format, combine and deliver content more easily and reduce your company's liabilty

The surveys found that while collaboration is pervasive across both regions, nearly 70 percent of knowledge workers believe improvements are needed, with top benefits sought including the speed and efficiency of collaboration and an associated reduction of paperwork (each approximately two-thirds). On this and many key findings, workers in the United States and Europe found strong common ground.

• Knowledge workers favor familiar collaborative tools--email and attachments--over newer alternatives, including wikis, blogs and social networks. At the same time, they recognize the limitations of traditional methods and seek changes to improve efficiency.
• Workers struggle with gathering information from others as part of day-to-day collaborative work. They collect the same pieces of information repeatedly and often by traditional means, such as telephone or email. But the inability to do so quickly and accurately results in frustration and inefficiency.
• The expectations for more compelling communications are rising, and current collaborative tools do not fully empower knowledge workers.
• Increased collaboration also means companies are more often exposing sensitive information. While organizations regularly invest in technology and define processes to secure data, the behavior and attitudes of workers are not in tune with enterprise IT security concerns.

Click here for the full survey.....

Since most document loss is accidental... (I send you a document and you think the content is so great you share it with some who actually shouldn't really have access) ... If you watermark documents with the appropriate phrase, they're less likely to be accidentaly shared. It's easy to imagine how a large "Company Confidential" watermark might stop someone from inadvertently sharing a document with partners or customers.

The best bit? It's really easy to do, take a look here.....

....see I told you!

So Saturday was poor, then on Sunday Manchester United were beaten 0-2 at Anfield by Liverpool who ended their worst sequence of results since 1987. It has to be said, we were.... deservedly beaten at Anfield, crikey that was hard to say.

....and now the good

Sport!
Watford beat Sheffield Midweek 4-1 on Friday night, a match we all thoroughly enjoyed in the Rookery.

Saturday's final NCT class has left me feeling like I might not be completely all at sea when our first born son comes along... By the way, this is what he's currently looking like...

The Nursery is coming along a treat too, 3 coats of paint in, 2 to go!

Today I'll be on a training course to improve my communcation and presentation skills, I'm hoping that future Blog posts will make more sense. I'm also hoping that it will help me create some new innovative presentations on aspects of Acrobat. You know how it is, you can often describe a subtle nuance of your work in coversation but are unable to put it down in a more formal way, let's hope todays training might help that.

TTFN
Steve

The 2,400 page Defense Manual of Security, authored by the Ministry of Defense to help high-ranking military and defense officials keep documents safe from leaks, was published on Wikileaks, a Web site designed for anonymous leaks of documents from governments and other organizations, The Daily Telegraph reported Monday.

"Leaks usually take the form of reports in the public media which appear to involve the unauthorized disclosure of official information (whether protectively marked or not) that causes political harm or embarrassment to either the U.K. Government or the Department concerned," the document reads in its "Leaks of Official Information" section.

"The threat (of leakage) is less likely to arise from positive acts of counter-espionage, than from leakage of information through disaffected members of staff, or as a result of the attentions of an investigative journalist, or simply by accident or carelessness," it reads.

Comment from Steve:

So to me, this is another great example of putting security inside your document, just like we can do with Acrobat and PDF!

The Adobe® Acrobat® 9.2 Pro and Standard update addresses a number of customer workflow issues and critical security vulnerabilities while providing more overall stability.

For more information regarding issues addressed in this release, see the Release Notes.

The update can be applied to version 9.1.3 of Adobe Acrobat Pro and Standard.

This is a multilingual update for Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish, Bulgarian, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Turkish, and Ukrainian.

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4561

Adobe Acrobat 9.2 Pro Extended Update - Multiple Languages

The Adobe® Acrobat® 9.2 Pro Extended update addresses critical security vulnerabilities while providing more overall stability.

For more information regarding issues addressed in this release, see the Release Notes.

The update can be applied to version 9.1.3 of Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended.

This is a multilingual update for Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish.

.....and here's the link for the download
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4559

He did point out the ad campaign that our friends in Russia had run for Acrobat 9 Pro earlier this year. In the best traditions of Russian animation, that ads are whimsical, funny, cute have excellent timing but most of all, I'm not quite sure how they relate to Acrobat!

"The Acrobat Brothers".... you can see them for yourself here

The Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.2 and 8.1.7 updates will include a new update and deployment tool, initially shipping in a passive, beta state, which will be functional for Acrobat and Adobe Reader customers in the near future, as well as two new changes in security user interface and control.

More information on this is available here.

Adobe is aware of reports of a critical vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.1.3 and earlier (CVE-2009-3459) on Windows, Macintosh and UNIX. There are reports that this issue is being exploited in the wild in limited targeted attacks; the exploit targets Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.1.3 on Windows.

Adobe plans to resolve this issue as part of the upcoming Adobe Reader and Acrobat quarterly security update, scheduled for release on October 13. Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.1.3 customers with DEP enabled on Windows Vista will be protected from this exploit. Disabling JavaScript also mitigates against this specific exploit, although a variant that does not rely on JavaScript could be possible. In the meantime, Adobe is also in contact with Antivirus and Security vendors regarding the issue and recommends users keep their anti-virus definitions up to date.

We wish to thank Chia-Ching Fang and the Information and Communication Security Technology Center for their help with reporting and investigating this issue (CVE-2009-3459).

We will continue to provide updates on this issue via the Security Advisory section of the Adobe web site, as well as the Adobe PSIRT blog.

Check out the full Blog here

"Preview - Desktop Integration in Adobe AIR 2"
Adobe AIR Senior Engineering Manager Arno Gourdol highlights the functionality of storage volume mount notifications and document launching in the next version of Adobe AIR 2.
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adc-presents/preview-desktop-integration-in-adobe-air-2/

"Preview - Command Line Integration in Adobe AIR 2"
Senior Computer Scientist Brent Rosenquist highlights CLI in the next version of Adobe AIR 2. Learn to create native process objects and handle the standard output data they produce.
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adc-presents/preview-command-line-integration-in-adobe-air-2/

Well, there's a great video here

But, although cloud computing might be about to enter thr "trough of disillusionment", as the next image shows....

It does look like Cloud Computing could be here to stay as a major impacting technology. In all the comparisons I've seen recently, www.acrobat.com shows up pretty well so I'll let you know more on where it's going as soon as I'm able to....

In the meantime, checkout www.acrobat.com because it's a great set of online services -- file sharing and storage, a PDF converter, an online word processor, and web conferencing -- you can use to create and share documents, communicate in real time, and simplify working with others.

Thanks
Steve

I'm still running loads and loads of webinars for customers and new prospects. Once of the things that is still grabbing attention with the people I meet is the ability to create and share an ePortfolio.

the Adobe Acrobat User Community have ePortfolios as their topic of the month and I heartily (never thought I'd use that word in a blog) reccomend a visit to the site...

http://www.acrobatusers.com/

It's a great site that I try to view every few days. It has great content as well as some of the best Acrobatr minds out there.

In fact, later in October, the 21st to be precise, Lori DeFurio will be running an eSeminar to share with you how easy it is to organize content from a variety of sources--including documents, email, images, spreadsheets, and web pages--in a single searchable PDF Portfolio, compressed for easy distribution.

She will show you how to use professional designed templates that can be branded with your company logo and colors. Quickly integrate content, define navigation and add polish to communicate clearly and effectively. Apply permissions and passwords to help protect sensitive information. Share information with anyone using free Adobe Reader software.

here's the topic link for you... http://www.acrobatusers.com/monthly_topic/2009/10

Enjoy!

I just thought I would share some news that's exciting for us at Adobe,--- John Warnock and Chuck Geschke (Our founders) have been awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. The medal will be awarded by President Obama in a White House ceremony on Oct. 7, 2009.

Links to press releases and National Medal of Honor website -

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Honors-Nations-Top-Scientists-and-Innovators/

http://www.uspto.gov/main/homepagenews/2009sep17.htm