Spartacus of Acrobat

Hiya, so, Reader 9 is available for free download from Adobe.com well the actual url is....

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

You'll see the page looks like this......

I'm sure I'll get comments on the size of Reader 9, someone will mention the word 'bloat' but once you've used the new capabilities and worked with a flash enabled PDF, you might, just might change your mind.

Also, did you notice the little eBay download option? It's our AIR based way of accessing eBay from your desktop, without a browser.... go on, give it a go.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

At the same time as we announced Acrobat 9, Adobe also announced that a range of cloud computing type applications have been assembled under the acrobat.com banner...

If you browse over to www.acrobat.com this is what you can see....

As you can see, it's a site in Beta at the moment, with some great functionality. Acrobat.com is basically a set of online services — file sharing and storage, PDF converter, online word processor, and web conferencing — you can use to create and share documents, communicate in real time, and simplify working with others.

If you're still not sure about this cloud computing stuff, take a look at this weeks "Click" it's a technology programme from the BBC. It was shown on BBC1, News24 and I think BBC World.

The latest edition can be found online here....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7465386.stm

.........Oh yes, it's worth a look because I'm in it, around the 3 minute mark, don't blink or you'll miss it!

It's free, so sign up now, try it out and tell them Spartacus sent you!

Posted by Steve Partridge at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I visited a customer yesterday who asked about Accessibility in Acrobat, it's one of those areas we beat ourselves up about inside Adobe, perhaps unfairly.

Well, we've made some improvements, Acrobat 9 software includes some new accessibility features that I think, improve the performance of Acrobat when it interacts with assistive technologies such as screen readers.

New accessiblity features available in Acrobat 9 include:

* Table Editor tool in the TouchUp Read Order panel that facilitates the evaluation and repair of PDF tables for accessibility. The Table Editor tool features a user interface that provides users with an immediate indication of the scope and role of cells in tables within PDF files.

* TouchUp Read Order tool improvements that enhance support for editing multiline text blocks, and new Unicode-based text editing that in addition to the ISO Latin character set now provides direct support for Central European languages, with more to follow.

* Improved support for dynamic PDF forms that have been created using Adobe LiveCycle® Designer ES software. As tables render themselves according to the responses provided by users, the document's dynamic rendering is communicated to assistive technology.

For some more detailed information take a look here...
http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/acrobat/

Posted by Steve Partridge at 09:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hiya,

just a quick post to remind everyone that my life isn't all glamour and expensive foreign travel. Yesterday I made a quick (?!) jaunt through britains motorway network up to the north-north part of England to talk with a customer about.... Acrobat Connect professional.

But.... Steve... couldn't you have.... STOP, yes I know what you're thinking. Why didn't I use Connect Professional for the meeting and luxuriate at home instead? Well in this case, the customer wanted a face to face and didn't have a external connection to t'internet from this particular office. I never said Connect Professional would replace all travelling now did I?

Having said that, the meeting went well and another customer now sees the value of using Connect as a delivery and management system for rapid eLearning content. I didn't even talk about live meetings online, just the delivery of Adobe Captivate and Adobe Presenter created eLearning content.

Just wait until I show them the live meeting rooms!

Posted by Steve Partridge at 09:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As usual, someone with a more eloquent turn of phrase than I have (Ted Padova) has written a darn good review of some new Acrobat 9 features. If I were you, I'd check out the following link

http://www.acrobatusers.com/tutorials/2008/06/teds_favorite_9_of_acrobat_9/?msglink=122

By the way, here's the man in question....

Thanks to Ted for all his work.

But don't think this great summary will prevent me from having my own occasional rant about a great Acrobat feature here and there, stay tuned dear reader, stay tuned to this channel.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 02:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yeah, you thought I had forgotten right? WRONG!

Not only is Acrobat 9 here, but it's brilliant. Now you know I'm biased so you're not going to believe me and I understand that, but you and I have a contract, it's unwritten but it exists nevertheless and it's something like this... I won't lie to you here and in return, you'll take everything I say with a pinch of salt, but then find out more for yourself. Thats the deal, anyway, back to the product....

There is a plethora of both new and upgraded features to tempt and excite the long time user and the novice alike. I'll pick on just a few today, let's start with one of the big headlines, how Adobe has built the Flash runtime into Acromobat and the free Adobe Reader....

The free Flash player is already deployed on something like 98% of the worlds connected devices, so why bother putting the Flash runtime into Acrobat? Well, it's going to fundementally change how we perceive both PDF documents and the Acrobat application itself. Let's look inside a PDF first.

It's now possible to drop any flash content directly into a PDF. We can insert Flash video, sales dashboards, widgets, mini applications, anything. Documents become more engaging, interactive and even a secure window back to corporate data and systems.

It goes further because with the full Acrobat Pro Extended, I can drag and drop pretty much any media file, (mov, wmf etc...) into my Acrobat window, the media then gets converted to Flash on-the-fly and is compressed. I've now got my video content in a compressed ubiquitous formthat people can also add TIME STAMPED COMMENTS to.

More on that some other time....

Looking outside an individual document, we have a concept called the PDF Portfolio... I reckon the Portfolio is one of the coolest additions to Acrobat in years. Portfolios give you the ability to very easily create a collection of related files and documents - complete with their own Flash based interface. The Portfolio can be read by the free Adobe Reader 9.0. but is also backwards compatable, so Reader 8 and 7 can still see the content, but without the new user interface.

Creating a Portfolio is childs play, you can choose from among the existing portfolio templates, there will be about 12 styles to choose from and then choose the behaviour and presentation within the portfolio template (for example, you can opt for files to be organised on a bitmap, or to revolve around in a carousel / iTunes CoverFlow-like fashion) for the welcome screen.

Then you drag and drop what you want to be in this Portfolio into the container. Portfolios remain organic documents; you can add files and folders to an existing portfolio as needed. A Portfolio outputs as a .PDF document...... like this....

Looks nothing like an ordinary PDF, but it's a PDF, still conforming to international standards, just a way more engaging way to deliver multiple items of content.

Portfolios are great for presentating lots of content and ideas to people, think of bidding / RFQ's, Marketing plans, design reviews, planning proposals, any work that involves complex ideas supported by multiple pieces of content can now be delivered in a highly professional, engaging way.

Go take a look at www.adobe.com/acrobat and tell me you're not impressed. :-)

Posted by Steve Partridge at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

No gloating, but I couldn't let this pass...

Well done chaps!

Posted by Steve Partridge at 07:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I work in the public sector, so this is good news!

although, I think they should focus on inexpensive quick wins rather than larger amorphous blob It projects... empower the desktop user I say!

Prime minister Gordon Brown today signalled that he would continue New Labour's strategy of using IT to improve public services.

Speaking today, Brown said he wanted the government to do even more with IT.

"“My aim too is to ensure we utilise all the innovation at our disposal to improve public services in this country, and to give more power to those who use them," he said.

Brown said the government was looking at:

- crime mapping,
- electronic school report cards,
- online school records,
- electronic whiteboards in schools,
- computer imaging to help explain diagnostic tests to NHS patients,
- video-identification of crime suspects.

Brown said he would also encourage investment in the UK technology industry with a continued "light touch" on regulation.

“I will do all I can to ensure we remain the investment and cultural destination of choice for the creative industries and the technological businesses of the world," he said.

Brown also announced today he will do an online version of prime minister's questions for the public.

...Cool, perhaps he should be looking at Connect professional!

Posted by Steve Partridge at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adobe Presenter 7 ! Now Available !

I use Adobe Presenter for taking my Powerpoint presentations and adding audio, navigation and quizes to turn them from information documents to training/knowledge transfer resources.... let's be honest, I'm not going to lie and say I create training material, that would be glamourising it somewhat, so let's call it knowledge transfer.

Anyway, if you are a corporate training professional wanting to have engaging flash training content created quickly, perhaps you're an educator wanting to provide on demand courseware for students, a marketing professional trying to create a high impact multimedia pitch for your offerings or a subject matter expert trying to create rapid training material, the new Adobe Presenter would make life a lot easier for you.

Adobe Presenter 7 has a number of new features and is available now. So, you are now able to create more engaging and impactful flash based multimedia content really easily and rapidly directly from Powerpoint. As ever, the key is still to make these features easy to use and well integrated into the Powerpoint interface.

Some of the key highlights of the new version are

Engaging, High Impact Training Creation:
Presenter 7 has smart multimedia capabilities like incorporating existing video in almost any format to your trainings as flash video and embedding video’s by capturing them directly out of your webcam.You can also create high quality content with Presenter 7 now supporting CD quality stereo audio and H.264video.

Quizzing has been enhanced significantly and quiz creation is now even easier, faster and more powerful. You can now have questions pooled together in groups and have a fixed number of questions selected randomly selected for each learner. The order of questions as well as answer options can be shuffled.

Wider Content Distribution
Creating engaging content for delivery to distributed audience is a key challenge that we have continued to address with Presenter 7. You are now be able to deliver content to mobile devices. You can also package your content as a PDF document with all the animations intact for easier distribution.

Increased Usability and Configurability
Presenter 7 is even easier to use with features to make your training content powerful and easy to create.

- Ability to restrict navigation for learners which is useful for compliance trainings.
- Easier incorporation of Captivate created swf’s with automatic updation of slide timings
- New format for storing audio (Y es, we have done away with PPC format)
- Bulk formatting of quiz questions for faster authoring
- Separate Quiz pane for easier navigation for the learners
- Fewer clicks for common tasks like slide management
- And a lot more …..

Posted by Steve Partridge at 08:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I have to mention this don't I.......

He's the Guv'nor

And these are the chaps!

Posted by Steve Partridge at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I mean't to post this a while ago, sorry for tardiness. Hit this link to check out the list of winners in the recent Acrobat 3D PDF contest
http://www.acrobatusers.com/contests/?msglink=75

You can then download and explore some of the winning entries in the 3D gallery here....

http://www.acrobatusers.com/tech_corners/3d/3d_gallery/?msglink=77

I particularly like the “Heart Structure, Function and Arrhythmias” [PDF: 6.6 MB] publication, it took first place in the Technical Publishing category.

It allows users to interact with objects through various means, including rotation and frame sequencing to show three-dimensional movies.

Also check the 3D human body model... ewwww! Well done Christian Lietzau :-)

Posted by Steve Partridge at 08:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, what can I say, just look at his little face!!!!

Moscow here we come for an all English final!

Posted by Steve Partridge at 10:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Please excuse the 'Carry On' comedic title, just a quick reminder really.

I spoke today with someone using Acrobat but wondering how to convert a large number of existing documents, both PDF and Word into Accessible PDF. I believe he had almost got to the point of looking for some server based solution, when I reminded him of the batch processing commands in Acrobat professional.

Just look under
Advanced >> Documenbt Processing >> Batch Processing

Here you can easily create batch jobs that encapsulate many/all of the major commads that are available from the Acrobat menu system. Give it a try, it's ludicroulsly easy!

Oooh Matron!

Posted by Steve Partridge at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

eSeminar,
Extending LiveCycle Forms with JavaScript and FormCalc

If you use Adobe LiveCycle Designer, the Windows-only forms tool that comes with Acrobat 8 Professional and Acrobat 3D, you’ll want to log in to the second of our free, 75-minute Designer-related eSeminars — on April 16 (10 a.m. PDT) —

“Extending LiveCycle Forms with JavaScript and FormCalc.”

Thom Parker of Windjack Solutions will show how you can use JavaScript and FormCalc to extend the behavior of XML forms created in LiveCycle Designer. JavaScript enables automated forms handling, Web and database communication, commenting, additional user-interface capabilities and more.
This interactive session will cover:

• An introduction to the LiveCycle Designer scripting environment
• Practical script development, testing, and debug techniques
• Basic scripting examples in XML forms created with LiveCycle Designer
• Adding custom calculations
• Hiding and showing sections of a form
• Changing Form Field properties, such as border color
• Using check boxes, buttons, and combo boxes to control dynamic form features

Posted by Steve Partridge at 03:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sorry for the lack of posts in the last couple of weeks, I was always adamant that this blog wouldn't wither and die just because no-one was reading it, I promised to keep writing this junk no matter what.

I've had a cold that knocked me back for the best part of a week! Now I know that none of the women reading this will give me an ounce, nay even a scintilla of sympathy on this one.... The phrase "Man Flu" will rear it's ugly head and I'll be thought of as some complaining work-shy malingerer. I do think chaps suffer from discrimination when it comes to illness in the workplace.... Still, 'twas my first illness this winter, I almost made the whole season without a cold.

Back at work, we were visited last week by my colleagues from San Jose and I was reminded about a great blog from my colleague Joel Geraci, his blog is called "PDF developer Junkie" and I reccommend a read, it's at..

http://blogs.adobe.com/pdfdevjunkie/

Posted by Steve Partridge at 08:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I can't deny, it was a good weekend....

Posted by Steve Partridge at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Using Acrobat 8 to convert ordinary PDFs to forms

I'm regularly asked about creating forms using Acrobat 8. Now, I may have coivered this before, but I thought it might be worth a reminder...

Create your form

So, you can design a form in your favourite layout program (or any program, Word for example), turn it into a PDF, open it in Acrobat 8, and choose Forms > Run Form Field Recognition.

Acrobat looks through the document and searches for anything that looks like a form field (such as "Name: ___________") and adds the interactive form field logic on top of the underscore part. The form field name is derived from the text preceding the underscore ("Name" in this case) and is sized appropriately.

The form field is now ready to accept data as is. You can use the Form editing tools to do things like change its appearance, add actions, and so on.

Choosing the Run Form Field Recognition command not only creates the fields (in a couple of seconds), but it displays a "Recognition Report" that lists all the fields it detected -- each one linked to the actual field for easy selection -- and includes "Hints for Repair" that explains why some of your fields may not have been detected.

I would say that overall, this works for around 75-80 percent of fields on a form, but it varies. I've had forms that were 100% recognised and some that were only 50% recognised.

Share your form

Once completed, simply "Save As" the form and you can send it to your intended recipient. Don't forget, if your target audience uses the free Adobe Reader, you should also use the "Distribute Form" option..... This will allow Free Reader users to add digital signatures to the form and also perform a "Save As" directly from the Reader....

I'm pleased this feature is generating interest as I think it's a great way for people to gradually move from paper based forms work towards eForms without a massive upfront cost in terms of labour and software expense.

Oh yes, and as people have been reporting all over the place..

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Software maker Adobe Systems Inc. beat Wall Street's expectations in the first quarter with profits that rose 52 percent on continued demand for its design and Acrobat products. For the three months ended Feb. 29, Adobe posted a profit of $219.4 million, or 38 cents per share, according to an earnings report after the close of trading Tuesday.

A pretty good start to the year, the best part for me being the continued strength on the Acrobat business, yes, I'm a bit biased.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 08:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My colleague Steve Allison was quoted in the Financial Times yesterday in an article around the increased demand for distance learning (Connect anyone?) as corporates tighten their belts.....

Distance learning boosted by downturn – Financial Times, 17-03-08 PDF These are good times for distance learning. Steve Allison, a technical evangelist at Adobe, predicts significant changes in online learning. With employees increasingly mobile and working in remote locations, individuals will rely far more on e-learning. “With on-demand learning and instant access, the technology will allow you to push out all the information and it is then that you will get a change in the habit of learning,” he says. He says Adobe has found one of the biggest stumbling blocks in the acceptance of new technology is a traditional mentality, with older people reluctant to use the latest IT. To counter this, Adobe tries to ensure its products are easy to use.

Here's the link to the full article...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8a6f813a-f1a2-11dc-9b45-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=02e16f4a-46f9-11da-b8e5-00000e2511c8.html

Posted by Steve Partridge at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

YES!

I'm back from the cold (averaging minus 25 degrees overnight, minus 9 during the day) I can reccomend Mont Tremblant in Quebec for anyone who like their skiing a bit on the cold side. That said, the snow was flipping awesome, we had a 16" dump overnight on one evening, as you can imagine, things were fluffy, then bumpy on the following day.

On the Acrobat news front, it is now possible to try Acrobat out for free in an online hosted version. This real-time TestDrive does not require product installation or download — it's the fastest way to try Acrobat 8 Professional. In just minutes you can start exploring Acrobat through your web browser on your own, or follow a series of video tutorials to experience some of the newest features.

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/tryout.html?promoid=BONQG

Worth a look I'd say....

Posted by Steve Partridge at 09:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's Monday afternoon and in around a day and a half I shall be off for my winter break attempting to ski. This year we are off to Mt Trembland in Eastern Canukistan (Canada).

I'm back in around 2 weeks so don't expect anything new, unless I fall, it rains etc. In which case I may get bored and post some pics.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 03:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hmmmm, Acrobat trainers, now there's an idea for marketing to get their teeth into, I'd like some Adidas Superstar 2's please, with the Acrobat logo on.

Anyway, back in the real world, I'm referring to the time spent yesterday with our training partners, many of whom work with Acrobat. They spent a day with us at Stockley Park and I hope they enjoyed the news and product updates etc. It was really good to see some familiar faces.

Since there's not too much to cover that's new with Acrobat, I simply ran through some recent news, Leopard Support, the new Acrobat 3D update etc... I then looked at some new stuff on Adobe labs, in fact, I reckon you should have a look too...

BRIO
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/brio/

Built on Adobe's Flash platform, Brio operates inside most popular web browsers, so you can start a meeting without worrying if others have a compatible system or the right software.

Brio beta allows you to:

* Host unlimited online meetings with up to 3 meeting participants.
* Interact with easy-to-use screen sharing, chat and whiteboards.
* Access your meeting instantly with a personalized, easy-to-remember URL.
* Distribute documents and files to meeting participants.
* Use integrated VoIP, teleconferencing and multi-point video.

SHARE
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/share/

Preview Adobe’s latest online offering codenamed "Share", a free web-based service that allows you to easily share, publish and organize your documents.

With Share you can:

* Send documents without email attachments.
* Access your documents from anywhere.
* View all the documents you have shared or received in one place.
* Post a link to your document on a wiki or blog.
* Embed a Flash® preview of your document on any website.
* Limit access to a document to a list of recipients.

I'm using both technologies at the moment, let me know what you think.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 08:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Found this little gemon the wires over the weekend...

The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) released the list as part of their 2007 Anti-Piracy Year In Review report.

Two lists were of note in the report - the 10 most frequently pirated by companies and the Top 10 most frequently pirated on the Internet. The lists are as below:

2007 Software Titles Most Frequently Pirated By Companies
1. Symantec Norton Anti-Virus
2. Adobe Acrobat
3. Symantec PC Anywhere
4. Adobe PhotoShop
5. Autodesk AutoCAD
6. Adobe DreamWeaver
7. Roxio Easy CD/DVD Creator
8. Roxio Toast Titanium
9. Ipswitch WS_FTP
10. Nero Ultra Edition

2007 Software Titles Most Frequently Pirated on the Internet
1. McAfee VirusScan
2. Symantec Norton Anti-Virus
3. McAfee Internet Security Suite
4. Intuit TurboTax
5. Adobe Photoshop
6. Adobe Acrobat
7. Intuit Quicken Home and Business
8. Symantec Norton pcAnywhere
9. Symantec Norton Ghost
10. Adobe Creative Suite

The SIIA have been busy trying to protect consumers as well as prod businesses into ensuring they buy legal copies of software.

“As we continued to aggressively pursue those who illegally sell or distribute pirated software and content, we also increased our educational outreach efforts in 2007,” said Keith Kupferschmid, SIIA SVP of Intellectual Property Policy and Enforcement. “By balancing enforcement with education, SIIA was able to crack down on illegal software sales and help consumers avoid purchasing pirated software. We also made strides in helping legal, public relations and other professionals effectively do their jobs within current copyright law.”

SIIA’s Corporate Anti-Piracy program has been in operation for 20 years but of all 2007’s 427 reports of alleged corporate end-user piracy, SIIA found only 17% sufficiently reliable to pursue. Productivity software is a favourite target for pirates, which shows there is demand.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’m happy to announce that we have just posted the Acrobat 3D Version 8 Update.

This free update provides support for more recent versions of CAD file formats for Adobe Acrobat 3D and the 3D Toolkit. See the table below for details of the CAD formats and versions supported with this update.

Please link to www.adobe.com/go/a3d_update to download this update. Please share this link with anyone that can benefit from this update.

This download includes translator updates for the following CAD file formats:

CAD Format Supported Versions
Autodesk Inventor Up to 2008
I-deas Up to 13
JT Up to 8.2
NX (Unigraphics) Up to NX5
OneSpace Designer Up to 2007
SolidWorks Up to 2008

Posted by Steve Partridge at 06:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now, some of my friends say I'm "cunning like a fox".... or was that "as smart as a cardboard box"? Well, whatever, I know you've been wondering how to get great content into your Acrobat PDF files.... let me help... I have collueagues who are significantly smarter than a cardboard box and they'd love to help.

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/captivate/articles/movieclip_to_pdf.html

That's a great link to an article from the deveoper centre, enjoy.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 08:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OK, So I was away in Rome taking my gorgeous wife away for Valentines day. What could make the weekend even better? "A new release of Acrobat" I hear you say?.... Did you not read the post title?

So, Manchester United beat Arsenal 4-0 yup, 4..... Nil..... in the FA Cup.

The BBc said....
"Wayne Rooney delivered a virtuoso solo display as Manchester United outclassed Arsenal in the FA Cup fifth round."

This is what it looked like...

Marvellous!

Posted by Steve Partridge at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sorry it's later than I expected

Adobe Acrobat 8.1.2 Professional update - multiple languages
The Adobe® Acrobat® 8.1.2 Professional update addresses several known issues in Acrobat 8 Professional software. Adobe recommends that all Acrobat 8 Professional users apply this update.

Improvements in Acrobat 8.1.2 Professional include the following:
• Improved Mac OS X v1.5 (Leopard) support
• Resolution of several PDF forms-related issues
• Additional stability improvements

This multilingual update can be applied to Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish versions of Acrobat 8 Professional. For more information, see the technical document describing the Acrobat 8.1.2 update in the Support Knowledgebase.

Please check the link here....

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3856

Posted by Steve Partridge at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well? What have I been up to?

It's been a busy couple of weeks since I last posted and I'm sorry not to have kept on top of things, so lets work this one out in chronological order...

First I ran a seminar to a couple of architectural practises in the midlands. It's still good to see that people appreciate the power of Acrobat when it comes to capturing 3D and 2D drawings and models, then enabling those drawings to be shared for collaboration purposes. It's also still a bit of a shame that more people are not aware of this capability, I must try harder to evangelise on this area.

From there we went into trade show mode, to add to the 4 days at the BETT education conference in early January, I spent a couple of days at the eLearning Technology event at Olympia. This was a surprisingly busy event, the Adobe stand was typically 7-8 people deep, spilling out into the aisles.... I should apologise to our neighbouring stands for spoiling the traffic throughput to their areas....meh, maye not!

I was surprised with how many organisations are big Adobe Captivate and Adobe Presenter users. Check out this link for more information on Adobe presenter, it's the easiest way to take Powerpoint presentations and easily turn them into interactive eLearning content.

http://www.adobe.com/products/presenter/

Adobe Connect is then the simplest way to deliver this content to a widely dispersed audience and track their performance.

The FA Cup draw was cruel, giving man United a tough draw with Arsenal, no doubt the winner of that match looking lik the favourite for the cup!

From the eLearning show we went straight to a weekend kick-off for one of our resellers, where despite not having the biggest stand or the best Freebies, we were inundated by sales staff wanting to work out how to work with us more closely, nice one chaps. We made a load of great contacts, gave away a little software, and in the break, I discovered that I'm quite the Wii Tennis player on the sly.

Oh yes, the England lost to Wales, in a stunning display of shotgun-to-the-foot syndrome.....

What happened next? Oh yes, straight from there to New York for some training on Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional, it's a breeze to type that name (in-joke!) I'm now really getting to grips with the product and am going to end up as rabidly enthusiastic about it as I am Acrobat.

Walking to and from the training every day mean't I passed the scene of New York Fashion week, all I can comment on that is that I saw no models or paparazzi in the mornings, clearly this is an afternoon/evening type of job, one that my chisled/wisened/haggard good looks could handle at a canter. If only Adobe didn't need me so badly, oh well, maybe next life.

So it was back to blighty (thanks Silverjet) for a bit of jetlag and the Manchester derby, remembering 50 years ago how the Munich air disaster tragically ripped the heart out of the Busby babes. Sadly, City beat a lacklustre United side 2-1.........

I'm now planning for a team meeting this week and am about to start following up on all the leads and contacts that were generated by the mad rush at the end of January. I may have to buy a phone headset and go dialling for dollars.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 06:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A nice littlepiece on Acrobat 3D that I missed until today....

Open Marketplace: Adobe technology makes MFG.com an easier place to buy, sell goods
In Manufacturing Business Technology, Malcolm Wheatley writes: “MFG.com ... recently completed a major revamp of its platform, leveraging technology from Adobe Systems. “MFG.com made Adobe Acrobat 3D its standard tool for viewing CAD data, allowing buyers and sellers to freely exchange 2D and 3D geometry together with manufacturing information. Standardizing on Adobe Acrobat 3D eliminated concerns about protecting intellectual property as it travels across the global network.”

Here's the link for the full article

http://www.mbtmag.com/article/CA6521847.html?industryid=47314

Posted by Steve Partridge at 08:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yup, surprisingly good indeed, when I last wrote at the BETT show, I was halfway through the event and finishing a presentation I was planning to deliver a few times on the last two days of the event. Well, I was plesantly surprised by the reaction to it, I was talking about how Acrobat can be used for the production and maintenance of Student ePortfolios.

These are significantly different from a showcase type of portfolio, since we need to cater for transactional data, potentially collect all student work, archive for long periods and allow for refection and feedback whilst providing the right level of access security and rights control. Truly a living breathing document.... and of course, all easily achievable with Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional.

So, I had lots of interested education professionals listening and a host of questions after, a couple of invitations to visit and re-present the presentation (including one from the US). Tell you what, I'm happy. So if anyone out there wants to know what I think on the subject, drop me a comment.....

In other great news, Man United did a bit of a demolition job on Newcastle, let's hope the return of King Kevin helps them out a bit.... I believe he "would love it" if he could beat us... Keep trying Kev, keep trying.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 08:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks to my colleague Jim Merry who reminds us that the deadline to submit entries for the Adobe Acrobat 3D PDF Contest is approaching. It is extremely easy to enter, you don't even need to own a copy of Acrobat 3D, and you can win tasty prizes like...

Super prizes like an iPhone, a Dell Laptop, a 3D mouse, or a free copy of Acrobat 3D! At a minimum, all you need to do is convert a CAD file you already have to PDF and submit via our website. You can find the details for the contest here....

http://www.acrobatusers.com/contests/a3d/

Posted by Steve Partridge at 05:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, we are 2 days into the BETT Education conference/exhibition at Olympia in London. 50% done, 50% to go and it's been a good event thus far.

Lots of interest from many different parties in the use of Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Connect. Acrobat seems to be of interest rigt at the moment with respect to it's use in electronic student portfolios (ePortfolios). These living, changing documents allow students to build up a varied body of their work, use this for assessment, peer review and as a record of their development.

The way forward for eportfolios is unclear at the moment, the web often being touted as a panacea. No standards exist yet in this area and until ones emerge, perhaps it's best to think of using an information capture format that's managed by ISO (see below).... supports electronic documents, paper documents, multimedia, full commenting and review and runs well on around 90% of the worlds desktops.....with a high level ofcontent security...... I wonder.......

Tootleoo
Steve

Posted by Steve Partridge at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

At a recent meeting, the International Organization for Standardisation (ISO) voted to approve Adobe’s PDF as an international document format standard. The vote was passed with 13-to-one in favour and PDF is set to become the ISO 32000 Standard. As a result, Adobe will no longer have sole control over what is already the de facto standard for sharing, editing and commenting on documents between multiple platforms. ‘Adobe will be just one of many implementers of that standard. Adobe expects to participate on the ISO committees determining changes that should be included in a revised standard,’ said James King, a senior principle scientist and PDF architect at Adobe.

I'm just pleased ISO have given PDF an easy to remember standard number ISO32000 rolls off the tongue!

Posted by Steve Partridge at 01:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As a follow up to my previous post, I should point you towards the redesigned Acrobat 3D section of the new Adobe website.... The entire Adobe website has undergone a significant overhaul including the Acrobat 3D section. In addition to rearranging the navigation tools and existing content to make it easier to find the information and resources from the old site, there's a lot more content available.

Here are some useful direct links

Acrobat 3D Product Page
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat3d/

Acrobat 3D 'Evaluation Center'
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat3d/evaluation/index.html
The first area to check out is the new Acrobat 3D 'Evaluation Center' where you will find demos, presentations, archived online seminars and an Interactive Simulator' (A3D-IS).

Acrobat 3D Online Discussion Forum
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bbe2554/
There are lots of different online forums and user groups that enable you to talk with other people interested in Acrobat 3D. There is an Adobe Forum for Acrobat 3D as well as an Acrobat Online User Group that has multiple forums including one devoted to 3D.

Sample 3D PDFs
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat3d/3dpdf_samples/
I'm often asked if there are sample PDFs with 3D content available for download. You will find over 20 PDF files here that with examples of 3D content from the automotive, aerospace, machinery, eletronics, architecture, engineering and construction industries and some that have examples of technical publications with 3D interactive content.

Free 30 Day Trial
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat3d/tryout.html
If you would like to try Acrobat 3D, you can download a 30 day free trial here.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 07:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, this isn't going to be the only entry for 2008 but I thought I'd state the obvious. Happy new year to anyone reading this, I hope you had a great Christmas break and enjoyed a thoroughly good New Year.

So, for 2008 I'm focussing much more on UK Government than in the past, this should give me the chance to get deeper under the skin of our customers and understand their needs much better.

i think 2008 is going to be a great year for Acrobat too, we have started with a nice new case study on Acrobat 3D where Porkka Finland, a Commercial Refrigeration Provider are streamlining their Design Review Process with Acrobat 3D.

Porkka Finland provides hotels, restaurants, and medical laboratories worldwide with refrigeration and cooling systems, customized to accommodate each customer’s engineering, environmental, and regulatory requirements. Key to successful design and delivery is the ability to quickly exchange detailed design documents with customers, installation specialists, and suppliers, but this can be difficult, as few people outside the company own the costly CAD or other applications required to view the native files. With Acrobat 3D, Porkka is able to convert design documents to platform and application-independent Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The resulting files are up to 95% smaller than native application files and provide more interactivity, such as enabling reviewers to add digital comments. Now the company’s collaboration processes have been accelerated by as much as 75% and time spent transmitting files has decreased significantly.

Get in! Nice one chaps

Posted by Steve Partridge at 03:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Adobe wins backing for PDF 1.7

Adobe has received backing for the next version of the PDF document format, following an overwhelming vote by the ISO standards panel. The decision means that PDF 1.7 will now become the ISO 32000 Standard.

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2205065/pdf-takes-first-step-towards

I'm pleased since this will stop people telling me that PDF is a nasty, proprietary piece of work. :-)

Posted by Steve Partridge at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As the planning gets into top gear for 2008, I'm pleased to be spending some more time working with Acrobat Connect Professional. I've normally been using it for live meetings where we can pull together people from around the globe into my virtual room and share resources, whiteboard, see each other and collaborate, no matter what hardware/software platforms everyone has.

However, the live meeting is probably not Acrobat Connect's most powerful use. It's a massively powerful tool for the delivery of e-learning, like the presentation voiceovers I've been delivering for the Adobe Academy recently (see old blog entries)

I noticed today that Royal Phillips have just adopted Acorbat Connect for the same reason....

Royal Philips Electronics has deployed Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional software to provide 135,000 registered users of its Healthcare Learning Management System with synchronous training, video conferencing and Web seminar clinical and technical programs.

The company has seen Acrobat Connect Professional enhance the training experience, while at the same time complement the onsite training held at customer locations in more than 100 countries and Philips Global Training Centers in Europe, Asia and North America.

Royal Philips Electronics develops over 100 training modules annually, many of which employ synchronous elements. The ability to archive seminars will make these synchronous elements available to people unable to attend the live sessions and provide supplemental refresher training as well.

"The use of Acrobat Connect Professional supports our goal of simplifying healthcare for our customers and partners, as well as enhancing training opportunities for global marketing, sales and distribution teams," said Douglas Dell, Global Director of Learning Services for Philips Medical Systems, a division of Royal Philips Electronics.

"It also supports our overall strategy of enhancing the customer experience through the lifespan of system ownership. With Acrobat Connect Professional, our Learning Services business can offer quality, interactive e-learning programs to the users of our advanced medical equipment and help ensure better patient care management," added Dell.

Royal Philips Electronics seamlessly integrated Acrobat Connect Professional software into its in-house SCORM-compliant Learning Management System. Incorporating synchronous elements into its specialized healthcare education programs enables the organization to more securely deliver training programs globally without limitations of connecting through firewalls or requiring software downloads, which represent an obstacle for many healthcare institutions. The Adobe Flash Player software makes it easy for users, content authors and technical staff to use.

....See?

Posted by Steve Partridge at 08:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know a little of what Thanksgiving's all about, but being back in Blighty, the only thing I notice is a distict lack of emails from my colleagues in the US. I hope you've all had a good time over the last few days. I believe also that last friday signalled the start of the Christmas shopping season.

I'll be over in San Jose shortly for our kick-off event, but forst we have to finish off the financial year. I'm talking with customers in every vertical market sctor you could think of, Financial, Government, Manufacturing, Marketing, everyone really. Most unusually, I was trying to get 3D models from the Lego modeller application captured into Acrobat 3D. I almost succeeded too.

On the product side, there's also a great link from the Acrobat user community, our friend/guru Ted Padova has taken to the next level his generosity for freely sharing with the user community his wealth of product expertise. In addition to routinely dispensing nuggets of PDF-oriented knowledge via his blog, he's now put together a compilation of "101 of my favorite tips and frequently used tasks in Acrobat, JavaScript and LiveCycle Designer" in eBook format, and is offering it as a free download.

http://www.acrobatusers.com/articles/2007/11/101_forms_etips_article/

Thanks Ted! Now that takes me back to Craggy Island in the 90's

Posted by Steve Partridge at 02:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, that's what we are, Englands first 11 are up to the job, but with 8 men unavailable, it showed just how poor our replacement players are.... Oh yes, and the manager's useless..... excuse me while I go lie down somewhere.

Poor Scotty Carson.....

This picture is called "losers" can you guess why children?

Posted by Steve Partridge at 07:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Again, I feel compelled to start this blog entry with an apology, a week has gone by without a sniff of an entry and I feel I must respond to the literally zero emails that have come my way asking for more info from me....... (tumbleweed)

So, well, it's still end of year type busy, so my time is spent with lots and lots of how to's and quick questions from our sales team and partners/resellers.

I've added my profile to the Acrobat User Community, if you're a user of Adobe Acrobat, I highly reccomend joining this site. It's a great place to gather information on Acrobat and get best advice, not only from Adobe chaps and women, but from real, honest-to-goodness people using the product.

www.acrobatusers.com

Posted by Steve Partridge at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, this is the second time today I've typed this blog entry, don't you just love it when your browser software does the unexpected and just switches itself off? I know I do, it cetrainly doesn't frustrate and annoy to the point where you want to turn your laptop into a frisbee and send it clear across the office..... nope, not at all, it's a breeze really.

I was prompted to pop an entry in because I had noticed that it had been a whole week since I'd posted and I always said I'd not do the standard blogging thing of posting heavily for a few weeks then getting distracted by a passing buterfly and fogetting where I lived.

Sooooo, I saw a nice post in another Blog today, so I thought I'd share....
http://www.chatbugkaren.com/windingthreads/2007/11/06/i-love-adobe-acrobat/
It's a nice antidote to the normal office/enterprise type of comments and emails I get.

November 30th is the end of our financial year at Adobe, so as you can imagine, November gets pretty busy and always manages to surprise. Yesterday for example, I was asked if Acrobat could add watermarks to existing documents and indeed it can, it's one of those features I don't demonstrate these days but is really usefull for lots of people.

Checkout the Document > Watermark menu options. You can add watermarks in differing fonts, from text files, with many display options including orientation and opacity. You can decide if the watermark is shown on-screen and/or in print etc. Well worth exploring if you distribute information of differing security or sensitivity levels regularly.

In case I didn't mention it before, we also had a great event last week, the Adobe Business Exchange, held in Gloucester st. London. The event was primarily aimed at people using Adobe's LiveCycle range of business transformation products, but as always, most people there used Acrobat too, so I was kept very busy answering questions and explaining the relationship between Acrobat, Connect and LiveCycle.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 07:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wow, I was a little surprised about the response from my last post. I had no idea people actually read this Blog... Way to go readers, give yourselves a pat on the back from me!

So, just a quickkie today about using the split screen facility. By using the screen-splitting commands in Acrobat you can view large documents, including drawings and spreadsheets, more easily on screen than you can on paper.

The commands in the Window menu (shown below) give you the ability to view a PDF with the document pane divided into two (Split command) or four panes (Spreadsheet Split command).

Split Commands
In Split view, each window operates independently. In Spreadsheet Split, the windows are coordinated so you can keep column or row headings visible while you scroll through a large table or spreadsheet.

To end Split or Spreadsheet Split view, choose Window > Remove Split.
Split view

With Split view, you can view a single document in two windows. You can scroll, change the magnification level, or turn to a different page in the active window without affecting the other, as shown below.

Split View

In Split view, click a pane to make it active. You can navigate to a new page or to a new zoom setting and the other window will remain in place. Drag the gray splitter bar to resize the windows.

So this makes it easy now to view two seperate sections of a document together on a single screen, maybe a network diagram and the detail page of the hardware components making up that network.... Back in the paper world, you would constantly be turning from one page to another to match part numbers and descriptions with the diagram. By using the Split command in Acrobat, you can view both pages in the same document pane.

Spreadsheet Split
The Spreadsheet Split view is useful if you want to keep column headings and row labels visible while scrolling through a large spreadsheet, chart or table. In this mode, changing the magnification in one pane changes the magnification in all panes.

Scrolling is coordinated between the panes: scrolling a pane horizontally also scrolls the pane above or below it; scrolling vertically also scrolls the pane to the left or right of that pane.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Late last week, Apple announced the release of Apple OSX Leopard for its computers. Nice, I've had a look and must get myself a copy. It was also nice to watch the guided tour and see that the first thing they did was to view and download a PDF document, well done Apple, kudos to you.

On that subject, Adobe has moved quickly to make sure our products work on this cool new operating system. Thanks to close collaboration between Adobe and Apple, most of the Creative Suite 3 (CS3) applications and associated technologies, such as Adobe Bridge CS3, Version Cue CS3, and Device Central CS3, are compatible with Mac OS X Leopard without requiring additional updates.

However, the following CS3 applications will require updates for full compatibility with Leopard: Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional and our professional video applications, including Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, After Effects CS3 Professional, Encore CS3, and Soundbooth CS3.

We expect to publish free Leopard compatibility updates for the video applications in December 2007 and for Acrobat 8 Professional and Adobe Reader 8 in January 2008.

For more information, take a look at the FAQ we have produced, it can be found here.....

http://www.adobe.com/go/leopardfaq

Hope this helps.....

Steve

Posted by Steve Partridge at 08:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (26)

FYI my little chums, there has been an update released for Acrobat. It addresses recent vulnerabilities that have been identified in Adobe Reader and Acrobat that could allow an attacker who successfully exploits these vulnerabilities to take control of the affected system.

This issue only affects customers on Windows XP with Internet Explorer 7 installed. A malicious file must be loaded in Adobe Reader or Acrobat by the end user for an attacker to exploit these vulnerabilities. It is recommended that affected users update to Adobe Reader 8.1.1 or Acrobat 8.1.1.

Read more about this here....

http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb07-18.html

Posted by Steve Partridge at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Bugger!!

Oh well, they probably just about deserved to win, well done the Boks!

Time for bed I think!

Posted by Steve Partridge at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just a quickkie, for those in Paris looking for tickets, there is still hope...

It seems that for some reason, some Kiwis have tickets available.......

Posted by Steve Partridge at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

HERE WE GO THEN

Phil Vickery, "Raging Bull" looking pretty focused, I just wish he was still at Gloucester. Anyway, 9 hours to go and the nerves have already set in.

The upside is that England go into the World Cup Final (for my American friends, this is like a World Series, but we invite teams from other countries to take part.... hence the "World" element) ... as underdogs, I know the team don't like to hear that, but it's true. If we lose I'll be gutted, but only 4 weeks ago, we were being touted as the wost defenders of the Webb Ellis trophy ever, so to reach the Final is pretty special.

Kudos to my colleagues who are making the trip to Paris, I'll be back in Blighty feeling a tad jealous, I see you were sung off from Waterloo station this morning....

COME ON ENGLAND

I don't care if we play 80 minutes of "stick it up yer jumper" rugby.

Right, off for a lie down in a darkened room with a wet flanel on my forehead.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I have to apologise, I haven't updated in a few days (four I think)..

So this week seems to have been about articulating the differences between the full-on "Gold Standard" (Not my words, but a quote from a US based computer magazine) Adobe Acrobat and other PDF creation software. Now there are lots and lots of blogs and websites that will point out the deficincies of some other products in relation to Acrobat, so I won't labout those points here, but it made for a busy week. The main thing I see is that these 'clone' products seem to come and go over a period of time, whereas Adobe and Acrobat keeps on enduring.

If you want to read up a little more on Acrobat I would suggest you head over to the rest of....
blogs.adobe.com

Of special note at the moment is the new Acrobat 3D contest......
http://www.adobeukacademy.com/

To be honest, I didn't realise how hard it would be to spend 5-6 hours recording my voice talking constantly. I know my friends might disagree with that last statement. What I have found out is that my voice is "ordinary".... yup "ordinary". I have to say, that deflated my ego a tad. I always hoped I might have a distictive style, a poor mans James Earl Jones, but nope, it seems that I might have middle England sewn up though.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was talking last week about security to a number of people. We talked about the "Save as certified" option, which is an easy way to add a digital certificate to a document, kind of like a wax seal.

Later, on the drive home, I considered how most information leakage occurrs by accident rather than malicious design. So, it put me in mind of another conversation I'd had a few months ago regarding using watermarks to very clearly display if something was "Company Confidential" or "Internal use only". This is an easy way to help prevent the unintentional distribution of sensitive material.

You can give your PDF documents a watermark very easily...

1. Open a PDF and go to Document > Watermark > Add
2. For the Source, you can either type in text or use an image. If you use an image, choose and then click and choose an image.
(After choosing your image you’ll see a preview of your PDF with the watermark)
3. To improve the document readability with regards the watermark’s appearance, you can change the Opacity down to 30% and for the Location of the watermark choose .
4. You can also adjust where the watermark appears on the page in the Position section.
5. Click and see how that looks.

This gives you a document that can clearly state it's usability status.

You also have the option to make the watermark visible only in print rather than on screen too.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 09:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, it's the morning after the night before and it's Sunday so I don't feel I must talk about Acrobat too much...

I tell you what, It's good to watch England celebrate for a change.

And in related news, my club Rugby side, Gloucester, won again yesterday against Sale beating them 31-12 to continue their 100% start to the season!

More Acrobat stuff next week I think.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's friday and I've been looking for ways to avoid thinking about the upcomming Rugby World Cup semi-final between France and the Mighty England (like the use of capitals there?)

In the exciting world of electronic forms, I've been looking at the Tracker in Acrobat.... The Forms Tracker is a panel of the same window in which you track PDF reviews and subscriptions.... it also had a neat RSS reader too....

Did you know that? You get an RSS reader in Acrobat, go take a look, it will probably be sitting there on your system tray..... anyway...

There are several ways to open the Forms Tracker:

1. Choose Forms > Track Forms.

2. In the Tasks toolbar, choose Track Forms from the Forms button pop-up menu.

In the Review Tracker window (opened by choosing Comments > Review Tracker), click the Forms Tracker button on the left side of the window.

Four buttons appear on the left side of the Forms Tracker. Each one opens a different panel when clicked: To Do, History, Search Results, and Forms Library. These panels can remind you of the status of various forms that are part of your workflow and make it easy to find and reopen those forms.

You add a form to the Forms Library panel during the forms-distribution process. At the end of the Distribute Form wizard, a message appears, stating that the form has been sent to your default email application. This message also includes an Add To My Form Library option.

This means you can actually track and manage the electronic forms you are using, not real workflow, but almost. All this in the standard application that you bought for making PDF's from your MS Word documents..... don't worry, you can thank me later.

and by the way.... COME ON ENGLAND!

Posted by Steve Partridge at 09:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Well, the Diocese Communicators Conference went well, I think. Response to the "Acrobat 101" and "Acrobat 201" was really positive, I owe an apology to the delegates for running over a little and holding up their coach taking them to dinner... I do get a little over enthusiastic sometimes.

When I present to people in the UK, I often describe my role as BDM as being an evangelist for Acrobat, it felt strange using that phrase yesterday for some reason. By the way, the title for todays Blog, a direct quote from yesterdays sessions, when I showed how easy it is to create a PDF form that is fillable by the free Adobe Reader and can be saved by said reader, the delegates were blown away.... I love this product!

Posted by Steve Partridge at 09:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today (in around 30 minutes) I'm off to this year’s conference for the Communication Directors of the Church of England to run a couple of Acrobat seminars. This will be interesting for me as I normally look to similar events I've done in similar "comapnies"....

Checking back, I haven't run similar events for the Catholic Church, the Baptists, Jewish Community, Muslims, Bhuddists, etc... There's a good chance I'll learn more today than imarting knowledge, but we'll see. (apologies to any major religion I omitted in that list)

As time progresses towards end of year, all sales organisations go into overdrive, I'll try and keep up to date on any new stuff that comes along.

Speaking of which........ On Oct. 5, Adobe posted information on its Security Bulletins and Advisories page about the recently reported vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat for Windows. The full statement is available at: http://www.adobe.com/support/security/advisories/apsa07-04.html

Having now researched and verified the vulnerability, Adobe expects to provide before the end of October an update to versions 8.1 of Adobe Reader and Acrobat that will resolve the issue. A security bulletin will be published on the company's Security Bulletins and Advisories page http://www.adobe.com/support/security/ at which point the update is available. In the meantime, Adobe is also making available information about a workaround users can implement to protect themselves from the vulnerability. And, as always, Adobe recommends users exercise skepticism and caution when in receipt of unsolicited e-mail communications requesting user action, such as opening attachments or clicking web links.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 08:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's always good to see good manners and good winners. I know the Australians always are magnanamous in defeat and victory, never crowing about beating the Pommies or calling us cocky etc. So it's great to see the teams shaking hands at the end of the game wether you were the winner or the loser.

It must be quite a long flight back to Australia I guess?

Posted by Steve Partridge at 07:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm not carping, honest I'm not but blimey, does this feel good??!!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I may have to get my self around the outside of a beer.

Posted by Steve Partridge at 06:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In an entry guaranteed to show off both y age and my dorkiness, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Thomas Dolby at the Concorde2 in Brighton last night. It's the first time I've seen him live and I'm not sure why I waited 25 years to do so. D'Oh!

Posted by Steve Partridge at 07:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We have reached the time of year when people want to start planning for the next one, at the same time as we are also running around trying to put the current year to bed. Seems like I'm planning Christmas, Easter and the next Summer holiday all at the same time! Luckily, I'm only talking about work which is much easier to deal with.

Spent a couple of days this week starting the planning process for 2008 for Acrobat. I'm looking forward to geting in front of as many people as possible again next year, but am also hoping to spend a bit more time presenting virtually. My coleagues think i'm only just virtually presenting as it is but I hope to use Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional (mouthful!) to run a lot more eSeminars, training and other events. I'll try to keep you posted from here.

I took a day to record some voiceovers for our training academy, I'll be the voice of the training modules for Acrobat and maybe some other products, apologies if you're having to sit through them. I'll try to make the next few a little less dry and a little more entertaining. I do hope they sound OK, maybe a carreer in radio commercials is beckoning?

TIME FOR AN ACROBAT TIP!!!!
Well, I haven't included one for ages. Acrobat s a great tool for archiving information, as we know, the resultant PDF file can be searched on content.. So much better than some other formats people use. So, a quick tip if you create and share large PDF files, ones with lots of pages. You can embed the search index and it will make subsequent searching much faster.....

Steps
1. Use the Advanced > Document Processing��� > Manage Embedded Index ..... Menu option
2. Acrobat will then create and embed a search index
3. Anyone can now search this PDF more quickly, choose Edit��� > Search

Posted by Steve Partridge at 03:30 PM | Permalink |