webqem blog

It has been more than 2 years now since Adobe ColdFusion 8 was released. Now, it seems like ColdFusion 9 is just around the corner, as Adobe has made a download of the Beta available for download for the public.

ColdFusion 9 will allow developers to utilize a whole heap of better tools; from greater integration with the Adobe® Flash® Platform, to a complete system of integrated tools, frameworks, to content and video that runs consistently across operating systems and devices. As a result of these great new features, developers and IT professionals have an easier path for creating rich user interfaces for their enterprise applications and to integrate across their existing technologies – which is pretty cool!

The webqem team is very excited to finally get their hands on the beta. Click here for the full report from Adobe (the download is at the bottom of the article).

The Adobe Flex 4 framework is currently in a Public Beta stage and is a fairly significant reworking of how a lot of the layout / component bits work. The August 2009 issue of the Adobe Edge newsletter features a great article summarising the custom component changes and is worth a read if you want to develop your understanding of what’s new.

Acrobat.com Tables is the latest addition to the feature-packed acrobat.com website. Tables provides a better way to work with others on data and information — such as task lists, schedules, contacts, sales numbers, etc. — that are typically created and shared in spreadsheets or simple databases.

Built on the Adobe® Flash® Platform, Acrobat.com Tables looks and behaves like a desktop application but operates inside your web browser. It is easy enough to use, as the user interface looks very familiar – anyone who has used Microsoft Excel (almost everyone has) will feel at home. Best of all, its free to use! So check it out as well as the other cool applications that Acrobat.com provides.

Adobe is giving K-12 schools the fantastic opportunity to own the latest Creative Suite 4 software at 35% off the usual price. Schools can trade in their current site license* and receive 35% off Creative Suite 4 when they upgrade before 8th May 2009!

PLUS, webqem is throwing in 2 FREE one day passes to attend any of our Adobe training courses . That’s more than A$1,500 worth of FREE training. Schools can send their ‘super-users’ to the webqem certified training courses and have them return competent to train the rest of the school staff.

The K-12 School Site Licenses allow installation rights for up to 250 or 500 school-owned or school-leased computers regardless of school enrolment size. K-12 School Site Licenses also come with valuable DVDs of curriculum and training materials to help educators implement career and technical education programs around design, web, and video programs.

The site licenses are available for the following Creative Suite 4 products:

• Master Collection
• Production Premium
• Design Premium
• Design Standard
• Web Premium
• Web Standard

Take advantage of this great offer from Adobe, and contact us today on +61 2 8968 1600

Adobe has announced the launch of Captivate 4 and the new Adobe eLearning Suite. To celebrate the launch, webqem has a limited time* offer – for anyone purchasing or upgrading to Captivate 4, we will give you a voucher for $150 off your next webqem Adobe Captivate Training course.

With Adobe Captivate 4 software, you can rapidly author professional eLearning content with advanced interactivity, software and scenario simulations, quizzes, and other engaging experiences—no programming or multimedia skills required. Go to webqem’s Captivate 4 page to see the great new features of this new release.

Offering seven innovative applications in one complete, integrated package, Adobe eLearning Suite includes full new versions of: Adobe Captivate 4, Adobe Flash CS4, Adobe Dreamweaver CS4, Adobe Presenter 7, Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro, Adobe Soundbooth CS4, Adobe Device Central CS4, Adobe Bridge CS4, and SCORM Packager. The eLearning suite is great for instructional designers and developer, training managers, and educators. Got to eLearning Suite on the webqem site to find out more information.

Contact webqem for more information about the Captivate 4 and eLearning Suite software, plus the various upgrade paths that will save you money, as well as special education discounts and bundles. webqem is an Adobe Solutions Partner and Adobe Authorised Training Centre and a leading Australian reseller of Adobe products and services.

*Offer ends 31/03/2009

The Info-Tech Research Group seeks to simplify the complicated technology landscape, to help you get up to speed with new technologies and make the right technology purchasing decisions.

The recent Info-Tech Research Note on Web Conferencing provides a detailed, head-to-head, analytical comparison of the top five web conferencing products from Adobe, Cisco, IBM and Microsoft.

In their scorecard, Adobe Acrobat Connect was the only product to receive a high rating
in all areas: delivery and licensing, core functionality, advanced functionality and value, identifying Adobe as a leader amongst web conferencing vendors.

One of their key recommendations was:
“For advanced e-learning, instructional media delivery, virtual classrooms, and real-time business document collaboration, choose Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro.”

MLB.com, Major League Baseball’s online unit and one of the web’s most succcessful subscription services, is dropping Silverlight and switching to competitor Adobe Flash for the 2009 baseball season.

This is considered a major blow for Microsoft, whose Silverlight was used by NBC to stream Olympics content in 2008. MLB had previously been one of the most high profile Silverlight customers.

MLB.com streams live every Major League spring training, regular season and postseason game, via subscription, with over 1.5 million total subscribers since its debut on Opening Day 2003. Since that time, fans have accessed more than 1.8 billion streams of live and on-demand multimedia offerings on MLB.com, representing nearly 200 million hours of participation.

Adobe’s Flash Player is by far the largest video platform, installed on more than 98 percent of web-connected devices, while Silverlight is installed on about 25 percent.
The MLB two-year deal will see Adobe powering the MLB.tv live streaming service as well as its highlight and library video clips. MLB and Adobe will also work on rich Internet applications, providing content and features outside of the Web browser.

“Flash provides a TV-like experience. You turn it on and it works,” said Bob Bowman, president and CEO of MLB Advanced Media. “We want it to be flexible so we can add features…and it’s got to be scalable. We are the largest server of live entertainment in the country. Whether we are serving 20,000 for one game or 250,000 for another game, it’s got to be scalable over periods of time like nothing else.”

CCTVCOM is the internet portal of the largest professional television broadcasting media organisation in China. CCTVCOM was the official internet/mobile broadcaster for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, enabling millions of sports fans in mainland China and Macau to vividly experience Olympic videos built on Adobe Flash and Flex technology.

CCTV needed a solution that supported a large-scale, highly flexible, robust balancing network of high concurrent streaming media. Partnering with Adobe allowed them to deliver a compelling consistent Web 2.0 user experience, such as a 3D TV wall and seamless integration of viewing with live chat functions. The architecture involved a multi-city node origin/edge distribution mechanism.

During the games there were over 832 million visits, with over 46.6 million on-demand video playbacks delivered via Flash Media Server technology, with the maximum concurrent users of live chat room reaching 90,000 and over 10,000 video clips, including whole matches, highlights, extra new and interviews.

Read more about CCTV and FMS

webqem is committed to standards and accessibility when developing websites.

As part of that commitment, Rob and Chris attended the WIPA (Web Industry Professionals Association) Accessibility 2.0 Seminar in Sydney on 12 November, to discover the latest news about accessibility.

The seminar covered three main areas:

1. Moving from WCAG 1.0 to WCAG 2.0
2. Preparing accessible Flash
3. Preparing accessible PDFs

WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, which a recommendations from W3C, the World Wide Web Consortium, for making web content accessible to people with disabilities. This covers physical, cognitive and technical disabilities.

The WCAG 1.0 Recommendations, have been in effect since May 1999 and needed revision to address changes in technology and future flexibility. WCAG 2.0 is in “Proposed Recommendation” status, and considered highly likely to be approved as a “Recommendation” by the end of the year.
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Adobe announced the new version of Creative Suite in a massive public launch at 12:01 EST on September 23 2008, with webcasts of the launch event scheduled around the globe.

With the tagline “Shortcut to Brilliant”, the new Creative Suite 4 allows you to express yourself richly in virtually any medium; simplifies workflows for greater efficiency; and to exchange information, ideas and feedback more easily.

Packages include the Design Premium, Web Premium, Production Premium and Master Collection. The Adobe website states that Creative Suite 4 is expected to ship by late October 2008.

Contact webqem for more information about Creative Suite 4, plus the various upgrade paths that will save you money, as well as special education discounts and bundles. webqem is an Adobe Solutions Partner and Adobe Authorised Training Centre and a leading Australian reseller of Adobe products and services.