webqem blog

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.

Blackboard is a leading provider of e-Education enterprise software applications and services, servicing schools, universities, corporations, governments and publishers. Blackboard’s online learning application, the Blackboard Learning System, is the most widely-adopted course management system among U.S.tertiary institutions.

Adobe has just announced that the Adobe Acrobat Connect/Blackboard Building Block (integration module) is now available to customers from the Blackboard Building Block website at http://www.blackboard.com/corp/objects/inc/B2Details.asp?ExtensionID=10314

Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro 7 provides a more integrated workflow to common tasks with Blackboard 7.3 and 8, allowing:

• Administrators to easily install the LMS integration module;
• Course Builders create and manage course-specific Adobe Connect Pro Meetings as part of their course offering;
• Students to see upcoming Adobe Connect Pro Meetings and Today’s Meetings.

webqem are the leading Australian Adobe Solutions Partner for Adobe Connect Pro, and will be attending BBWorld AsiaPac 08 in Adelaide on September 8 - 10, sharing knowledge in online learning solutions.

http://usc.edu.au/University/MediaPublications/News/MoreNews/GayleBeijing.htm

University of the Sunshine Coast business lecturer Gayle Mayes used Adobe Connect to bring the Beijing Olympics into her classroom.

Ms Mayes spent two weeks in Beijing for the Olympic Games, and organised live video links with her Sport and Event Marketing classes during their scheduled lecture times, covering the sports marketing topics discussed in her University classes.

Issues included ticket prices, politics and sport, drugs in sport, security, the cultural, economic, political and environmental impacts of mega events, and the challenges of marketing and managing an international event in China.

Ms Mayes uses experiential education as her main teaching strategy. This approach last year earned her a $10,000 grant from the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education.

The role of technology in linking students together is discussed today in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, where Adobe Connect Professional is mentioned as one of the ways that teachers and students can collaborate online.

Adobe’s John Treloar, well known to educators here in Australia, is one of the people quoted in the article that covers how a variety of different technologies are being used to engage students online.

Using Adobe Connect to involve students in a collaborative environment rather than a passive one-to-many online seminar means that the learning process is more engaging - that the student has the ability to contribute and to be part of the learning experience.

Read more in the Sydney Morning Herald article entitled “Dial-up duxes”.

Adobe released their innovative new desktop runtime, Adobe AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) last week and webqem was part of the launch activities at the Powerhouse Museum.

Webqem and four other developers were invited to demonstrate their AIR skills by participating in AIR Jam, a competition where participants were each given three minutes to get up and demo AIR applications that they had built - the audience then selected their favourite by an SMS vote.

We showed a prototype of a travel companion application inspired by tripit.com. Especially built for the Sydney AIR launch, travelAIR gives users the ability to manage travel itineraries through a single program.

Users can add activities to their itineraries by dragging domestic airline PDFs or manually entering details using a variety of activity specific forms. Activities that include addresses have the ability to display their locations via Google Maps. Images can be associated with an itinerary by dragging them into it. Itinerary events can be dragged out of travelAir into calendars that support the ICS open standard; Apple’s iCal for example.

Our presentation of travelAIR received the highest amount of votes for the competition winning us a Nintendo Wii and a copy of Guitar Hero III for the office. Check out Barry Beattie’s video below for the webqem travelAIR presentation at the Australian Adobe AIR launch.

If you’re  a power user of both Outlook and Adobe Acrobat Connect Meetings, you might be interested to know that there’s a free add-in for Outlook that will allow you to schedule a Connect Meeting with associates directly.  It can be used to select a room from the available Meetings on your Connect server and view the schedules for invitees if you belong to the same Exchange server - it is compatible with current versions of Outlook up to Outlook 2007.

The latest version of the Acrobat Connect add-in for Microsoft Outlook can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/support/connect/updaters.html#outlook

An online tutorial is available from the Adobe site, titled “Using the Breeze Add-in for Microsoft Outlook” it can be found at http://brc.breezecentral.com/usingoutlookaddin/

Adobe have released a public beta of the next version of Adobe Acrobat Connect. Code named “Brio”, the beta is both a web meeting and a online collaboration tool based on the Flash Player intended for small business and individuals. The Brio beta can be evaluated online for free, applying for a Brio meeting gives users the opportunity to:

• Host unlimited online meetings with a maximum of 3 participants using:
  • Screen sharing
  • Chat
  • Camera and VoIP
  • Whiteboards
• Share documents and files with participants
• Have a personal Brio meeting URL

Beta means that Brio is still in development. It currently doesn’t offer the same meeting feature list as Connect but is still worth trying out as you’ll find that it is already a good performer - and a good insight into the future of Adobe Acrobat Connect. Apply for a free Brio account now at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/brio/