Tuesday, November 11, 2008



Embedding MindManager 8 SWF Files

One of the most important features from my perspective that is new to MindManager 8 is the ability to Export to Mindjet Player in a PDF or Flash File (SWF) format. Now I'm able to share my MindManager maps with just about anyone who has access to Flash or Adobe Acrobat Reader- which are found on nearly 98% of all computers. In this post I am going to embed a MindManager 8 maps which has been exported as a SWF file. You will see below the results of me embedding the map. You have complete control over opening and closing the topics and you can click on the links to take you out to the web sites. This is going to be a tremendous feature for me when teaching my graduate course. I will now be able to post my visual maps as a Mindjet Player PDF file and post it to BlackBoard for all my students to access. What is really great is that the links and Notes are preserved. This alone is worth the price of an upgrade.








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MindManager 8 Released Today

It has been hard to contain myself over the last month, since I had a chance to beta test the latest version of MindManager 8 which will be released today. Built on the strong foundation of MindManager 7, version 8 breaks new ground with some really exciting features. MindManager 8 breaks new ground with the introduction of the Mindjet Player which now allows you to share and publish your maps with just about anyone. It is now easy with MindManager 8 to transforms your maps into fully interactive Adobe PDFs or Flash .SWF files. They can be shared with anyone, published to blogs and embedded in web pages. When you see this feature you too will be amazed how you can interact with your maps with nothing else but the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. This is really going to change the way we publish and share our maps without the worry if the person on the other end has a copy of MindManager 8 installed on their computer. I can go on for days talking about this feature and look for a screencast about this in the coming days. In the same vein, Mindjet will be releasing a new version of MindManager Web which will allow you to access and collaborate on the web with your mind maps in a secure web workspace. Similar to Google Docs, you will now be able within any browser to open and co-edit your maps with other as you collaborate with clients on your projects. Using the same conventions to insert topics and format your maps you will be up and running using MindManager Web in no time and if you would like you can also access your maps with the desktop version of MindManager 8. Having both Mindjet Player and MindManager Web ensure that you and your clients can have access to your maps wherever you are.

One of the key design decisions that was made at Mindjet is clear once you start using MindManager 8; that is that you can work within MindManager 8 without having to leave the environment to view URL’s or for that matter viewing or editing Microsoft Office documents. That’s right now when you click on a URL it opens a Browser window right within MindManager 8- pretty cool. I’m sure you will agree-but it gets even better in that now when you click on a Microsoft Office document (Word, Excel, Project, PowerPoint) it opens in a window within MindManager 8 and can be viewed and edited. No need to have Word or Excel open- just edit and view within MindManager 8. For those of you have been using MindManager for awhile- I had always enjoyed using the Google search API which allowed me to do live searches within MindManager. Somehow along the way of new versions the API no longer worked- but now you can do live Google and Yahoo! searches can be directly inside a map, with mapped and editable search results that can be refreshed with one click, or automatically updated each time you open your map. MindManager 8 can also search Amazon, Facebook, MySpace, Microsoft Live Search, eBay, and StrikeIron. I’m confident that with this new ability that other 3rd party developers will build new search parts that we can use with MindManager 8. MindManager has become an extremely important tool for project planning and in the latest version Mindjet has answered our call and really beefed up its task management capabilities. MindManager 8 now includes automated task management that provides instant summations of task start date, end dates, level of completion, and exception management. It is now easier than ever to set dependencies and watch how MindManager 8 is able to instantly calculate the dates when tasks are due- if a task falls behind schedule MindManager 8 will color code the task to visually show you where you need to focus. And last but not least, MindManager 8 can now incorporate real time information from spreadsheets and databases with the new Database Linker feature. MindManager 8 can now access data from MS Excel, Oracle, IBM DB2, MS SQL Server, MS Access, and MySQL. I’m sure you will agree that this is a very substantial upgrade and one that I’m really very excited about. To find out more information about MindManager 8 please click on the link.

Friday, November 7, 2008



MindMeister 3 Rolls Out

I just received an email that MindMeister 3 has been released with a a large number of new features and tweaks to the user interface. Here is a list of the new features and changes in MindMeister 3:

  • Task Management

    Many more features for easier task management in MindMeister, including start date and duration, email notifications, iCalendar feeds, WunderTasks and a task overview from all maps.

  • Search and filter, better tags

    The new map search - you'll find it in your map list view - makes managing many maps a lot easier. You can search for titles and contents, and even use Find in maps (CTRL-F). Also, managing tags was enhanced with a new overflow dropdown.

  • Resize ideas and wrap

    Overlong idea labels always created problems. In the new release you can now resize them via drag and drop, and your maps will also keep the wrappings when exported e.g. to PDF or as image.

  • History View

    We completely revamped the version history to make viewing and replaying the collaborative changes of a mind map a useful and fun experience. Clicking on the coloured bullets starts "replay" mode. See also our tutorial video.

  • WikiMaps

    You can now turn any public map into a WikiMap. This will make it editable for everybody (well, everybody who has a MindMeister account, to avoid spamming). Quite useful to gather input from many people at once!

  • Import text files

    In addition to Freemind and MindManagerTM formats, you can now also import plain text files into MindMeister.

  • Emailing attachments

    Geisesblitz Email now supports attachments which will be inserted as attachments to your ideas into MindMeister.

  • Many more key shortcuts

    Our users say they love them, so we've added quite a few more for common operations. See a complete list.

  • Other enhancements

    New user interface, revamped "My Account" section, Offline mode for Safari, recommendations in map view, new export dialog and options, better printing (via PDF), clone public maps, larger note previews and much more.

Thursday, November 6, 2008



The Joy of Teaching

There is no better feeling when you are teaching to see your students in perfect sync with you as the lesson or demonstration unfolds. In many ways it almost feels like a symphony of sorts- there I am teaching and I can watch the expression and the heads moving in unison as they grasp the ideas that I am espousing. Pretty powerful stuff to say the least. Today was one of those days where everything just flowed. I have been introducing my students to the power of videoconferencing and challenging them to think of some ways to use it in the classroom. In this vein, I introduced them to two of my favorite videoconferencing applications Skype and Oovoo.

For the first part of the class, I connected with my friend Laura at Inspiration, Inc. and my class had a chance to meet her via videoconferencing. We had a very good connection and the class marveled in just how easy it was to accomplish the connection. After Laura introduced herself, we connected via Glance so that we could share her screen. Laura and I have done this before with some other classes but it was the first time we were using Glance to share her screen. Using the latest version of Glance and my account I was able to Start a session and view Laura's screen. As I have noted one of the things that I like most about Glance is just how easy it is to use. Today was a perfect example- within seconds of starting the session, Laura's screen was up and my class was viewing her computer. Laura did a great job of demonstrating InspireData which continues to impress me. Just this past week I modeled for a fifth grade teacher how to set up a mock election by using the eSurvey feature within InspireData. Glance was really fast and the screen redraws were nearly instantaneous. It was a great session and Glance worked flawlessly. My students were very excited to participate in the webinar and began to see just how these tools could be used together to deliver professional development and instruction.

After the short webinar- I had a chance to show them OoVoo and connected with Philip Robertson from OoVoo. We had a great conversation and the students remarked on the clarity of the image and the quality of the audio. We also had a chance to record the session which is another benefit of OoVoo and I had a chance to replay it for them. The session was a big hit and once again Philip came through and provided some great information and his great sense of humor. In in all it was a great day of teaching!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008



Ginger Spell -New Writing Software

While doing some searches for new writing software a couple of months ago, I came across a rather interesting web site from Ginger Software. The company was tauting a new software application called Ginger Spell that works within Microsoft Word to provide students with writing disabilities support in the area of spelling and grammar. At the present time Ginger Spell beta does not include grammar support but will be added when the applications ships. Ginger Spell is unique in that it assist students in producing error free text right within Microsoft Word using very sophisticated algorithms. Ginger Spell installs within Microsoft Word 2003 and Word 2007 and provides a window that allows students to view the suggested corrections. As much as I am a big fan of word prediction there are a number of students with writing disabilities that do not do well with the tool- here is where Ginger Spell comes in. Students can write within Microsoft Word as they always do and once they are done can utilize the power of Ginger Spell to process their writing. Ginger Spell has the uncanny ability to make the right correction and produce an error free finished product- which is ideal for students with writing disabilities. I have had a chance to beta test Ginger Spell and am very impressed with the underlying technology. To use Ginger Spell you will need to be running Windows and have access to Microsoft Word 2003 or 2007 along with a connection to the internet.

I like the post processing features and I believe that many students will find this a more natural way for them to check their work. At the present time, Ginger Spell does not support text to speech but this something that the developer will be adding when it is officially released. I found the user interface very intuitive and rather straightforward. Making changes to the text was very easy and Ginger Spell in 90% of the cases made the right suggestion without me having to make any changes. Give it a try by downloading the beta now of Ginger Spell.

Saturday, November 1, 2008



Brian's Update

It has been a busy couple of weeks along with being under the weather which has made it difficult for me to blog. I trust that I will be back on schedule next week with some posts, so look for them. It really is a juggling act getting all that needs to get done-but I'm pushing through.

Just today I mailed out an issue of Inclusion Times that was past due and worked on the Fall issue. For the past 4 years I have written and published Inclusion Times, which is geared towards educators who are working with students with disabilities. Over the past two year, I have expanded the coverage to include new and innovative technologies that are important for educators to know about. Because it is a traditional newsletter that goes out to individual educators and libraries I have printed, collated, and mailed out this newsletters via the post office. This process is more time consuming than you can imagine and because it is a niche newsletter I decided this year that I would produce Inclusion Times in an electronic version (PDF file) that my subscribers could download. This will not only save me time, energy but a will allow me to get the newsletter out that much quicker. To get a free sample of Inclusion Times click here or you can view the embedded PDF right within the blog post. If you like what you see let me know and I can get you set up with a subscription. I will let you know how this process works- in any case this is the way of the future!

Monday, October 20, 2008



Timebox Manager for Agile Development

I had the opportunity to speak with Nigel Goult of Olympic Limited, a MindManager developer last week about his very exciting project management application called Timebox Manager which is integrated with a MindManager add-in. TimeBox Manager incorporates the timeboxing methodology for agile development and is used primarily in the software industry. What follows is my interview with Nigel, which I trust you will find as interesting as I did. Brian

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BSF: Can you share with us a little bit about your background and how you got started developing the MindManager add-in?

NG: I first became involved with Mindjet and MindManager working for M-Urge Limited in 2001. M-Urge was, at that time, the UK MindManager Info Centre. After 3 years with M-Urge and seeing 3 incarnations of MindManager, MindManager Version 4, MindManager 2002 and MindManager X5, I left and started Visual Technology Solutions Limited, (VTS), with a business colleague. VTS was also a MindManager based business and during my time as co-owner/director I became more interested in how MindManager could be manipulated through its open API and programming. I became intrigued by the way, in which other companies where using MindManager to create other applications and solutions. The result of this was Visual Project Maps, (VPM), a very simple Project Management “add-in” for MindManager X5 Pro. Over time, VPM matured and became a PRINCE2 focussed solution delivered with MindManager Pro 6/7. In July 2008, I left VTS to pursue other opportunities through my own company, Olympic Limited. One of these was TimeBox Manager developed by Agile Force Limited, which was at that stage a beta application. With our help, Agile Force was able to complete beta and enable us to bring TimeBox Manager to the market.

BSF: Before you talk about your application Timebox Manager, can you share with us how this project management technique differs from more traditional PM and which industries is it most suited?

NG: Time boxing is a Project Management technique common in software development projects. Its purpose is to manage a project, for example, the creation of a new IT system, by splitting the project up in a number of separate segments, “time boxes”, (normally two to six weeks long). Each time box has its own deadline/delivery date and budget. By incrementally finishing one time box at a time, the project delivers within the desired timeframe.

The important thing about time boxing is that the dates are not flexible, but the deliverables are. Without time boxing, when the deliverables cannot be realised, the deadline generally slips. With time boxing, the deadline is fixed, and the deliverables adjusted. This goes hand-in-hand with the MoSCoW prioritization of deliverables, (must, could, should & won’t).

Time boxing is ideally suited to software development, publishing, broadcasting and any time imperative project/task where delivery dates are not flexible. It is also finding its way into more generic time/task management on a personal level i.e. your weekly tasks.


BSF: When did you see first see the fit between Timebox and using MindManager?

NG: When I first saw TimeBox Manager, I recognised immediately similarities it had with MindManager; the properties such as Task Priorities, Start and end dates and Resources mixed with the graphical representation of status. It just seemed to be an ideal fit in the MindManager world. This led to us helping Agile Force to develop an “add-in” that provided a way to move data between the two applications.

BSF: Can you share with us how your Timebox solution integrates with MindManager? In addition, how does it work?

NG: TimeBox Manager and MindManager integrate through the installation of a free add-in for MindManager. The add-in provides the ability to either:

  • Import a TimeBox Manager Data file into MindManager

and/or

  • Export a TimeBox Manager marked up map into TimeBox Manager

The add-in works by referencing a set of customised MindManager map markers. These map markers identify topics according to their status, which includes MoSCoW Prioritisation, Timebox Type, Percentage Complete and Resources. At present, this integration is a user initiated function i.e. selected from a MindManager ribbon menu. Planned development will take this into a seamless integration where connected MindManager maps and TimeBox Manager Data synchronises in real-time as data updates in either application.


BSF: What are the benefits of using MindManager and Timebox together?

NG: Using MindManager and TimeBox Manager together provides an alternative way to manage/manipulate project information; they also provide an alternative way of viewing the project status. When presenting information in a different way, it can very often alert the viewer to things that familiarity obscures.

BSF: Who is presently using Timebox and MindManager? What are your users saying about the tie in with MindManager

NG: Currently TimeBox Manager is in use by mainstream businesses and several corporate entities. There is a strong interest in the higher end of the Education market i.e. Management Colleges, Business Schools and Universities. Because of this, we are currently running an Educational directive, which offers a free TimeBox Manager licence to College/University lecturers and department heads for them to try TimeBox Manager and demonstrate the application to their students. Anyone interested in this offer should register on the TimeBox Manager website, www.timebox.olympic-limited.co.uk/education-offer. It is available for all approved lecturers and educational department heads from any country. You can go directly to the MindManager add-in by clicking here.

Saturday, October 18, 2008



Screensharing and More with Glance

Over the years I have used Glance to do webinars and for screen sharing sessions. One of the things that I like most about Glance is the ease of use and the lack of complexity. This is crucial especially when you are supporting others who may not be technically inclined. With Glance you simply select, Start a session and you are provided with your Glance.net URL and a session key that you provide to your client. It is just that simple- your client goes to the URL address provided, enters the session key you provided them and within seconds they see your screen. Like I said before, if you are working with clients that are new to this type of support it is crucial that the process is streamlined and easy. In the case of Glance, I have to say it is as easy as it gets.

Just yesterday, I received an email from Glance that they released a beta of the Glance application so that now you will be able to view your clients screen and take remote control to help provide support. To provide remote support using Glance it is as simple as selecting Start session - view guest's screen. You will be prompted if you want to just initially view or if you would like to view and take remote control of your clients computer when they log in. Again you simply provide your client with your Glance URL address and the session key. Once this accomplished they will be prompted to download a small viewing application. Having tested it out this past week the download and installation went very quickly. Once installed you will now be able to view your clients screen and remotely control their computer. This is a great tool for providing webinars and now for doing remote support without having to leave the office.

Glance starts at $49.95 a month or $499 dollars for a full year for a Glance Personal account. The program is cross platform and I have used it with my PC and my Mac with excellent results. For the Glance Personal account you can host an unlimited number of sessions and can have up to 100 users online with you- which is great for webinars. There are Glance Corporate accounts as well which you can find out more information about on their website. Some of the new features like sharing your clients screen and remote access are only available at this time on Windows. Hopefully this will change. Glance has been really good about adding support for Macintosh, so I will assume that it is just a matter of time.

In these tough economic times, tools like Glance are going to make a real difference in allowing consultants and trainers to provide high quality services without the need to travel. If you are looking for online training in Captivate 3, MindManager 7, JCVGantt Pro, Adobe Presenter or Adobe Acrobat 9 Extended give me a holler. Imagine how much time can be saved by doing training in the privacy of your home or office using tools like Glance. Glance is very easy and powerful tool that simply delivers! So if you have the opportunity download the application and give it a try, you will be glad you did.

Monday, October 13, 2008



Using MindManager 7 as a Presentation Tool

Today is a big professional in-service day for educators in New Jersey and I was lucky enough to be able to present to teachers in the beautiful Warren County. I always enjoy doing presentations and workshops in Warren County-you can count on beautiful vistas and lots of farms along the way, and there is never much traffic. Today I had the opportunity to do two different workshops-one focused on free Web 2.0 technologies and the other one was a demonstration of more traditional assistive technology.

I really enjoyed working with the teachers as I shared with them a number of free resources that can be used with their students to make the curriculum more accessible. In this economic downturn the teachers were very glad that I was able to focus on free web services and software that runs through the browser. For many of the teachers, many of the applications and resources that I shared with then were new. It was exciting to see them use NaturalReader with Microsoft Word and have it read the web. Many of the teachers saw many application for this application with the students that they work with. Because the workshop was only 90 minutes I need to have a way for them to jump from web site to web site without having them have to type in the URL. This is where MindManager 7 came to the rescue. After creating my visual map I exported it to the web and was able to publish it to my website. Using the Overview map my participants could quickly move to the links by simply clicking. This worked like a charm and it is a strategy that I will use in future presentation when I want my participants to be able to move quickly from one website to another. Here is an example of the Overview map that I used for my workshop today. Take a look at it and let me know what you think.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008



CrossLoop and Skype to the Rescue!

Just yesterday evening Karen Janowski and I completed and successfully submitted our NECC 2009 Proposal. When all is said and done we could not have done it without Skype and CrossLoop. Karen and I set up a CrossLoop session and I had my computer logged onto the the NECC Submission Proposal Screen ready to go. At any point in time Karen could jump right onto my screen and make edits and add text. Using Skype for the audio we were able to complete the process in about an hour's time. Having Karen have access to my computer screen as we filled out the form made life so much easier. We didn't have to email or pass text from one another or get confused as to where we were in the process. If I had to do it again I would definitely turn to Skype and CrossLoop to complete the online proposal. Having these two tools at our disposal made this a truly collaborative experience and one that allowed us to efficiently complete the task at hand. Now the hard part- waiting until December to find out if our proposal was accepted. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Monday, October 6, 2008



Adobe Certified Expert in Captivate 3

For the past month I have been soaking up every bit of information that I could find in preparation for taking the Adobe Certification Examination for Adobe Captivate 3. What better way to master the program than to jump right in and use it day in and day out, which is what I did. The Adobe Captivate 3 Certification Test consisted of 62 questions pertaining to different aspects of the program. If you go on the Adobe website they do breakdown the various topics that will be covered on the exam and even give you 10 sample questions to show you what you can expect. The exam is administered through Pearson and I took it in a designated Computer center about 30 minutes from my home. The Adobe Certification examination is administered on the computer and was very easy to navigate and to review questions. Some of the questions had picture exhibits which were very easy to access. Of course what was nice was that once I finished the exam-I received my results almost instantaneously. I did pass with flying colors and you will see that I can now place the Adobe Certified Expert in Captivate 3 logo on my blog.

In addition to using Captivate 3, I did find a couple of resources that were indispensable in preparation for the test that I would like to share with you. One of the first books that I purchased was Essentials of Adobe Captivate 3 by Kevin A. Siegel. This workbook takes you step by step through the process of putting a project together and helps you to understand the basic concepts and ideas on how to best use Adobe Captivate 3. Using this workbook, you will get up to speed quickly as you move through the project. A CD with project files accompanies the workbook which makes it very easy to apply the skills that you are developing. This is a must for first time users of Captivate 3.

The second reference book which I relied on in preparation for the examination was Adobe Captivate 3: The Definitive Guide (Wordware Applications Library) by Brenda Huettner. This guide proved to be more like a manual and really went into in depth on all of the topics that would be covered in the exam. As a reference guide this book was really fantastic and I was able to quickly use the index to look up information as I was studying for the exam. I must have read this reference guide 3 times from cover to cover in preparation, and it really paid off. If you are preparing for the Adobe Certified Examination for Captivate 3, I would highly recommend that you consider these two wonderful resources.

So if you are looking to do some internal training of your staff and need someone to help you develop your materials- I know an Adobe Certified Expert in Captivate 3 that is ready to help:-)

Tuesday, September 30, 2008



September/October Issue of Mindjet Connections Newsletter Out

Check out the latest issue of Mindjet Connections Newsletter. It is chock full of great articles and a really great JCVGantt Video Tips 'n Trick from yours truly. Enjoy!

PS: If you organization is looking for someone to create video tutorials or demonstrations, please feel free to email me.


Go Green with Forms with Adobe Acrobat 9

In my previous post I wrote about the new Portfolio feature in Adobe Acrobat that is bound to change the way you think about sending PDF files. In this blog installment I want to talk to you about how both business and school organizations can cut down on their use of paper and reduce their carbon footprint by using the Forms feature in Adobe Acrobat 9. If you work in any organization you know that there is a form for just about everything and anything that takes place in your office. Forms for travel Expenses, Sick Days, Vacation Requisitions, Tuition Reimbursement and the list goes on and on. I'm sure you know the drill- get the paper form fill it out and send it via inter-office mail. Or in some instances the form may be posted on your organization's website but you still need to print it out and fill it in and send it to the appropriate office. That seems like a lot of work, and if you multiply that by how many employees are in your organization that sure is a lot time and paper that is being used in the process.

Using the Forms feature in Adobe Acrobat 9 will not only make your organizations form flow more efficient-but can significantly reduce the amount of paper and time that it takes to complete and route forms. If you haven't looked at the Forms feature in Adobe Acrobat 9, I suggest that you do. You will find it very easy to create forms from your existing paper based forms, electronic forms that you may have in Word, or from a Acrobat PDF template. If your existing form is paper based you can scan it into Adobe Acrobat 9 and have Acrobat convert it to a fill in blank form for completing with Acrobat Reader. The process is very quick and within minutes you will have an electronic form ready to be filled in. If you are not familiar with the process you can use the Forms Wizard to walk you through the process for creating your form. Within minutes you will have your form ready to go. Once your form is complete the next decision you need to make is how are you planning to distribute the form? You have several options-you can distribute it on Acrobat.com, as an email, and to an internal server. Using the free Acrobat.com website makes it a cinch to distribute forms and all of the heavy lifting for distributing the forms is done within Adobe Acrobat 9. You can get a free Acrobat.com account and use it to distribute your forms-however, bear in mind that if you are dealing with information of a confidential nature you should consider hosting the form on your internal server. Once the form is distributed you can email it to select individuals or have it available on your website for completing on line with Acrobat Reader 9. The real beauty of using Adobe Acrobat 9 Extended is the ability to use the Track Forms feature to view the Responses. When you initiate this feature Adobe Acrobat 9 will go out to your server or to Acrobat.com and pull in all the completed forms. If you have never used this feature it is a very fast and efficient way to collect your information without the need to print out forms on paper. This can quickly change your entire work flow and help your organization move towards moving forms in a paper-less fashion. Now imagine the cost saving and just how good you will feel that you are doing something good for the environment!. If you want to try it out you can certainly download Acrobat 9 Trial version from the Adobe web site.

To see what it is like to fill out the form, you can complete this Contact Form and send it to me with the Adobe Acrobat Reader. To download the Contact Form click on the Menu in the Thumbnail below and download the form. After filling in the Form just click on the Submit Form button which is located on the top of the Acrobat Reader.



Friday, September 19, 2008



Creating PDF Portfolios in Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended

I have been a long time user of Adobe Acrobat and use it extensively in the work that I do as a professor and technology consultant. While many of us are used to using Adobe Acrobat Reader- you don't really understand the power and utility of Adobe Acrobat until you start working with with the Standard, Pro or Pro Extended versions. When Adobe announced that they had just released version 9 of Adobe Acrobat, I knew that I had to take a look at it and see what new features it offered. I once again would like to thank Roman from A & R Edelman for providing me with a review copy of Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended. There are currently four different versions in the Adobe 9 product line which include: Reader, Standard, Pro, and Pro Extended. Each version has a different set of features which are delineated on this matrix provided by Adobe. For the purpose of this review I am going to be speaking about Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended version which has the most advanced feature rich set.

In this post, I will highlight two very exciting features which I know will change the way we think about PDF's (Portable Document Format) and how we use them. On the top of my list is the introduction of portfolio's and the ability to play Flash assets within a PDF which takes this version to a whole new level. Let me start off by talking about the Portfolio feature which I know will make us all rethink how we create and distribute information that we produce. I'm sure that if you are like me, you often get emails with several PDF attachments. When the email is delivered into your inbox you have no idea which one to open first and once they are opened you then have to save them to a folder and organize them in some way so that they are useful to you. Well all of that has changed with the concept of creating a PDF Portfolio with Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended (Portfolio's can be created with the Standard and Pro editions of Acrobat).

Now imagine that you can now take your existing PDF files, SWF files, Word files, Excel documents, and picture files and create one unitary portfolio which stores all of your documents. When you are ready to share your documents via an email attachment there is only one file to attach. While this is certainly an improvement over the way we used to do it, now imagine that you have the ability to craft the portfolio so that it has the look and feel that you hope to achieve for your communication. Once you begin to create your portfolio you can choose a layout, add a welcome and header, select a color scheme, specify file details, and publish the portfolio. I found it very easy to create the look an feel that I wanted and I was able to add my picture to personalize my portfolio. I choose to use the Revolve layout which gave me a sort of cover flow effect that you might find on your iPod. To add the files to my portfolio- it was as simple as dragging them into the portfolio from my desktop where they were stored. You should note that my PDF Portfolio contains several different types of files, just to show you the power of this new feature. I included a Word document, a Captivate SWF movies, and several PDF files. Acrobat allowed me to use the nice blue color schemes from a large palette of colors. One of the really impressive features is the ability to present your documents in the order you desire when the recipient receives them. By creating an Order field within Acrobat, I was able to place a number from 1 to 6 into the field and then sort the documents so that they appear in the order that I want. As you create your PDF Portfolio there are lots of features that you can change to insure that it looks and behaves as you wish. Before publishing your PDF Portfolio there are lots of ways that Acrobat allows you secure your PDF portfolio. Click here to watch how I created a PDF Portfolio in Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended

What really got me excited is the way Adobe Acrobat 9 handles files within the portfolio. You will see if you download my PDF Portfolio that Acrobat will allow you preview your Word and Excel files right within the portfolio. You will also note that I placed a Captivate 3 swf demonstration video within the PDF file that plays right within Adobe Acrobat Reader 9, without the need of any additional players. This feature alone is huge. Imagine being able to great technical and training guides complete with Flash videos embedded right within the PDF. With Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended you can easily embed Flash video within your Word and PowerPoint presentations. Once you install Adobe Acrobat 9 Extended you will now have a new Acrobat menu embedded within Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. By simply using the Embed Video drop down you can insert Flash and FLV videos right within your documents that are automatically converted to Flash when you publish your PDF's. This is truly an awesome feature and one that will change the way we think about how we use PDF's for training and distributing information. Remember you will need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader 9 to view the Portfolio.

As part of Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended you also get the added bonus of Adobe Presenter 7 which is an add-in to PowerPoint. I must say a very powerful add-in to say the least. I have highlighted the use of Adobe Presenter in a previous post- so if you missed it here is the link.


RTIME/MyRTIME TM 5.0 - Visual Brainstorming and Requirement Capture with MindManager® Integration

I had the opportunity to speak with Bob Chenal from QAVantage just last week, who has developed a MindManger 7 Pro add-in to there software product RTIME. Using MindManager® Pro 7 from Mindjet®, Business Analysts, Product Managers and any other stakeholders can visually map out software requirements across the lifecycle of the product. MindManager will not only improve your teams productivity, it will improve requirements quality and communication. Free form capture your ideas or start with a pre-defined MindManager template(s) provided by QAVantage. Once the information has been organized within MindManager Pro 7 you can quickly transfer the information into the RTIME application to monitor the lifecycle of the project.
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BSF: Can you share with us a little bit about your background and how you got started developing the MindManager add-in?

RC: QAvantage is really two consultancies that merged in 2006. The first started development in software lifecycle consulting and specialized in testing services on large projects in the corporate IT space. Since 1997 they had developed and refined a very nice tool for requirements tracking, tracing and coverage. The other was consulting primarily to commercial software development companies and had developed some requirement prioritization and management tools for product managers. It didn’t take long after discovering one another that we concluded that if we combined elements of our respective tools we could fill a rather wide gap in the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) Market, where the offerings are either very big, expensive portfolios of tools, or very focused point tools that don’t cover a wide swath of the lifecycle. So we invested, hunkered down, blended and revamped what we had and then started marketing in earnest this past summer, a product called RTIME 5.0.

RTIME uses a structured database at its core (Microsoft SQL Server), so up until our integration with Mind Manager Pro we had no graphically based requirement development facility. Most SDLC tools and the majority of requirement development point tools don’t have a graphically based front end either, and those that do are really purpose built for just a single facet of requirement development, like Use Case Diagrams, so it’s a common problem. We are very excited to be the first company to offer this, but we do expect others to catch on eventually.


BSF: When did you see first see the fit between Software Requirements Management and using Mind Manager?

RC: We think it was back in 2002 that a couple of us got the first exposure to MM and that was by the COO of a software company who used MM for a whole variety of things, including his quarterly meetings presentations. We went back to ask about the tool because it seemed so handy, but being as busy as we all are in the software business, we didn’t have the time to explore it. It’s too bad we didn’t take a closer look then.

Then just eight months ago, a fairly large commercial software company was in need of a tool like RTIME. RTIME really starts with users entering requirements into a structured database so that requirements can be approved, tracked, traced , and then evolved into development tasks, tested etc. But requirements themselves need to be elicited from users and documented in some way and MMs are really just excellent for that purpose because they’re geared to taking thoughts and ideas and forming them into useful visual information with structure. When we saw it used that way we were blown away by how much better this was than the most common tools- which are Word or sticky notes. Yes, that’s actual yellow paper sticky notes.

So we basically raced to understand the Mindjet API to see if we could build an import capability from Mindjet to our system. When we found that we could do that and have it done by our release of RTIME 5.0 we were ecstatic, because we knew that this would help us not just with this opportunity, but that it would give a great strategic advantage.

The richness of the visual interface, the flexibility, the well developed APIs and deep integration to Office tools means that you can carry the primary form of the requirement in a MM, manipulate it and then just export to all the other forms depending on your needs, which is really perfect, especially when requirements are in the formative stages


BSF: Can you share with us how your SQL based Software Development Lifecycle Management system integrates with MindManager? And how does it work?

RC: We have an Mindmanager export plug-in that first examines the mmap file, then allows you to designate various containers and the content thereof for export, does integrity checks, alerts the users to any invalid structures, and then maps it into the RTIME data structure. So when you import a mind map that has requirements in containers at some level, their higher level groupings, descriptions and attributes and assumptions are imported into RTIME. The traditional file and folder format that RTIME presents to the user is consistent with the MM depiction. If the user has relationship lines in the MM, they are translated into dependency links between requirements.

This is just the beginning. We have much more extensive plans for MindManager that we are working on for RTIME 6.0.

BSF: What are the benefits of using MindManager and RTIME together?

RC: When you step back, the whole process of developing software from conception to final product can be summed up in just two notions. One, it’s the stepwise crystallization of (sometimes rather wispy) thoughts into the very brittle stuff that software is- and Two (ever so important Two) being sure that what you created consistently does what you originally conceived it to do.. without breaking.

Notion two is RTIME’s turf. Any SDLC tool worth its salt needs to have extensive prioritization, reporting, traceability, test coverage and process management components. Those are best supported by a system where just one databases, is used to drive these components. So we have constructed RTIME as an affordable product that has a straight forward single database structure with a broad set of capabilities. We even have a single user version called MyRTIME.

Notion one is where everyone needs even more help. How do we develop better requirements to begin with? How can we speed up the crystallization process? How can we do this without having to learn complex specialized tools that take big investments in time and money just to put in place? This is where MMs have so much value. When requirements get really complex and there are a lot of interrelationships, Business Analysts and Product Managers need requirements tools that will help gather, reveal gaps, optimize structure and quickly convey those requirements and to others.

Now that we have both of these bases covered in the overall solution, we have a front end tool that helps us cover this most challenging area and integrates in a nice clean fashion to what RTIME handles well. But using a MM can help whether or not you use any SDLC tool. As far as I know, the most structured text documents out there contain requirements and specifications that describe some sort of technology. Whenever they get large, a MM can help you make them better.

My case in point: I worked for many years at HP Software as a Solution Marketing Manager where a good portion of my time was laboring over really huge requirements documents that came in to our group in the form of RFPs for complex telecom database systems. When I saw early this year how easy it was to import one of those highly structure Word documents into a mind map where it could be viewed and reorganized in MM form, then exported into a better Word document, I wanted to cry. All I could think of was all the mind numbing hours I spent scrolling and searching through those monster documents when I could have viewed, drilled into and modified them in a far easier way.

BSF: Who is presently using RTIME and MindManager? What are your users saying about the tie in with MindManager

RC: We’ve had extremely enthusiastic response back from our first users. I think it’s because everyone that’s used it so far has been sort of blindsided in the same way we have. Here’s a gush from a Business Analyst at a New Jersey based Medical Marketing group that is now using the new 5.0 RTIME:

The integration between MindManager and RTIME is awesome. It gives an excellent visual representation of requirements making it easier to recognize gaps. It's a huge time saver and simple to use. I'm addicted!”

And from Mike Tilman, COO of IDRT, a company using 5.0 to help with their development of a very cool hardware and software system to translate American Sign Language into English text and speech.

“Being able to map out our requirements in MindManager Pro® speeds both the process of capturing our requirements as well as communicating them clearly across our internal and external team members. Equally importantly is once we import them into RTIME™ we can manage them through the entire development and delivery cycle. ”

And the initial reaction from that fairly large company I mentioned earlier is very positive. We expect we’ll be importing hundreds of Mind maps that they have accumulated over the last several years as they formalize their entire development and test process.

For more information about RTIME click here

Monday, September 15, 2008



Webspiration to Go Beta This Week

It is with a great deal of excitement that I announce that Inspiration will be releasing in a public beta Webspiration, their online visual thinking tool. (Webspiration will be available to the public this Wednesday for a free sign-up). I have had the privilege to work with Webspiration for the the last couple of months and have to say it was a truly wonderful experience. Inspiration, Inc has been able to take that same experience you have had when using the software on your desktop and translate it to that same experience within the browser. You will feel right at home once you log into Webspiration and all the familiar icons still adorn the web application. The major difference between the desktop application and Webspiration is that you are now able to invite others via an email to collaborate with you on your visual web. This is a very unique feature and one that will go a long way in the classroom, as you build collaborative activities. You will be glad to learn that you can upload your existing Inspiration graphic organizers to the web as well as download the ones you create from within Webspiration. Overall, Webspiration gives you all the power of the desktop version with the added benefits of collaboration, and being able to access your visual maps from any computer connected to the web. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Saturday, September 13, 2008



Adobe Presenter 7- Making eLearning Come to Life

While attending the NECC 2008 Conference this summer, I had the opportunity to sit through several of the Adobe presentations to see what new applications were on the horizon. Adobe was tauting their latest application called Adobe Presenter 7 which is a plug-in to PowerPoint. I would like to thank Roman from A & R Edelman for providing me with a review copy of Adobe Presenter and for his support. In a nut shell, Adobe Presenter 7, lets you convert your legacy PowerPoint applications into a Flash based presentation or PDF file. That being said, there is a lot under the hood of Adobe Presenter 7 which can turn your PowerPoint slides into a dynamic eLearning environment complete with video, navigation, attachments, quizzing, and audio. PowerPoint 2007, Adobe Presenter 7 installs a new Ribbon with all of the features. Adobe Presenter 7 is part of Adobe Acrobat 9 Extended version. Using the Help menu it was rather easy to build my first Adobe Presenter 7 presentation which included video, Flash based video tutorials that were authored in Captivate 3, and audio. Using a webcam I was able to include a video of myself introducing my company and services, which gave my piece a nice touch. Adobe Presenter 7 allowed me to customize the look and feel of the final project and even let me include PDF attachments which can make this a great way to deliver eLearning material on the web.

Having created Flash based software tutorials in Captivate 3, I could easily embed them in my PowerPoint slide presentation with complete control of how they behaved with the controllers. When thinking of the future of training, I for one am very excited by the fact that I can now embed Flash based videos directly into a PDF file which can be viewed with nothing other that the free Adobe Reader 9. This is a new feature with the release of Adobe Acrobat 9 this spring. Think about that for a moment. That is very powerful! With nothing more than Adobe Acrobat Reader 9, your students or clients will be able to take advantage of video and audio with the confidence it will just work. As long as you have Flash installed on your computer you can be sure that your presentation will deliver the content. According to the surveys more than 98% of all computer users have Flash installed. This is very exciting for me just thinking of all the possibilities of building engaging and interactive environments for others to learn new skills.


In the presentation that I created you will see how all of these elements have come together. I was able to include video from my webcam, audio from a lapel microphone, and Flash video tutorials, along with some training PDF files. What I'm most impressed about the product is just how well it wraps everything up and when you are finished you get a very professional looking presentation to share with the world. I found Adobe Presenter 7 easy to learn to use and without so much as a manual I was creating this highly interactive eLearning materials. Adobe Presenter 7 is a wonderful integrator, helping you to bring all of the pieces together to make for an exciting and interesting elearning experience. I for one really enjoyed putting this project together. Click here to view the presentation, right within your browser or if you want you can download the presentation as a PDF file here. The PDF file is 11 megabytes and will take a little time to download. This will give you some idea of the power of Adobe Acrobat in its current release. You will need to download Adobe Acrobat 9 Reader to view this presentation. Adobe Presenter 7 also allows you to create quizzes for the purpose of assessment, with a variety of different types of question formats that can be integrated into your learning management system (LMS). I will tackle this feature in another blog post later next week. You can download a trial version of Adobe Presenter 7 from the Adobe website.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008



Google Presentation Updated

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For its 1 year anniversary Google has updated Google Presentation and added a couple of new features in the process. As I use Google Presentation, I realize the value and ease of storing my files in the cloud and have been trying to move my graduate students to experience this new way of computing. I think I'm having an impact and I will know later next month when they all have to do a group presentation. I wonder what percentage will use PowerPoint and what percentage will use Google Presentation. I will let you know. In any case Google has added an Incremental Reveal and has added the ability to Zoom in and Zoom out when editing your presentation. I tried it out and it works well. I know my students will appreciate the incremental reveal which can be accessed by right clicking on the text block. You can also see that there are a number of new presentation

Monday, September 8, 2008



Mead Map Updated

I just received word that Mead Map has been updated, and in addition to real time collaboration, auto zoom for easy navigation and other innovative features, the online tool can now incorporate attachments. Users can attach pdfs, jpgs, Microsoft office documents and other files to their Mead Maps. This enhancement improves group collaboration, allowing teammates to quickly store and update all project resources in one centralized location without juggling USB drives, disks or CDs. One of the things that I really enjoy about Mead Map is its ease of use and the ability to publish your maps to the web so easily. I had a chance to try out the new version of Mead Map and was able to incorporate my attachments without a hitch. Being able to incorporate attachments is a key feature for using visual maps as an information repository. Mead Map gives each subsrcriber1 gigabyte of online storage for your files. For a free 30-day trial go to www.meadmap.com

Here is an example of a Mead Map with an attachment:

Sunday, September 7, 2008



Adobe Captivate 3- Awesome!

While attending the NECC Conference this summer in San Antonio I had the chance to stop by the Adobe booth and connect with some of my colleagues who work for Adobe to find out what is the latest and greatest. At the Adobe booth I was shown several of the new releases which included Captivate 3, Adobe Acrobat 9 Professional, and Presenter 7. One of the Sales Engineers gave me a tour of Captivate 3 which really wowed me. Many of you know that I have been producing software video tips and tutorials for the past year or so for the Mindjet Newsletter which goes a long way for showing others how to accomplish tasks using MindManager 7 and JCVGantt Pro 3. Using screencasting software to demonstrated how to accomplish tasks with a particular software product makes the process of providing "just in time training" a reality and can cut down on support calls at the workplace. I want to thank Jody at A&R Edelman for providing me with a copy of Adobe captivate to review and to RJ at Adobe for doing a great webinar with me on Adobe Captivate 3.

For the past several years I have been using Camtasia Studio 5 extensively to do my screencasting work and find it to be an outstanding product to get my work done. Camtasia Studio 5 lets you record your screen and then provides you with post editing tools to fine tune your screencast. Camtasia's approach to screencasting is similar to that of taking a video camera and pressing the record button. With this approach every screen and all of the audio is continuously being recorded. Any mishaps or errors while doing the recording will need to be post edited or in some cases need to be re-recorded. Adobe Captivate 3 takes an entirely different approach to capturing your computer screen which has some real benefits. Adobe Captivate 3 captures individual screen shots only when you move the mouse, click on the screen, or type some text. When you are finished capturing your screens Adobe Captivate 3 pulls all of the screen shots together and builds a Flash video of your demonstration. You also have the opportunity to add audio to your demonstration while you are creating your video or after the process is complete. One of the really nice features of Adobe Captivate 3 is the ability to not only create demonstration-but you can in one fell swoop also create simulations, training, and assessment videos. You can watch my screencast to get an idea of how Adobe Captivate 3 works.

I have found that using Adobe Captivate 3, I can create custom demonstrations videos very quickly, with Adobe Captivate 3 doing a lot of the work for me. What do I mean by that? When I am creating a video demonstration Adobe Captivate 3 will automatically include captions when I am selecting menus, dialog boxes and clicking on the screen. Watch the video to see what I mean. In the demonstration video you will see a number of captions that have been generated by Adobe Captivate 3. All of the captions can be edited and formatted if you need to. Having Adobe Captivate 3 generate the captions saves a lot of time when producing these videos. I have chosen not to use audio in this demonstration but if I wanted to I could always go back and add narration to the demonstration video. As I work with Adobe Captivate 3 I I find it an outstanding tool to work with to create video demonstrations and training scenarios. I will over the next couple of weeks share with you some other tips and tricks that I have learned about Adobe Captivate 3 - so stay tuned.

Saturday, September 6, 2008



Dell Inspiron Mini 9

Earlier this week I had alerted you to the imminent release of Dell's Inspiron Mini 9 their fray into the netbook market. Some of the early reviews are in and most have been very favorable. The base Dell Inspiron Mini 9 ships with the 1.6-GHz Intel Atom processor, and a tailored version of Ubuntu, starting out at $349 dollars. The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 can be customized and built to order on the Dell website which includes having Windows XP installed, adding a larger hard drive and more memory. The introductory price with XP installed is around $399. The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 has a glossy 8.9-inch, 1024 x 600-pixel resolution screen which will provide high quality viewing and can be configured with a webcam. Two speakers are located at the bottom of the screen. The Dell Inspiron Mini 9, features three USB 2.0, VGA, and Ethernet, as well as a headphone and a microphone jack. It also has a 4-in-1 memory card reader. According to the reviews the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 measures 9.1 x 6.8 x 1.3 inches and weighing just 2.3 pounds and is one of the lightest netbooks on the market. One of the factors to consider with the netbooks is that the keyboards are smaller which may not be that much of a problem for students but could be a hindrance for adults. From the pictures that I have seen the charging unit is on the small side which should not add much extra weight to the total package. It sports a 4 cell battery which should give users about 3 hours of use. Based on what I have read the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 could be an ideal netbook for students who need access to a computer that they can comfortably carry between home and school.

Friday, September 5, 2008



Acrobat.com-Embedding PDF's on Your Blog

Over the past year I have watched the Acrobat.com website flesh out its free offerings which I have to say are quite impressive. I have been a big fan of Adobe Acrobat for years and not only use it for my own work but have also used it as an access tool for some of the students that I work with that have physical disabilities. More about this feature in a later post.

While reading the Acrobat Blog I came across a couple of tips and features that I wanted to share with you. First off, if you don't have an Acrobat account sign-up for one- you will find it very handy. If for no other reason, just so you will have another online repository for your files-but it can do a lot more than that. In this tip you can upload or create a PDF file if you don't own Acrobat Standard or Professional right on the Acrobat.com website. Once you have your PDF file uploaded you can click on the Copy Embed Code which will then allow you to post the PDF to your website or blog in a widget. By simply pasting the code into my blog, I am now able to generate a widget that displays my PDF file. You can see the result of this technique below.


Using Acrobat.com gives you the freedom to post and share your PDF files using the embed feature without using a lot of overhead. It is a simple and easy way to share your information in the ubiquitous PDF format. From the widget, individuals can zoom in on the file and download it if they like. Take a look at this feature-with it it is now even easier to share PDF files than ever before on your website or blog.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008



Dell Inspiron 910 netbook to be launched this week

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Rumor has it that Dell will finally release the Dell Inspiron 910/Mini Inspiron later this week. There has been a lot of talk about this netbook since the spring. It will finally be nice to see the specs when it is released. Some sites on the web are reporting that it will have at least an 8.9 inch screen and use the 1.66 Intel Atom processor. The only thing we haven't yet heard is the pricing. Stay tuned to find out more once it is released.
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