2010 – Page 24 – The Logical Blog

January 26, 2010

iPhone: AT&T Losing Network Exclusivity… Could it Be?

by AJ George

Apple’s big, mysterious announcement coming on Wednesday has many speculating that it will entail the unveiling of some sort of new Apple tablet device. But according to the Hot Hardware blog, there are also rumblings of AT&T losing their network exclusivity of the iPhone to Verizon.

Although just a rumor at this point, it does make a great deal of sense. For one, AT&T’s contract with Apple is about to expire. Additionally, AT&T could stand to have some of the pressure taken off of them as the iPhone gobbles up a great deal of their data, causing much of their network troubles. AT&T is said to be shopping around for more cutting edge phones to compensate for the loss of their network hold on the iPhone.

January 25, 2010

Twitter, Meet Captivate. Captivate, Twitter!

by AJ George

Adobe's Shameer Ayyappan has come up with another way to combine classroom based training, eLearning and social networking with his introduction of Twitter for Captivate.

According to Ayyappan, his new Captivate widget allows students in a classroom based training situation to communicate with other members of the class by posting Twitter comments directly from within Captivate published lessons. The tweets are automatically sent out to everyone in the class allowing for real-time, on the spot collaboration and problem solving between eLearning students. The result? eLearning can now be extended far beyond the reaches of any physical classroom.

Click here to watch a video that demonstrates the concept of combining Twitter with Captivate eLearning (the video runs 18 minutes).

January 22, 2010

Adobe FrameMaker: Setting Tabs, Part II

by Barbara Binder

Last week we talked about setting tab stops. To review the key points: 1.) press the tab key once between columns, 2.) add one tab stop per tab on each line of the table, and 3.) click under the ruler to add the tab stop.

In this column, I'd like to address how to modify the alignment and position of tabs.

Let's begin by either opening up the table from last week, or creating a new one that looks like this:

Create a Table That Looks Like This

Place your cursor on the first line of text.
To move the columns, drag the little tab arrows under the ruler to the left or the right.
Let's push each of the tab arrows a bit to the right or left.
Hmmm. How come only the first line is responding? Because that's where the cursor is. Click Update All in the Paragraph Designer to update the table.

To change the tab alignments, all you need to do is double-click the little arrows, which will open the Edit Tab Stop dialog box. You can pick the new tab alignment from the list at the left.

Double-click the first tab arrow, change the alignment to center and click Edit.
Double-click the second tab arrow, change the alignment to decimal and click Edit.
Double-click the third tab arrow, change the alignment to right and click Edit.
Click Update All in the Paragraph Designer to update all of the lines.

Once you change alignment, you will likely have to adjust the tab positions again. Drag each tab left or right, and when you are satisfied, click Update All.

If you end up with extra tabs on the line, you can delete a tab by dragging it up or down, out of the ruler.

If you remember these rules, you should be good to go:

Click (under the ruler) to add a tab stop.
Double-click the tab arrow to edit the tab alignment.
Drag the tab arrow left or right to adjust the column position.
Drag the tab arrow up or down to remove a tab arrow from the ruler.

My students will often question my use of tabs in setting up a table like the one above. Why not use the table feature, they ask. I agree, why not? Controlling the presentation is more flexible using a table, but I believe that this exercise helps you to understand how tabs work in general. When you try to format a table of contents or set up form rules, this foundation is critical.

Tune in next week for tips on setting up leader dots.

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If you are new to FrameMaker and want to get up to speed quickly, join IconLogic's instructor-led, online Introduction to Adobe FrameMaker 9 class. Too elementary for your skill level? How about the Advanced FrameMaker 9 class? Hope to "see" you there.

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About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.

January 21, 2010

Acrobat 9: Grayscale PDF = A Smaller PDF

by David R. Mankin

PDF files come in all sorts of color profile flavors:

CMYK (cyan-yellow-magenta-black) colors used in the traditional 4-color offset press process
RGB (red-green-blue) colors used in video screen rendering
Grayscale (varying shades of black-gray-white)
Monochrome (line art)

It is logical that these file types would "weigh" differently. An image with millions of colors will contain considerably more information than an image comprised of 256 colors. Glorious, colorful PDF files look wonderful on your screen, and will certainly reproduce vividly on a color inkjet or laser printer. But is the color important? If you've designed a flyer or newsletter and are distributing the document in PDF format, the color is likely a critical aspect of the document. If, however, your PDF file is part of a workflow in a law office, the color may be incidental, and may actually add nothing to the document's purpose other than bloating the document's file size.

Print shops manipulate PDF files all the time to adjust your work to their equipment and processes. If you send out a PDF file for offset printing, and you accidentally used an RGB image in your work, it can be converted to the appropriate CMYK color system by using Acrobat's Preflight feature.

Preflighting is the process of confirming that digital files are correctly formatted for the desired output method. Acrobat's Preflighting tools have matured vastly in recent Acrobat releases, and not only perform checks, but repairs and conversions.

In this example, I have a full color PDF file (CMYK). The file is 3.23 megabytes. Since my colleague does not have a color printer, I could opt to send him a version of this document that I have converted to grayscale to save on precious file space.

To convert a PDF file to grayscale, choose Advanced > Preflight. Click the triangle to the left of PDF fixups. Here you will find a wide variety of conversions and fixups. Find and double-click Convert to grayscale.

Convert to grayscale

Acrobat takes you right to a Save As dialog box, which will allow you to rename the file, preserving the original. In this example, the newly-created grayscale document is only 1.73 Megabytes.

Don't think that losing all those colors is always a terrible thing–try watching Casablanca colorized some time. Yuck.

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Looking for Acrobat training? Join David for a live, 2-day online class. Click here for more information.

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About the author: David R. Mankin is a Certified Technical Trainer, desktop publisher, computer graphic artist, and Web page developer. And if that wasn't enough, of course David is an Adobe-certified expert in Adobe Acrobat.

January 20, 2010

Green Screen on a Shoestring: Part II, Purchasing

by John Gillmore and Bucky Dodd

Last week we discussed the general process for producing green screen videos for eLearning lessons. This week we discuss the equipment and software needed to produce green screen videos for eLearning lessons.

There are many equipment and software options for producing green screen video. The recommendations outlined in this article are based on the equipment used by CPDE Labs at the University of Central Oklahoma.

The table below outlines the required software or equipment with the product's cost and how each piece of software or equipment is used to produce green screen video content for eLearning lessons.

Green Screen Hardware and Software Table

With a total of $2,892.77 for an entire green screen production studio (less if you discount equipment many eLearning developers may already own such as a computer, cables, or software), high quality green screen video production can be well within reach.

While this equipment and software provide the tools for creating green screen video content, they are only useful if best practices are followed throughout the production process.

Next Installment: Production. We will explain the production steps and best practices for recording, editing, processing, and encoding green screen video content for use in Adobe Captivate eLearning lessons.

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About the authors: John Gillmore is an Instructional Technologist with the University of Oklahoma's Center for Professional and Distance Education (CPDE). In this role, John researches, analyzes and evaluates new technologies for potential applications in instruction; promotes the implementation of technological innovations; creates demonstrations of instructional applications of technologies; and provides assistance to faculty, staff and administrators who have instructional technology needs. In addition, John teaches freshman information systems courses at UCO. John has a B.S. in Business Information Systems from the University of Phoenix and an MBA from UCO.

Bucky Dodd is an instructional designer at the Center for Professional and Distance Education at the University of Central Oklahoma. His professional interests include innovation in eLearning, workplace learning and performance trends, and instructional design. Mr. Dodd has instructional design and consulting experience in both public and private organizations. He holds a B.A. in Corporate Communication and a M.Ed. in Adult Education from the University of Central Oklahoma.

January 15, 2010

PowerPoint 2007: Trigger Happy

by AJ George

While eLearning developers typically don't think of using PowerPoint when it comes to creating eLearning, PowerPoint presentations can, in fact, contain some slick interactivity. For instance, with the use of triggers you can control which elements appear on a slide, and where.

For example, if you wanted to give a presentation in which you quizzed your audience on file name extensions for different programs, triggers might prove quite useful. How useful? Let' create a PowerPoint slide that looks similar to the picture below. (I used WordArt to create each program extension shown below; and every program name is a separate text box. Your slide should contain 13 objects.)

Slide to create

The objective will be to have a program name appear when you click the program's extension. For example, the word Captivate will appear if the .cp extension is clicked.

Select the word Captivate.
Choose Animations > Animations > Custom Animation.
From the Custom Animation pane, click the Add Effect button and choose Entrance > More Effects.
Choose any Entrance effect you'd like from the Add Entrance Effect dialog box and click OK.
On the Custom Animation pane, click the arrow next to the TextBox entry to display the drop-down menu and choose Timing.
From the Compress dialog box, ensure the Timing tab is brought forward and click the Triggers button.
Select Start effect on click of and from the drop-down menu select the .cp Rectangle.
Click OK.
Press [Shift] [F5] on your keyboard to view the slide show and preview your work.
The word Captivate should not show up until you click the .cp WordArt graphic.
Continue steps 1-8 for the remainder of the extensions.

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About the author: AJ George, a cum laude graduate of Towson University, is IconLogic's lead Technical Writer and author of the book "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and the soon-to-be released "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."

January 15, 2010

Writing & Grammar Workshop: Is, Is

by Jennie Ruby

An absolute epidemic of is, is is sweeping the airwaves and our personal conversations. What this phenomenon is, is the use of is twice in a row when defining something. And this usage is incorrect. This problem arises because people are leaving out the word that in noun clauses after the verb is.

The problem is that restaurants must stay open into the early morning hours to compete. [correct use of that to introduce the noun clause, a clause that is the explanation or definition of something]

When the word that is left out, a pause is needed to indicate that what follows is a noun clause. A comma correctly indicates the pause:

The problem is, restaurants must stay open into the early morning hours to compete. [correct use of comma to indicate the needed pause]

But having left out the word that and paused, apparently people are still feeling the need for a word to smooth over the transition, and we then hear that second, redundant is:

The problem is, is restaurants must stay open into the early morning hours to compete. [the redundant is, is problem]

Or even

The problem is, is that restaurants must stay open into the early morning hours to compete. [adding insult to injury, some speakers are putting the word that back in even after the is, is construction!]

Years of experience have taught me that railing at TV commentators for such solecisms, or even worse, calling friends and family out on their sloppy sentence structure, does nothing for either their grammar or my reputation for being a fun person. So what are wordsmiths to do? Just don't perpetuate the double-is usage in writing. Then maybe this epidemic will pass without causing any permanent harm to our language.

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Join Jennie online February 5, 2010 where she'll be teaching Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts.

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About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Editing with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7" and "Editing with MS Word 2007" to her credit. Jennie specializes in electronic editing. At the American Psychological Association, she was manager of electronic publishing and manager of technical editing and journal production. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer (Chauncey Group). She is a publishing professional with 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.

January 14, 2010

Adobe FrameMaker: Setting Tabs, Part 1

by Barbara Binder

Why are people afraid of setting tabs? Since 1988, I've taught Word, PageMaker, Ventura Publisher, InDesign and FrameMaker classes, and most of my students walk in the door afraid of tabs. It's one of life's mysteries, and so I always try to set aside some time to address it in class. Here's your motivation to keep reading: once you master tabs in one program, you use the same logic in all the others.

The first trick to mastering tabs is to stop relying on the default tabs every half inch. FrameMaker makes that easy, by not offering you default tabs for the Body format. The second trick is to add just one tab between columns (not 2 tabs, or tab space tab, or any other combination). Let's give it a shot:

Create a new, portrait FrameMaker document.
Make sure that your text symbols are showing by looking for a checkmark in front of View > Text Symbols. If not, click on Text Symbols to activate the command.
Type Pierre on the first line, and press the tab key once.
Hey! The cursor didn't go anywhere. That would be because there are no default tabs in the Body format.
Click your mouse just under the 2.5 inch mark on the vertical ruler. That little arrow that just appeared? That's your first tab. Notice how your cursor jumped to that position.
Type Thursday and press the tab key again.
Again, no cursor movement, so go ahead and click under both the 4 and the 5 inch marks.
Type in 9.5, press the tab key once, and type France.
Press Enter and complete the table as shown below:
When you finish typing, click the Update All button in the Paragraph Designer to update the Body format, and Remove Overrides. (In a real project, I'd make a new format for the table, but we are just trying to figure this out, so we'll use Body here.)

That wasn't so bad was, it? But, all of the columns are left-aligned. I'd like to change their alignments to match this:

Tabs you will learn to create new week

Tune in next week for modifying tabs.

***

January 13, 2010

Green Screen on a Shoestring: Part I, The Process

by John Gillmore and Bucky Dodd

This is a four-part series featuring green screen or transparent-background video production for Adobe Captivate. We will focus on achieving high quality and instructionally sound results while keeping a small budget and a minimum time investment.

Part I: Process. I'll provide a general overview the process for producing green screen videos for eLearning.

Part II: Purchasing. A "checklist" and guidelines for obtaining required equipment.

Part III: Production. An outline of the production process for recording, editing, processing, and encoding green screen video.

Part IV: Captivate Integration. I'll explain the steps for using the produced green screen video in an Adobe Captivate lesson.

Process Overview

Green screen video production is a popular and seemingly complex trend in eLearning development. It is the process by which a solid-color background is removed from a video to allow a talent to be "placed" on other backgrounds or in this case, directly within a Captivate lesson. This is similar to the process used for weather reports where a weather person superimposed over a graphic or map.

a weather person superimposed over a graphic or map

This technique allows e-Mentors or coaches to be placed in eLearning lessons and provides a method for online instructors to share their "personality" with students. This human element supports positive online learner retention rates and is often a key factor related to achieving desired instructional outcomes.

Demand a Script

A typical eLearning green screen production process begins with a detailed script that not only outlines what the talent should say, but also what they should do while on camera.

Once a script is approved, the talent is recorded against an evenly lit green screen. The color green is used because it is the most dissimilar color from skin tones. This allows the green to be easily removed from the video, while leaving the foreground subject untouched.

Green Screen

Chroma Key Processing

Once the video is recorded, it is imported into Adobe Premiere Pro for editing and chroma key processing. The chroma key software is the component that actually removes the background from the video, leaving the removed color transparent.

Export to FLV

Next, the video is exported from Premiere in the Flash Video (FLV) format with the alpha layer enabled to allow the background (removed color) to remain transparent. After this, the video can be imported directly into a Captivate project.

The Green Screen Process

Next Week: Purchasing.

***

January 12, 2010

Adobe Captivate 4: Can I Check That For You?

by Lori Smith

You have been asked to create a Text Entry Box within Captivate that requires the student to type an email address. If the student fails to type a properly formatted email address into the Text Entry Box, you would like Captivate to flag the email address as invalid.

So what are your options as a Captivate developer? You could use the Validate user input option available for any Text Entry Box. However, that won't work unless you know all of the possible email addresses that could be typed by students and include the addresses in the Correct entries area of the Text Entry Box tab.

This is a perfect opportunity to use Advanced Actions. While Advanced Actions can't guarantee that a perfect email address will be typed by the student, the Action can help at least avoid some of the most common mistakes people make when they type an email address (for instance, many people forget to type the @ when addressing an email) or they leave off the period just before the com or net.

During the next few steps, I'm going to show you how to create an Action that will ensure the email address typed by students contains the @ and the period.

First, create two Text Captions (they will be used as Success and Failure captions) via Insert > Standard Objects. Name the two Text Captions as follows: SuccessCaption and FailureCaption. When you create the Text Captions, be sure to make them invisible. (On the Options tab of each item, deselect Visible.)

Failure Text Caption

Create a User Defined Variable (via Project > Actions > Variables) named emailAddr.

Create a Text Entry Box (via Insert > Standard Objects > Text Entry Box). On the Options tab, ensure the Text Entry Box includes a Button and Validate is not selected. On the Advanced tab, associate the emailAddr variable with the text.

Text Entry Box with a Variable associated

Create an Advanced Action

Choose Project > Actions > Advanced actions and Create a new action (from the Edit/Create action drop-down menu) to create the action below:

An Advanced Action

Lastly, show the Properties of the Text Entry Box and set the On Success to Execute advanced action (select checkEmailAddr).

An action attached to a Text Entry Box

When students enter an email address in the Text Entry Box and click the button, the Action you created will check for the key characters of an email address. If either the @ or period are missing, the Failure caption you created will appear. Otherwise, students will see the Success caption.

As I mentioned in my last article (Actions In Action), if you have a cool idea or need for an action, please send it to me. I am in the process of developing a new course on Captivate Advanced Actions. If I use your idea in the course, you will be eligible to take the class for free!

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About the author: Lori Smith is IconLogic's lead programmer and veteran Captivate developer. Lori holds a Bachelors degree from MIT and a Masters from George Mason University. She has been working in the field of software engineering for more than 20 years.

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Looking to create killer eLearning lessons with Adobe Captivate? Join one of IconLogic's Captivate classes, or contact me for custom group or onsite training rates. Click here for more information about our 2-day Captivate Essentials class. Looking for more Advanced Captivate 4 training? We have you covered. Click here for more information.

Worried about your class canceling? You'll be happy to hear that we never, ever cancel our classes (even if there's just one student registered).