Category: Uncategorized

by AJ George

"Now, Momma said there's only so much fortune a man really needs and the rest is just for showing off." –Forrest Gump

Could it be that the same applies to our Facebook friends? According to a study still in its early stages by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, his previous assertion that people can only maintain meaningful relationships with 150 people holds true even in the age of social networking (where we can have 5000 Facebook "friends"). Apparently the human brain can only cognitively handle and maintain roughly 150 relationships, even if through Twitter and LinkedIn you are connected to thousands of people.

The study has been all aflutter on news outlets and the internet recently, but this is not a new topic. In fact, a year ago, Chris Brogan wrote in his community and social media blog about Beating Dunbar's Number. He upholds Dunbar's Number as fact, but asserts there are ways to work around the theory and maintain networks with more people. One example: databases. He puts in the typical info for his contacts (name, number, email address, etc) but goes further and adds tags so he can easily find people depending on where he is, where he's going to be, and what he's doing.

Furthermore, Jacob Morgan of the SmartDataCollective's blog asserts that as far as social networking is concerned, Dunbar's number is "irrelevant" because our weak connections are so much more important to networking than those relationships we consider meaningful, those that would fall into our core 150. He cites Morten Hansen's Collaboration when he states that when networking for the purposes of gaining new jobs or knowledge, relying on your close friends who know many of the same things and people as you do, can prove frivolous. Furthermore, those weak ties take less time to establish and are easier to maintain.

So when it comes to our virtual friendships, perhaps there is strength in numbers, as long as we don't expect too much from too many of those friendships, and instead see the untapped potential in our myriad loose affiliations.

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." You can follow AJ on Twitter at http://twitter.com/andrayajgeorge.

by AJ George

Honest truth: sometimes I fall into Hype Holes.

When you tell me the iPad is "the most important thing [you've] ever done," Steve Jobs, I believe you.

When I'm told that HTML5 will be the inevitable death of Flash, I believe it.

And when Kevin Lynch says that HTML5 will send the web back to "the dark ages of video," I believe that too.

What can I say, I'm a believer.

Luckily for me, the fine folks over at Gizmodo have put the whole Flash vs. HTML5 debate into perspective that allows me to take a deep breath and not rush to pick a side… just yet anyway.

To summarize:

• HTML5 allows video to be embedded directly into web pages, similar to a JPEG image.
• Playing videos through a Flash plug-in is generally slower and more buggy and isn't even an option on the iPhone or the iPad.
• Vimeo, DailyMotion and YouTube have launched test programs for HTML5 video technology.
• Internet Explorer (the most popular web browser on the internet) doesn't support the HTML5 video tag at all and Firefox (the second most popular) doesn't fully support it either.
• HTML5 doesn't support DRM (Digital Rights Management) which means no movies and no TV…unless Hollywood decides it doesn't like money anymore and wants to give all of its content away for free to everyone.
• Adobe is pushing Flash to nearly all smartphones that don't already have it.
• HTML5 isn't a replacement for Flash games or interactive ads.
• In the near future iPhones and iPads will move toward video delivery via apps, not HTML5.
• Flash is here to stay…for a while anyway.
• HTML5 is working its way into relevance…but it's not there yet.

So what does this mean for those of us who fell into the Hype Hole of thinking our Flash-free iPhones would be saved any day now by the global acceptance of HTML5? Means we better get some shovels.

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." You can follow AJ on Twitter at http://twitter.com/andrayajgeorge.

Last week I ran an article about removing text formatting from Captivate text captions. That prompted this email from
Bill
Creitz:

I,
too, used to run copied text through Notepad to remove the formatting. I eventually
stumbled across a free utility, PureText, that replaces the multi-step Notepad approach with a single keyboard
shortcut. With this utility, the routine is [Ctrl] [C] to copy, then
[Windows] [V] to paste unformatted text. It's a rare day that I don't use
PureText at least a few times.

In this corner we have Steve Jobs of Apple, the Poseidon of Silicon Valley, shaking the earth with groundbreaking technology. Opposing him we have Adobe, as Zeus, clutching the mighty thunder bolt of Flash. And then there's Google, the Hermes with winged sandals stealing business right from under Apple. The latest news on this Epic Battle: Poseidon lays the smack down on Zeus and Hermes.

~ by AJ George

by AJ George

So it doesn’t multi-task. There’s no camera. It doesn’t support Flash. And it’s still only on AT&T’s network.  

But, Apple’s new iPad is pretty remarkable. It weighs in at only 1.5 lbs and is .5 inches thick. The 9.7 inch screen is an LED backlit, IPS (in-plane switching) Display and is large enough to see full web pages at a time. It can be rotated and viewed nearly any direction. The keyboard is right there on the screen. There will be nearly 140,000 apps available from day one, including the iWork productivity apps that have been redesigned for the iPad and are available for $9.99 each. Meanwhile, the iBooks bookstore with its huge library of books, beautiful bookstore with shelves, changeable fonts and sizes and its virtually flippable book pages, basically makes the Kindle look like a dinosaur. Additionally, the iPad is touted as making gaming, email, viewing video and photos, and surfing the web better than ever before now that its literally right in your hands.

Perhaps the most remarkable part: the price. The base price for a 16 GB device is $499. The most expensive device comes in at $829 for a 64 GB Wi-Fi enabled device with 3G. Wi-Fi enabled iPads will begin shipping in late March (3G models begin shipping in April).

But what I’m really looking forward to seeing is how this new device can take mobile learning to the next level. One of the most common complaints about mLearning is that viewing eLearning on such a small screen will be unacceptable to some learners. Could the nearly 10 inch screen be the missing piece to making mLearning a universal reality? Or will the lack of Flash cripple any such chance?

by AJ George

Say you're at an interview for an eLearning developer position. And it's a big one. You're waiting to be seen, but you aren't the only one. There's going to be some competition for this job.

You scan the room and your gaze lands on the capable looking young woman seated near you. Poking out of her bag appears to be some sort of software with a green, circular logo on it. You don't recognize the software and you start to panic. Is it an eLearning tool? Should you know what it is prior to your interview? Your mind fills with thoughts of your competition's more well-rounded software prowess. You consider whipping out your smart phone to Google it, but you don't know the name of the software–all you have it its logo.

But then you remember you've got a Google Android. You take a picture of the logo and the Google Goggles app quickly runs a Google search based on the image.

It turns out the logo belongs to Camtasia Studio 6. Blast! You only knew Adobe Captivate 4 for creating eLearning. It might be a good idea to at least know what Camtasia can do. And a few minutes later, thanks to the search results, you can at least say you know about Camtasia. Click here to learn more about Google Goggles.

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.

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.

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

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.)

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.

Join Jennie online December 18, 2009 where she'll be teaching Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts. This is the last class for 2009. It's not too late to register!