I Came, I Saw, I Learned...

Adobe TCS4 Suite Available Today!

Adobe just released the latest and greatest version of its Technical Communication Suite (TCS).

I'm a huge fan, and daily user, of the TCS. In my opinion, this suite puts all of the other Adobe suites to shame.

If you're a technical communicator, the TCS 4 contains the essentials tools needed to created technical documentation/PDFs (FrameMaker 11 and Acrobat), help systems (RoboHelp 10), technical illustrations (Illustrator CS6) and eLearning lessons (Captivate 6 and Presenter 8).

If you'd like to purchase the TCS or learn more about how the suite's tools work together, click here.

The Learning Industry: Year In Review and Trends for 2010

by AJ George

Congratulations for surviving another year in the learning industry! Let's wrap up some of 2009's most exciting additions to the industry and set our sights on what 2010 has in store for us.

Mobile Learning

It's no secret that the iPhone was king in 2009, but competitors are hot on the iPhone's heels in the form of the Droid and the Pre. If the potential for offering training courses on mobile devices hasn't already revolutionized your life in the technical training/sales/learning field, hold on, because it will.

According to Brent Schlenker of the eLearning Guild, training is shifting to mobile. Schlenker believes that the iPhone is a key player in the mobile industry, even though the iPhone does not play some media such as SWFs (SWFs are the most common output published by eLearning developers who work with Captivate and Camtasia).

"I'm not convinced that the iPhone needs the ability to play SWFs to be successful as an mLearning device," said Schlenker. "I've seen effective, comprehensive training solutions on the iPhone that do not rely on SWFs."

Schlenker went on to say "Companies will see the greatest return on investment in sales force training because they are the most mobile. A sales force needs the most up-to-date information without the fluff. Mobile is the perfect solution because it's easy to get all of the information to the learner--when they need it and in the right format."

Holistic Sales Techniques

Many industry pundits say that the recession is over. However, it has been a tight year and businesses aren't ready to start throwing money around just yet.

According to ASTD's December issue of T+D, Marc Ramos, director of the Sales College at Red Hat University, believes that today's consumers aren't only concerned with their total costs. They're also worried about social, political and environmental issues.  

"We must train salespeople to be more holistically-minded and authentic," said Ramos, "and build learning content that supports this new type of buying style."

mLearning, eLearning and online training certainly support the environment by allowing customers to "go green" by cutting back on travel--thus reducing their carbon footprint.

 

Web 2.0

It seems that everyone has tapped in to the Web 2.0 trend. I'm willing to bet that your parents and grandparents have Facebook accounts, and it's a good bet that your 12-year-old is Tweeting. It seems like everyone has a network! And when it comes to training, a network could change everything.

 

In the December issue of ASTD's T+D magazine, Holly Huntley, Chief Learning Officer for CSC (a leading global IT services company), said "These (Web 2.0) tools have shifted the power base. Teacher as expert is no longer the model, and knowledge is no longer power. The real power is in your network and how you use it.

Schlenker agrees and quoted friend Mark Oehlert: "We're no longer looking for SMEs, we're looking for Subject Matter Networks."

"It's the network effect," said Schlenker. "Web 2.0 allows multiple people to be able to collaborate and learn together to bring the industry forward. When you get people together you have an incredibly powerful brain trust."

What's in Store for 2010?

According to Schlenker, the future isn't necessarily new technology (although new technologies will continue to appear), but the future is the way technology is used. "The technology is already out there," he said. "It's the culture that needs to catch up and shift."

What Schlenker sees in 2010 is more mobile applications for training purposes and, he hopes, the adoption of virtual worlds in the training industry.

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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."

Adobe Captivate: Warning Will Robinson, Avoid Flash Player 10.1! But If You Didn't...

by Kevin Siegel

Adobe recently unveiled Flash Player 10.1. According to Adobe, Flash Player 10.1 "realizes the promise of a consistent, cross-platform runtime across desktop and mobile devices." Nice!

Many people, excited to play with the pre-release of Flash Player 10.1, went right to Adobe Labs, downloaded and then installed the software--on their production machines. Of course, if you were among those people who installed Flash Player 10.1, you are now noticing that your beloved Captivate is no longer working. In fact, here are a few of the posts I saw on the Adobe Captivate forum (does any of the following sound like you???):

"I just put together a new laptop, and installed all the normal programs/drivers (Flash Player, Adobe Reader, etc). I installed Flash Player 10.1 and received the confirmation "Congratulations you now have the latest..." I installed Adobe Captivate 4, the Trial Version. This is not my first attempt at installing/un-installing/re-installing both Captivate 4 and Flash Player 10 on this computer. I'm on my fourth attempt at reinstalling both programs. I am running Vista Ultimate x86. This computer meets all system requirements by Adobe Captivate 4. Is this a problem with Captivate, Flash Player, or (doubtful) my computer?"

Here's another:

"I uninstalled Flash player 10 on my laptop and installed Flash Player 10.1. Now Adobe Captivate doesn't start! I received a message that the Flash Player for IE is not installed and I'm redirected to Adobe's web site to install Flash Player 10."

I don't blame anyone for getting excited about installing and playing with beta software. However, I always recommend that you install this kind of software on a computer that isn't being used for production--you just never know what kind of collateral damage beta software can cause.

If you are like the unfortunate developers above, or know someone who installed Flash Player 10.1, it might be a good idea to know how to both remove Flash Player 10.1 and go back to an earlier version of the player (one that will work with Captivate). Here is an article that will walk you through the process of removing Flash Player 10.1 from your computer. And here is a Web site offering links to older versions of the Flash Player.

Let that be a warning to all you "betaiacs" out there! Beta software is cool, but there is always the chance the beta software can tear up your system!

P.S. Did I date myself with the Will Robinson reference? For you young-ones, the "Warning Will Robinson" is from the old (Did I say old??? I mean not so new!) television show Lost In Space. Never seen it? Don't say I never give you anything.

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Looking to create killer eLearning lessons with Adobe Captivate? Join one of IconLogic's Captivate classes, or contact us 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).

Captivate Playback Limitations

I recently received the following email from A. Charles Zoffuto:

_______________________________

Subject: Captivate Limitations

Kevin,

You mentioned that Captivate has a max frame limit. What was that again?

Also is that count affected by the size?

_______________________________________________

Great questions Charles!

The maximum number of frames that the Flash player can render is 16,000 frames. If your Captivate movies exceeds that number, your movie will stop playing. Ouch!

The frame count is affected most by the amount of interactivity and number of objects you have in your movie. To keep the frame count reasonable, I'd recommend keeping your slide count between 70-80 slides, max. If you need to show more of a lesson than will fit in 80 slides, consider breaking the movie into two different movies. You can always link them together!

For more information on the frame limitation of the Flash player, visit http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_14437.