Acquia and Lullabot, a leading Drupal strategy, training and development company, announced that Lullabot's Drupalize.Me training is now available through Acquia Network. The Acquia Network provides developers and site builders with answers, tools, and support for creating, extending, and maintaining extraordinary web experiences on Drupal. It will now offer access to Drupalize.Me video tutorials and training presentations as part of the Acquia Professional and Enterprise subscriptions. Basic and Developer level subscribers can try Drupalize.Me for one month for US $1.00. Drupalize.Me is a convenient way to learn Drupal, providing instant access to an unrivaled library of Drupal training from top-tier experts, streamed to your computer, tablet, or smart phone. More than 335 high-quality, in-depth videos are currently available, with over 140 hours of training -- and new videos are being added every month. Drupalize.Me offers practical information that both beginner and experienced developers can understand and apply immediately. Acquia also announced the addition of four other new services for Acquia Network: Insight, which provides enhanced Drupal monitoring capabilities; SEO Grader, an SEO analysis tool; Blitz, which tests websites' abilities to handle high traffic loads; and Acquia Apps Market -- an API and store for third-party applications for Drupal available in Q4 2011. http://acquia.com
Recently in Technical Documentation Category
Adobe Systems Incorporated announced Adobe Technical Communication Suite 3, the latest version of its single-source authoring and multi-device publishing toolkit for the creation and publication of standards-compliant technical information and training material. The new improved version of Adobe’s suite enables technical writers, help authors and instructional designers to author, enrich, manage, and publish content to multiple channels and devices. Adobe also introduced new versions of the suite’s core components: Adobe FrameMaker 10, a template-based authoring and publishing solution for technical content; and Adobe RoboHelp 9, an HTML and XML help, policy and knowledgebase authoring and publishing solution. Adobe Photoshop CS5, Adobe Captivate 5 and Adobe Acrobat X Pro round out the suite, integrating image editing, eLearning and demo creation, and dynamic PDF functionalities. New Features in Technical Communication Suite 3: Import FrameMaker content into RoboHelp with support for FrameMaker books. Directly link DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) maps, automatically convert table and list styles, and publish multiple RoboHelp outputs from within the native authoring environment. Dynamic “single-click” publishing: Create standards-compliant XML and DITA (1.2) content and output to multiple formats, including print, PDF, Adobe AIR, WebHelp, EPUB, XML and HTML, and deliver it to a wide range of mobile devices, such as eReaders, smartphones and tablets. Lend your content to search engine optimization, via enhanced metadata tagging of published content. Expanded multimedia capabilities: Take advantage of more than 45 video and audio formats and engage audiences by adding 3D models, training demos and simulations. FrameMaker 10 Standards support: Take advantage of significantly enhanced XML/DITA authoring capabilities of FrameMaker 10, which is an early adopter of industry standards including DITA 1.2. Usability enhancements: Work with standards-compliant, prebuilt tools and templates designed for easier authoring. Use utilities like Auto Spell Check, Highlight Support, scrolling for lengthy dialogue, and enhanced Find and Replace. Content Management System (CMS) connectors: Integrate seamlessly with leading content management systems, including Documentum and MS SharePoint, included in FrameMaker 10 at no additional cost. The new offering enables enterprises to better streamline publishing workflows while reducing localization costs by leveraging the enhanced SDL Author Assistant in FrameMaker 10. Users can also automatically schedule and publish content to multiple channels and screens, and gain analytical insights into content usage for effective optimization. http://www.adobe.com/
SDL, a provider of Global Information Management solutions, announced the release of SDL Trisoft 2011 for DITA, the XML standard for technical writing. With this new release of the company’s Component Content Management software, SDL offers DITA capabilities. One strength of SDL Trisoft is the ability to manage large volumes and variations of DITA topics that comprise a company’s technical product information set. With DITA 1.2 support, SDL Trisoft can now be used with the DITA Learning and Training specialization, the new task model and the machine-industry specialization. Users can also take advantage of new ways of managing content variations and achieving reuse with DITA 1.2’s new capabilities of “keyref”, “conkeyref”, “conref push” and “conref ranges”. In addition to supporting the DITA 1.2 standard, SDL Trisoft offers new authoring and publishing capabilities that enhance the user experience. A new search architecture gives the ability to search for information faster and with more granular precision. The new search includes the ability to search and find content inside XML elements and attributes, variables and conditions and to identify the context in which content resides. New capabilities are offered in the SDL Trisoft Publication Manager that include the ability to save a new version of an open publication, to check in / out from the Browse Repository dialog, to find most recently used items, to save output formats in the next version of a publication, to see an InContext Preview of Content, and to add additional fields to the Baseline tab and to autocomplete items that are added when building a publication. To address the growth and adoption of DITA in Japan, SDL Trisoft is also releasing a version of its desktop clients as Publication Manager and Authoring Bridge in Japanese. SDL Trisoft now supports Adobe Flash in the Publication Manager, enabling synchronization of technical content with Flash and other multimedia graphics. To support interaction with the community of content consumers, SDL Trisoft now supports round-tripping of comments from SDL LiveContent back to SDL Trisoft, providing a closed-loop feedback mechanism between the community and the information developer. SDL Trisoft is also now integrated with SDL XPP, the company’s advanced XML Professional Publisher for customers who have high volumes or advanced layout requirements. SDL Trisoft provides support for Transparent Data Encryption in Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008, as well as platform support for Windows® Server® 2008 R2 64-bit. The system also supports 64-bit Support Desktop Clients based on Windows 7 and Internet Explorer® 8 support for the SDL Trisoft Web Client. SDL Trisoft is integrated via an authoring bridge to Adobe FrameMaker® 9.0, PTC Arbortext® Editor 5.4 and Just Systems XMetaL® 6.0. Support for XMetaL 6.0-J, the Japanese version of XMetaL, will follow soon. www.sdl.com/
MathType has announced the release of MathType 6.7 for Windows, which is compatible with all modern versions of Windows. The key feature in this release is the ability to integrate with Microsoft Office, from 2010 back to the XP version. Equations can now be entered by hand, by using the built-in handwriting recognition in Windows 7. Point-and-Click Editing with Automatic Formatting: Create equations quickly by choosing templates from MathType's palettes and typing into their empty slots. MathType applies mathematical spacing rules automatically as you type. MathType has customizable keyboard shortcuts for symbols, templates, and commands. If you already know the TeX typesetting language, you can enter equations directly into MathType or Microsoft Word documents. TeX editing can be mixed with point-and-click editing so you get the best of both worlds. You can even paste in equations from existing TeX documents. Furthermore, pre-written equations can now be copied-and-pasted it directly into MathType, ready to edit or use in your work. Drag frequently used equations and expressions to the MathType toolbar so they can be inserted later with just a click or a keystroke. MathType's Insert Symbol dialog allows you to explore the available symbols and insert them. http://www.dessci.com/en/
SDL, the provider of Global Information Management solutions, announced the availability of an integration between SDL Trisoft and Leximation DITA-FMx, the DITA plugin for Adobe FrameMaker. By providing a bridge between SDL Trisoft and Leximation DITA-FMx, SDL gives the ability to use SDL’s advaComponent Content Management capabilities with Adobe FrameMaker. The new integration combines technologies for authoring and managing structured content. Together SDL and Leximation share several major clients that want a joint solution. www.sdl.com www.leximation.com
TransPerfect, a large privately held language services and software provider, announced that it has completed a merger with AD-COM, a Montreal-based provider of technical translation services. The transaction expands TransPerfect's presence in Canada, adding a Montreal production hub to the company's three existing Canadian locations. AD-COM will become a division of TransPerfect and will continue to be led by Founder and President Claudia Cieri, who will join the TransPerfect senior management team. Cieri is a 20-year veteran of the translation and localization industry. http://www.transperfect.com/ http://www.ad-com.ca/
Alchemy Software Development, a provider of visual translation memory solutions, and Madcap Software, Inc., the technical authoring and multi-channel publishing solution provider, announced the release of Alchemy PUBLISHER 3.0 with enhanced support for Madcap Flare 6.0, the XML-based content authoring and publishing software application. http://www.alchemysoftware.ie http://www.madcapsoftware.com/
XMLmind announced the release of XMLmind Document Repository v1.1. XMLmind Document Repository, which is Open Source software. XMLmind Document Repository is a Web-based (WebDAV, REST) document store designed for technical writers, featuring automatic, transparent, versioning. This Open Source Servlet-based Web Application is intended to be the backend component of a future commercial offering. XMLmind Document Repository (XDR) can be installed and run as a desktop application: Self-contained distribution now includes a private Jetty 7 Servlet Container. New graphical application xdrcontrol allows to stop, configure or reconfigure and start or restart both Jetty and the XDR WebApp. Two new applications running in the Web browser allow to manage users and groups. http://www.xmlmind.com/
SDL announced the acquisition of Xopus, a provider of online XML editing. The acquisition by SDL’s Structured Content Technologies division addresses the growing trend to broaden the adoption of structured authoring beyond technical writers. Founded in 2001 in the Netherlands, Xopus has emerged as a friendly and simple-to-use online XML editor. Complementing high-end XML editors that are designed specifically for technical writers, Xopus enables a broader audience to contribute comments and content to increasingly distributed structured authoring processes. Accessed through a Web browser, Xopus provides the flexibility, ease-of-use, and interactivity of a Wiki, while still leveraging the benefits of structured content. The Xopus organization will become part of SDL’s Structured Content Technologies division. A prototype integration already exists between SDL Xopus and SDL Trisoft, the company’s Component Content Management system for DITA. Looking forward, SDL Xopus will be integrated with SDL LiveContent , the company’s publishing solution. Future integrations are envisioned with SDL Contenta for S1000D and related markets, as well as SDL’s suite of Global Information Management technologies. SDL will continue its philosophy of supporting an “open technology” approach to the enterprise ecosystem through integration to 3rd party applications and systems. SDL Xopus will continue to support existing integrations to 3rd party content management systems. http://www.sdl.com/
Gilbane Boston 2011
