Box.net announced new integration with Google Docs. Box users can now create, edit and concurrently edit with Google Docs. In the announcing blog post, doubt was expressed by Box.net over Microsoft opening Office 365 to 3rd party developers like themselves, and thus implies that this integration with Google will be the focus of the Box.net platform for the foreseeable future. http://www.box.net/
Category: Content creation and design (Page 53 of 71)
Technologies and strategies for authoring and editing, including word processors, structured editors, web and page layout and formatting, content conversion and migration, multichannel content, structured and unstructured data integration, and metadata creation.
Google announced support for authorship markup—a way to connect authors with their content on the web. They are experimenting with using this data to help people find content from great authors in our search results. They now support markup that enables websites to publicly link within their site from content to author pages. For example, if an author at The New York Times has written dozens of articles, using this markup, the webmaster can connect these articles with a New York Times author page. An author page describes and identifies the author, and can include things like the author’s bio, photo, articles and other links. The markup uses existing standards such as HTML5 and XFN to enable search engines and other web services to identify works by the same author across the web. If you’re already doing structured data markup using microdata from schema.org, they will interpret that authorship information as well. http://www.google.com
SpringCM announced the latest release of its cloud enterprise content management platform. This latest release features new case management capabilities, helps SpringCM customers deliver more consistent execution, enhance team productivity and increase management visibility of key business processes. In addition, mobile support for iPad uses intuitive-gesture interface, but also gives access to cloud capabilities such as full-text search of corporate-content repositories. Other highlights include: Enhances quality-of-service and compliance with defined rules; Provides a status view to all case participants to improve team and customer communication; Faster responsiveness to objectives and process changes; Enables more effective internal collaboration on cases; Improves communication with customers and other service requesters; and it requires minimal IT resources. http://www.springcm.com/
Adobe has introduced Creative Suite 5.5, a bundled package that offers all of Adobe’s designing and editing software in a single package. Adobe also planning to offer software rental options, allowing individuals to rent Adobe software, as well as plans for enterprise and student users. The Flash maker is considering offering its software to rent both on an annual basis, paid monthly, or a (more expensive) month-to-month payment plan. Rented software will check into Adobe servers every 30 days in order to check the credit card being used by the user is still valid and to make an automatic payment. If the card is not valid or has been removed by the user, the user gets a 5-day grace period for making the payments after which the software will cease to operate. http://www.adobe.com/
Across Systems and the Institute of the Society for the Promotion of Applied Information Sciences at the University of the Saarland (IAI) have established Congree Language Technologies as a joint venture. Congree aims to be a leading supplier of technology solutions for authoring assistance. Congree will deliver integrated solutions for the formulation of consistent document texts, taking into account defined style rules and corporate wording. Congree’s products combine the various technologies available in the area of authoring assistance into integrated solutions. Essential elements include a terminology system for unifying word selection, an authoring memory for re-using complete formulations and text segments, and components for rule-based quality checking. The rule-based methods include grammar and spell-checking as well as adherence to company-specific style guides to provide controlled language. Congree technology can be used with all common source text editors, from MS Word, MS PowerPoint, and MS Excel, to Adobe FrameMaker, Just XMetaL, and PTC Arbortext, on through to Adobe InDesign and Madcap Flare. It can be used in real time, during text processing, or as a batch process for the subsequent quality-checking of completed content. Congree’s products are available in various configurations, scalable from a single workstation license up to client/server-based enterprise solutions. Bundled expertise With the establishment of Congree Language Technologies, Across and the IAI are bundling their previous activities in authoring assistance. http://www.across.net
Authoring in a structured text environment has traditionally been done with dedicated structured editors. These tools enable validation and user assisted markup features that help the user create complete and valid content. But these structured editors are somewhat complicated and unusual and require training in their use for the user to become proficient. The learning curve is not very steep but it does exist.
Many organizations have come to see documentation departments as a process bottleneck and try to engage others throughout the enterprise in the content creation and review processes. Engineers and developers can contribute to documentation and have a unique technical perspective. Installation and support personnel are on the front lines and have unique insight into how the product and related documentation is used. Telephone operators not only need the information at their fingertips, but can also augment it with comments and ides that occur while supporting users. Third-party partners and reviewers may also have a unique perspective and role to play in a distributed, collaborative content creation, management, review, and delivery ecosystem.
Our recently completed research on XML Smart Content in the Enterprise indicates that as we strive to move content creation and management out of the documentation department silo, we will also need to consider how the data is encoded and the usefulness of the data model in meeting our expanded business requirements. Smart content is multipurpose content designed with several uses in mind. Smart content is modular to support being assembled in a variety of forms. And smart content is structured content that has been enriched with semantic information to better identify it’s topic and role to aide processing and searching. For these reasons, smart content also improves distributed collaboration. Let me elaborate.
One of the challenges for distributed collaboration is the infrequency of user participation and therefore, unfamiliarity with structured editing tools. It makes sense to simplify the editing process and tools for infrequent users. They can’t always take a refresher course in the editor and it’s features. They may be working remotely, even on a customer site installing equipment or software. These infrequent users need structured editing tools that are designed for them. These collaboration tools need to be intuitive and easy to figure out, easily accessible from just about anywhere, and should be affordable and have flexible licensing to allow a larger number of users to participate in the management of the content. This usually means one of two things: either the editor will be a plug in to another popular word processing system (e.g., MS Word), or it will be accessed though a thin-client browser, like a Wiki editor. In some environments, it is possible that both may be need in addition to traditional structured editing tools. Smart content modularity and enrichment allows flexibility in editing tools and process design. This allows the use of a variety of editing tools and flexibility in process design, and therefore expanding who can collaborate from throughout the enterprise.
Also, infrequent contributors may not be able to master navigating and operating within a complex repository and workflow environment either for the same familiarity reasons. Serving up information to a remote collaborator might be enhanced with keywords and other metadata that is designed to optimize searching and access to the content. Even a little metadata can provide a lot of simplicity to an infrequent user. Product codes, version information, and a couple of dates would allow a user to hone in on the likely content topics and select content to edit from a well targeted list of search results. Relationships between content modules that are indicated in metadata can alert a user that when one object is updated, other related objects may need to be reviewed for potential update as well.
It is becoming increasingly clear that there is no one model for XML or smart content creation and editing. Just as a carpenter may have several saws, each designed for a particular type of cut, a robust smart content structured content environment may have more than one editor in use. It behooves us to design our systems and tools to meet the desired business processes and user functionality, rather than limit our processes to the features of one tool.
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 advanced Component 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
Version 6.0 of the Syncro SVN Client brings improved performance, a new application interface and a complete redesign of the Working Copy layout. New features in version 6.0: Redesigned application layout; Configurable Working Copy view; Performance improvements; and Synchronized history view. http://www.syncrosvnclient.com
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