Join New Toronto Group and Adobe for a live seminar showcasing how Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro can provide the ability to captivate audiences with interactive web meetings and virtual classroom experiences. This award winning package provides unique capabilities including:

• Flash technology base – allows easy access to on line sessions.
• Reduced network requirements – allows better interactivity.
• Strong security – feel comfortable with sharing information.
• Feature rich environment – based on established software base.
• 7th generation solution – thousands of customers worldwide.

Learn how organizations like Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, Saskatchewan Ministry of Education, University of Lethbridge, the Ontario Ministry of Education and U.S. Dept. of Defence have rolled out Adobe Connect Pro for their Web Conferencing and eLearning needs.

Date / Time: October 14, 10:00am MST – 12:00am MST

Location: Online, using Adobe Connect

To register: http://ntg.mmalliance.acrobat.com/oct14alberta/event/registration.html
For more details, phone 866-464-7790 x.4041

Join New Toronto Group and Adobe for a live seminar showcasing how Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro can provide the ability to captivate audiences with interactive web meetings and virtual classroom experiences. This award winning package provides unique capabilities including:

• Flash technology base – allows easy access to on line sessions.
• Reduced network requirements – allows better interactivity.
• Strong security – feel comfortable with sharing information.
• Feature rich environment – based on established software base.
• 7th generation solution – thousands of customers worldwide.

Learn how companies like Panasonic, Toshiba and Wal-mart have implented Adobe Connect Pro for their eConferencing and eTraining needs.

Date / Time: October 27, 8:30am – 11:00am

Location: Ryerson University, Oakham House – Room A/B, 63 Gould St.. Toronto, ON

To register: http://ntg.mmalliance.acrobat.com/oct27tor/event/registration.html
For more details, phone 866-464-7790 x.4041

Join New Toronto Group and Adobe for a live seminar showcasing how Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro can provide the ability to captivate audiences with interactive web meetings and virtual classroom experiences. This award winning package provides unique capabilities including:

• Flash technology base – allows easy access to on line sessions.
• Reduced network requirements – allows better interactivity.
• Strong security – feel comfortable with sharing information.
• Feature rich environment – based on established software base.
• 7th generation solution – thousands of customers worldwide.

Learn how organizations like the Ontario Ministry of Health, the Ontario Ministry of Education and U.S. Dept. of Defence have rolled-out Adobe Connect Pro for their Web Conferencing and eLearning needs. Connect Pro is currently used by several Canadian Federal Government departments including NRC, DND, HRSDC and CRA.

Date / Time: October 20, 8:30am – 11:00am

Location: Adobe Systems Canada – Algonquin Room, 343 Preston Street, Ottawa

To register: http://ntg.mmalliance.acrobat.com/oct20ottawa/event/registration.html
For more details, phone 866-464-7790 x.4041

Join New Toronto Group and Adobe for a live seminar showcasing how Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro can provide the ability to captivate audiences with interactive web meetings and virtual classroom experiences. This award winning package provides unique capabilities including:

• Flash technology base – allows easy access to on line sessions.
• Reduced network requirements – allows better interactivity.
• Strong security – feel comfortable with sharing information.
• Feature rich environment – based on established software base.
• 7th generation solution – thousands of customers worldwide.

Learn how organizations like the Ontario Ministry of Health, the Ontario Ministry of Education and U.S. Dept. of Defence have rolled-out Adobe Connect Pro for their Web Conferencing and eLearning needs.

Date / Time: October 6, 8:30am – 11:00am

Location: Ryerson University, Oakham House – Room A/B, 63 Gould Street, Toronto, ON

To register: http://ntg.mmalliance.acrobat.com/oct6tor/event/registration.html
For more details, phone 866-464-7790 x.4041

LiveCycle ES2 has been out for a bit now and there have been many vast improvements to software that have caused a few programmers let out a sigh of relief. Just to name a few of my favorite new features:

• Assign Multiple Tasks
• Action profiles
• Able to invoke a process using the REST pattern
• Integration of the Adobe Data Model

These are just a few of the improvements that have made developing in LiveCycle easier.

However I have noticed a slight little irritation. In my excitment, I proceeded to create archives of the processes that I had in my LiveCycle ES server and imported them to the newer LiveCycle ES2 (to be able to do this you must make sure to have selected the option when installing LiveCycle ES2). The import worked fine, my processes were available to invoke….however I could not fetch my process to alter it and take advantage of the new features! Unfortunately simply importing the LCA does not allow you to change the processes. Luckily there is a detailed document out there that describes what to do;

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/livecycle/9.0/leverage_legacy_solutions.pdf

Theres also a video that you can watch from here
http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/p73132900/

NTG recently helped Shaw Cable develop a “technical design document” that ensures best practices for implementing Flash Media Server (“FMS”). NTG was an integral part of the project by providing consulting services that included installation and configuration of FMS servers, the development and use of a testing tool for the Video on Demand application, and the creation of FMS Server custom code.

One of the most powerful features of PDFs is the ability to make webservice calls to pull in information as well to send information to some back end system.

Traditional, this is done through creating a data connection through the Data View palette and binding the request and response nodes to fields on the form.

However, using databinding can be a little restrictive in the fact that you have to actually bind to atleast one field for each webservice. This could potential result in you having alot of hidden fields on your form. However, there is a way to create a webservice without having to bind to a field. The alternative allows you to make a webservice call and have the results stored in a variable instead, all done through scripting. An added bonus is that you also have the ability to create webservice calls dynamically.

First things first, you have to know the address of the webservice. You may have made it through some other server, but if you had created it using LiveCycle (i.e. a webservice endpoint), you can either hard code the address in (in which case skip to the Note), or you can dynamically establish the location of the server. However, the following instructing on how to dynamically establish the server address will only work if you are rendering the form from Workspace;

var server = event.target.URL;

Once you open the form in WORKSPACE, the server will contain an address. This address will contain the address of the server, it’ll be in a format of;

http://lcserver:8080/workspace/tksdfjh

So what you’ll have to do is to strip out the first part of the address;
myServer = server.substring(0,server.indexOf(”/”,8));

And you just tack on the endpoint to the server;
var myUrl = myServer + “/soap/services/myWebService?wsdl”;

Again, this makes it pretty handy if your webservice resides in a test server and a production server (as an example) and you’re transferring the form between servers and you don’t want to have to keep changing the address.

******
Note: if your webservice is not on the LiveCycle server, and the address is the same no matter where you use the form, you can start from here
******

And then once you have the address you make a connection to it

var connection = Net.SOAP.connect(myUrl);

Now once you have this connection, you can call the methods of the service using the dot notation;

var result = connection.myMethod({”paramenter1″: value, “parameter2″:value2});

Note the way that the parameters are passed in.

Now that you get the result back, you have to know what type of data is coming back (i.e., is it a complex or simple object). But you now have the ability to manipulate that object anyway you wish, without having make a binding.

Using Adobe LiveCycle ES solutions, engineers can quickly and efficiently review ECNs to accelerate managing changes resulting from product line expansions, new customer demands, obsolescence, and other factors. MNRs – which previously required manually inputting data into as many as 50 SAP screens – are now filled in automatically, significantly reducing data entry time and errors while improving data integrity. After a project team member enters MNR data into a single, intelligent PDF form, the newly entered data is populated automatically in all back-end systems.

As a result, the combined savings from the more automated ECN and MNR processes are impressive. “By moving to Adobe LiveCycle ES and working closely with integration partner New Toronto Group, we hit our efficiency and service targets,” says Debbie Schuett, project manager for COM DEV.

Read the whole story at http://www.adobe.com/showcase/casestudies/comdev/casestudy.pdf

On June 10^th, 2010 we hosted the third Toronto Flex Camp. Ed Van Beilen and myself are co-managers of the Toronto Flex User Group, which is in its fourth year and sporting over 1000 members in the GTA.

Unlike previous camps, this year’s event included hands-on sessions and spanned a full afternoon and evening. We were fortunate enough to have two Adobe representatives (Lee Brimelow and Renaun Erickson) lead several sessions, including the keynote. We also had a few people from our local Flex User Group step up and present: Jason Broughton, Andrew Rybak, Clement Wong and Derek Santos.

In presenting this event, we learned a few lessons and gathered some interesting statistics that I’d like to share.

Significantly, this is the first time we’ve charged for entry into a Toronto Flex Camp. To our delight, we did not receive a single complaint about the $25 CAD entry fee. By charging this nominal fee, we were able to increase the quality of the venues and catered fare.

Financially, we did a bit better than break even. This small surplus will be used to offset the costs of future regular meetings, which New Toronto Group has traditionally absorbed.

The Numbers

Of the 120 people who registered on the site, 112 completed the payment process.

Of the 112 paid registrants, 83 showed up, and we had 2 additional registrations at the door (despite our pleas that people register in advance) for a total of 85 attendees (76%).

Out of the 85 attendees, 61% filled out the survey and qualified to be in the prize draw.

Speaking of the survey, here’s how you rated the event:

• Quality of the presentations: 82%

• Usefulness of the event: 76%

• Overall quality of the event: 83%

• Would attend another Flex Camp: 94%

Looks like we did fairly well with the new format. That last number is probably the most important for us as we look at the feasibility of future Flex Camps.

Your Feedback

Everyone seemed pleased with the venue and location, but we definitely needed more signage to direct people to the various venues. Thanks again to Brian Lesser and the folks at Ryerson for their invaluable help.

You also gave us some valuable feedback about the sessions themselves.

Foremost in the comments we received was to have more sessions, especially hands-on. Of course, the challenge is to find enough session leaders, so we may be pushing the local Flex community to help out more in the future.

Many of you also asked that the sessions be shorter in duration, perhaps limited to an hour. No argument here; just a matter of getting enough speakers to fill all those hours;)

We seem to have struck a good balance between introductory and advanced topics. Like in politics, you know you’ve done the right thing if an equal number of people on both sides complain. In our case, we had just as many people comment that they wanted more fundamental topics as those that wanted more advanced ones.

Looking Forward

One surprise we had in the Management Session (led by Andrew and me) was the intense interest in mobile. In fact, about three slides into our RIA presentation we decided to completely change gears and focus the discussion on the upcoming Flash/mobile releases. No doubt that there will be more mobile content in future meetings.

Overall, Flex Camp 3 Toronto was a great success and we look forward to doing another one in the future. Please check the Toronto Flex User Group website for Fall meeting announcements and job postings at http://www.torontoflex.org. And if you’d like to lead a future session or have an idea for a meeting topic, please contact Ed or me via the link on the site.

Finally, thanks to all who attended and gave us such encouraging feedback.

See you in the Fall!

Recently Brightcove announced suppport for WebM, a new open source video web media project and new open video standard. This standard is supported both by Adobe’s flash and by the new HTML5 that is just beginning to appear. Brightcove’s approach to video content is to allow one piece of source content to be consumed by multiple devices, including the iPad, and has a multitude of features that permit the insertion of advertising support for broadcast streaming video.

NTG is quite excited about the new world of mobile publishing and video. If you’d like to talk more about it give us a shout at Contact Us.