Archive for June, 2009

July 2009 Meeting Announcement: Ben Martin and Globalization

Posted in meetings on June 24th, 2009 by lizfraley – Be the first to comment
Please join us online for our next online meeting:

“Get Globally Fit — Reduce the Waste-line
and get to a better Bottom (line that is).”

Presented by Ben Martin, Flatirons Solutions


Date: Saturday, 25 July 2009, 9:00-10:30 AM Pacific/US

Location: Online via LiveMeeting.

RSVP: You must RSVP to receive the LiveMeeting invite https://www.123signup.com/event?id=jgzdt

Cost: Free and open to all who wish to attend. Registration is limited to 25.


Topic

How globally fit is your department, your company? Is your TMI (translation mass index) dangerously high and threatening your organization’s “health” by hindering vital go-to market strategies? Is your trans-fat content just that – a blockage clogging your efforts to quickly break into new markets? Do you feel the burden of idiom bloat as you struggle with each new translation effort? How does your TMIcompare with your peers? With your competitors? Are you wheezing away in the globalization slow lane as others pass you by?

Getting on the path to being globally fit means embarking on authoring best practices, embracing proven XML standards, and leveraging a set of tested technologies and processes. Learn how to reap the benefits of a future-proof globalization strategy that can cut the fat out of your organization’s collective diet, and speed your team’s efforts to reach new markets more quickly and cost-effectively than ever before.

Join in this entertaining but nitty-gritty discussion with practical advice that you can incorporate immediately. Get introduced to the Global Fitness Program as Ben Martin outlines his TMI-trimming program. Get the skinny on achieving the goal of leaner content and fitter delivery. Learn how the “vague”aries of being vague and the “acronym”moniousness of acronyms impact your globalization efforts, and discover how the Arbortext environment can help get you to a Fitness Score that will make you proud!

About the Speaker

A recognized expert in “write once and reuse” content management strategies, Ben Martin is an authority in reuse of information across multiple languages. Ben is the Director of Business Architecture with Flatiron Solutions, a consulting and systems integration firm specializing in XML-based publishing and content management solutions. Ben is a former Vice President of global content management for J.D. Edwards and has over 20 years of industry experience. He has also worked with consultancies on strategic projects for Microsoft and Qwest, and is a frequent speaker on content management topics. Ben holds a Master of Arts degree in Instructional Technology, and is co-author of the management book Masters of Change.

http://www.flatironssolutions.com

Note

This meeting will be held online. You must RSVP to receive the LiveMeeting invite:  https://www.123signup.com/event?id=jgzdt

Acknowledgements
This meeting is brought to you by the SF Bay Arbortext PTC/User Group

We want to thank Wolters Kluwer for giving us access to their live meeting resources and conference bridge facilities.

We want to thank Single-Sourcing Solutions for coordinating our meeting logistics and administration.

Report: June 2009 Meeting

Posted in meetings on June 24th, 2009 by lizfraley – 1 Comment

“All about Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher”
Presented by Lawrie Stevens, Global Publishing Solutions

For the first time in probably 5 years, APP (formerly 3B2) got center stage as Lawrie Stevens performed a demo — all live, nothing canned — that not only put the product through it’s paces but really showed what it can do. As with all live demos, technology can get the best of you at times, but GPSL always does things live. This way the product can really exhibit itself.

Those of us in attendance were treated to a spectacular exhibit:  APP is a fast, flexible, highly capable production engine.  By the end of the presentation, we were all left wondering: where has Arbortext and PTC been hiding this product? And, when will 5.4 be out so we can play with it?

As moderator, I gathered up the questions asked during the presentation and have reproduced them here. Answers were provided and reviewed by Lawrie before posting.

And, by the way, Arbortext 5.4 was released today.  Enjoy!

Questions and Answers

Q: Does APP guarantee page integrity?

Lawrie: Yes – we can `guarantee’ page integrity in an environment like Boeing (depends, of course, on the integrity / design of the whole solution). As I showed, we are able to take care of LOEP, changes and printing changes (leafs) rather than using external pre-processing. The integrity of pages was a `must have’ and we would not have achieved acceptance without it.

Q: Is the right hand pane searchable?

Lawrie: Yes. The Edit Area (yellow bar) is searchable with simple or regular expression mode (search & replace too). This is also scriptable.

Q: Can I search with xpath?

Lawrie: Yes, using scripts and other tools

Q: Has it been integrated into Styler yet?

Lawrie: APP is integrated with Styler in 5.4 release

Q: Does APP support HAT (Hebrew, Arabic and Thai)?

Lawrie: Yes – As seen. [*]  Thai is a particular language and does present certain challenges. All other languages are fully supported – Arabic, Hebrew and all the major non-Latin languages have been in the system since about 1990. CJK was added in the late 90’s.

[* Ed note: Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and Greek were all demonstrated live.]

Q: How many pages per minute can APP do?

Lawrie: APP/3B2 is fast. Format/print speed depend on the complexity of the incoming XML and also the complexity of the output eg. complex tables breaking over pages (horiz and vert) can affect formatting speed). Certainly for a well-constructed template the publishing speed far exceeds FOSI

[Ed note:  APP has a counter visible in the bottom window pane, one boeing doc of nearly 1200 pages was processed at a speed of 130,000 pages per hour. That's right. 130,000.]

Q: If you’ve got data that is deeply nested, complicated xml, does this slow it down?

Lawrie:  “No”!  The XML depth will not slow us down. Although 3B2 has a plethora of XML/XPath tools, it also has an underlying logic set which enables us to remove the tree mode where we use simple format counters instead of the XML hierarchy.

“No”!  The XML depth will not slow us down. Although 3B2 has a plethora of XML/XPath tools, it also has an underlying logic set which enables us to remove the tree mode where we use simple format counters instead of the XML hierarchy.

Reminder: June 2009 Meeting

Posted in meetings, products on June 15th, 2009 by lizfraley – Be the first to comment

Reminder!  Registration closes Thursday 18 June.

“All about Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher”
Presented by Lawrie Stevens, Global Publishing Solutions

Date: Saturday, 20 June 2009, 9:00-10:00 AM Pacific/US
Location:  Online via LiveMeeting.
RSVP: You must RSVP to receive the LiveMeeting invite https://www.123signup.com/event?id=jgzbd
Cost: Free and open to all who wish to attend. Registration is limited to 25.

Topic:

You heard about it at the conference last week or you’ve heard about it from your rep in the last couple of weeks:  In Arbortext 5.4, “Advanced Print Publisher” will be available for Styler and APE as a Technology Preview.

Come see APP (formerly 3B2) demonstrated by someone who can really make this hot automated typesetting application sing!