The announcements just keep coming from Adobe today:
Mars is the code name for technology being developed by Adobe that provides an Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based representation of Portable Document Format (PDF) documents. (Mars page at Adobe Labs)
In the long term, I think this means the Death of Distiller. Other than that, I think my brain has gone into information overload.
Any thoughts on where this is going?
[heavy blogging. I must be trying to avoid some unpleasant task.]
Most of you probably don’t know that I spent the first two years of my college career as a chemistry major. When push came to shove, I decided that I would rather serve as editor of the science magazine than take analytical chemistry (which was notorious for an all-consuming laboratory component). And really, who could find working in Gross Chemistry Laboratory appealing? (To add insult to injury, the approach to the chemistry building was a set of steps that were completely unusable by humans, as each stair required about one-and-a-half strides. The joke on campus was that the civil engineering department had designed the stairs. “But Duke doesn’t have a civil engineering program.” “Not any more.”)
In any event, here is a fascinating new look at the periodic table, as a spiral. (h/t New York Times via Feld Thoughts)
This morning, my Google news alerts start pinging me with information about Adobe Digital Editions. This new software, available as a beta from Adobe Labs, is something of a cross between Acrobat Reader and the Flash player. It’s a relatively small download (2.5MB), and it provides for display of PDF or eBook content.
Most web designers are aware of Section 508 requirements, which in essence require web sites to be accessible to persons with disabilities. However, Section 508 applies only to companies that sell to the United States government. Provided you’re willing to give up the U.S. government as a potential customer, your web site could be completely inaccessible.
Kathy Sierra’s Creating Passionate Users blog is one of my favorites. But her latest entry is entitled Why marketing should make the manuals!
Ugh.
Read the whole thing, and then let’s chat. I’ll wait.
FrameMaker users are a loyal, occasionally even fanatical, bunch. The mystery has always been exactly why that is so. After all, there are lots of software tools out there, and many of them are prettier, faster, and cheaper than FrameMaker. But you don’t hear a lot of discussion about the joys of Visio.
At O’Reilly.net, Hari K. Gottipati writes that “the main disadvantage of Ajax is [because] a Web page is not required to reload to change, many screen readers or other assistive technologies used by sight-impaired or otherwise disabled users may not be aware of the dynamic changes.” (AJAX Accessibility Issue caught vendors attention. Is this a major issue?)
This is bad.
I’m not sure I agree with all of this article, but it’s a fascinating perspective on outsourcing, freelancing, and virtual corporations.
We sometimes use stock images for marketing materials, book covers, and the like. We recently found a stock photo site that sells some high-quality images for a fraction of what of you pay at better-known stock photo firms. Buying a royalty-free image for $3 instead of $300 seems like a really good deal…until you read the fine print.
In his blog, words / myth / amper & virgule, Dick Margulis focuses mostly on writing and editing. But in today’s entry, he discusses relationships between consultant and client, and I think he summed it up most excellently:
“If you are the sort of person who yells humiliating insults at servers in restaurants, I really would rather not work with you. “
