June 24th, 2009 [ Posted by Marcin S ]
As developers at webqem we are encouraged to stay abreast of new and upcoming technologies. In May 2009 at Google I/O, their annual developer conference, Google announced Google Wave.
Google Wave is in its early days and it will be some months before it is available to the general public, however Google knows that in order to drive adoption of Wave once it is released it will need the support of third-party developers. With this in mind, Google have built a set of APIs in order allow Wave to be extended.
To help introduce Australian developers to the APIs, Google held a Wave API Developer Day at the Sydney Google office on 19 June 2009, which I attended. The day involved learning about the available APIs and then working with them to build something cool to show off at the end of the day. There was last minute “audience favourite” voting added, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that my demo, the Napkin Gadget was voted the favourite!
The Napkin Gadget is an implementation of the idea of a quick sketch on the back of a napkin. With the Napkin Gadget you can do quick freeform sketches in a Wave. The Napkin Gadget is an Adobe Flash based Gadget, implemented using Flex - the only example of a Flash Gadget on the night!
The Gadget has been open sourced at Google Code, and as part of the informal “prize” it is currently the Featured Sample on the Google Wave API Samples Gallery.
An example of the Napkin Gadget embedded in a wave
February 16th, 2009 [ Posted by Chris R ]
This year webqem’s network engineer Derek Read and his wife are taking part in the Leukaemia Foundation’s World’s Greatest Shave. (Derek is going Kojak and Marianne is going for the coloured set). It’s easy to take part - simply ask family, friends or workmates to sponsor you, then shave (or colour) your hair in March.
Every hour of every day, at least one person in Australia is diagnosed with leukaemia, lymphoma or myeloma.
Every two hours, someone loses their life to blood cancer.
Please help Derek and Marianne raise as much as they can for the Leukaemia Foundation. Their vital work provides patients with practical support during their long and tough treatment, as well as funding important research.
You can help by making a secure online donation using your credit card at their profile page.
February 12th, 2009 [ Posted by Chris R ]
True Green Kids … 100 Things You Can Do to Save the Planet by Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin, has won the award for Best Hands On Science Book at the AAAS/Subaru SB&F Excellence in Science Books awards, celebrating outstanding science writing and illustration for children and young adults.
The award will be presented in Chicago on Friday 13th February. It is one of four book prizes awarded by the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), the publisher of Science Magazine, and the SB&F (Science Books and Films).
True Green is an international environmental brand which aims to empower the everyday person to make a difference. The authors are part of the Clean up Australia/Clean up the World team (Kim is cofounder and Jenny is a board member). Kim and Jenny have written four True Green books, all about providing simple and useful actions you can take to change your behavior, presenting the tips in a very accessible way.
The True Green Kids book was launched in Australia by Environment Minister Peter Garrett last April and covers 100 points, from the obvious (use cloth bags and turn down the heat), to the creative and fun (set up a local carbon trading card system or help organize a ‘trash’ free lunch day at school).
webqem worked with the authors to produce the True Green @ Work E-Learning Program, using Adobe Flash and Adobe Presenter.
February 4th, 2009 [ Posted by Gavin P ]
Adobe is giving K-12 schools the fantastic opportunity to own the latest Creative Suite 4 software at 35% off the usual price. Schools can trade in their current site license* and receive 35% off Creative Suite 4 when they upgrade before 8th May 2009!
PLUS, webqem is throwing in 2 FREE one day passes to attend any of our Adobe training courses . That’s more than A$1,500 worth of FREE training. Schools can send their ‘super-users’ to the webqem certified training courses and have them return competent to train the rest of the school staff.
The K-12 School Site Licenses allow installation rights for up to 250 or 500 school-owned or school-leased computers regardless of school enrolment size. K-12 School Site Licenses also come with valuable DVDs of curriculum and training materials to help educators implement career and technical education programs around design, web, and video programs.
The site licenses are available for the following Creative Suite 4 products:
Take advantage of this great offer from Adobe, and contact us today on +61 2 8968 1600
January 22nd, 2009 [ Posted by Gavin P ]
Adobe has announced the launch of Captivate 4 and the new Adobe eLearning Suite. To celebrate the launch, webqem has a limited time* offer - for anyone purchasing or upgrading to Captivate 4, we will give you a voucher for $150 off your next webqem Adobe Captivate Training course.
With Adobe Captivate 4 software, you can rapidly author professional eLearning content with advanced interactivity, software and scenario simulations, quizzes, and other engaging experiences—no programming or multimedia skills required. Go to webqem’s Captivate 4 page to see the great new features of this new release.
Offering seven innovative applications in one complete, integrated package, Adobe eLearning Suite includes full new versions of: Adobe Captivate 4, Adobe Flash CS4, Adobe Dreamweaver CS4, Adobe Presenter 7, Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro, Adobe Soundbooth CS4, Adobe Device Central CS4, Adobe Bridge CS4, and SCORM Packager. The eLearning suite is great for instructional designers and developer, training managers, and educators. Got to eLearning Suite on the webqem site to find out more information.
Contact webqem for more information about the Captivate 4 and eLearning Suite software, plus the various upgrade paths that will save you money, as well as special education discounts and bundles. webqem is an Adobe Solutions Partner and Adobe Authorised Training Centre and a leading Australian reseller of Adobe products and services.
*Offer ends 31/03/2009
January 12th, 2009 [ Posted by Gavin P ]
The Info-Tech Research Group seeks to simplify the complicated technology landscape, to help you get up to speed with new technologies and make the right technology purchasing decisions.
The recent Info-Tech Research Note on Web Conferencing provides a detailed, head-to-head, analytical comparison of the top five web conferencing products from Adobe, Cisco, IBM and Microsoft.
In their scorecard, Adobe Acrobat Connect was the only product to receive a high rating
in all areas: delivery and licensing, core functionality, advanced functionality and value, identifying Adobe as a leader amongst web conferencing vendors.
One of their key recommendations was:
“For advanced e-learning, instructional media delivery, virtual classrooms, and real-time business document collaboration, choose Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro.”
January 9th, 2009 [ Posted by Gavin P ]
MLB.com, Major League Baseball’s online unit and one of the web’s most succcessful subscription services, is dropping Silverlight and switching to competitor Adobe Flash for the 2009 baseball season.
This is considered a major blow for Microsoft, whose Silverlight was used by NBC to stream Olympics content in 2008. MLB had previously been one of the most high profile Silverlight customers.
MLB.com streams live every Major League spring training, regular season and postseason game, via subscription, with over 1.5 million total subscribers since its debut on Opening Day 2003. Since that time, fans have accessed more than 1.8 billion streams of live and on-demand multimedia offerings on MLB.com, representing nearly 200 million hours of participation.
Adobe’s Flash Player is by far the largest video platform, installed on more than 98 percent of web-connected devices, while Silverlight is installed on about 25 percent.
The MLB two-year deal will see Adobe powering the MLB.tv live streaming service as well as its highlight and library video clips. MLB and Adobe will also work on rich Internet applications, providing content and features outside of the Web browser.
“Flash provides a TV-like experience. You turn it on and it works,” said Bob Bowman, president and CEO of MLB Advanced Media. “We want it to be flexible so we can add features…and it’s got to be scalable. We are the largest server of live entertainment in the country. Whether we are serving 20,000 for one game or 250,000 for another game, it’s got to be scalable over periods of time like nothing else.”
January 7th, 2009 [ Posted by Chris R ]
We build great websites. Even in our spare time.
Dog’s Life magazine in Australia reviewed several online dog community sites in the January/February issue, and gave a glowing review of one particular site.
“… mydogspace.com.au is definitely one of the best dog sites we’ve seen online …” said the article.
MyDogSpace was created at home by webqem employee Chris Raynor, with the first two members her dogs Spike and Harry, and now has over 800 dog members. Based on a PHP community site software package with several extra modifications and customisations, it offers free dog blogs, picture uploads, forum, polls, quizzes, groups, classifieds, articles and games. Video and music are available for upgraded members.
December 24th, 2008 [ Posted by Lachy G ]
Little Bay Apartments are located at Little Bay, Prince Henry, 20 mins south of Sydney. They provide luxury retirement living at an award-winning masterplanned seaside community. The client, St Luke’s, aim was to combine succint, relevant content (both copy and imagery) with a great user experience. The end result is a clean, easy to use site that gives users a great insight into retirement living at Little Bay.
December 16th, 2008 [ Posted by Chris R ]
CCTVCOM is the internet portal of the largest professional television broadcasting media organisation in China. CCTVCOM was the official internet/mobile broadcaster for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, enabling millions of sports fans in mainland China and Macau to vividly experience Olympic videos built on Adobe Flash and Flex technology.
CCTV needed a solution that supported a large-scale, highly flexible, robust balancing network of high concurrent streaming media. Partnering with Adobe allowed them to deliver a compelling consistent Web 2.0 user experience, such as a 3D TV wall and seamless integration of viewing with live chat functions. The architecture involved a multi-city node origin/edge distribution mechanism.
During the games there were over 832 million visits, with over 46.6 million on-demand video playbacks delivered via Flash Media Server technology, with the maximum concurrent users of live chat room reaching 90,000 and over 10,000 video clips, including whole matches, highlights, extra new and interviews.
Read more about CCTV and FMS
