EPUB for documentation

I think a very useful case for the EPUB eBook format is for developing documentation. Documentation is more than telling people how to use computers.

PDF is good and useful, but one problem with PDF is that it is limited to a computer or paper and there are plenty of instances where that is less than ideal. For example, an owner's manual for a car. Who wants to carry around a huge book in their car or have to drag their laptop to their front seat to be able to figure out how to program their navigation system. With EPUB you could put your owner's manual in your smart phone in a way that has a table of contents and is searchable.

Introducing EPUB

Yesterday I posted my cookbook for using the free EPUB creator Sigil to produce eBooks in the EPUB format. But, why would you want to produce them in EPUB format. Indeed, what is EPUB?

The EPUB (short for electronic publication) format is a free and an open standard for e-books. EPUB is the most widely accepted format for eBooks. The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) is the trade and standards association for the digital publishing industry that developed and maintains the EPUB standard. You can find the official specifications for EPUB documents on the IDPF website.

In essence an EPUB document is a specially constructed zip file with the .EPUB extension. You can reflow the content of an EPUB document into any size display screen, from a phone to a tablet to a desktop monitor. EPUB also allows for the generation of a navigational table of contents.

The content of a book formatted with EPUB is contained in XHTML and CSS files, which may reference images and embedded fonts, and can be encrypted with DRM.

The pages in an EPUB document are written in XHTML which is a special flavor of HTML. The EPUB file also contains a series of XML files that help format the book so that it can be properly read by an eReader.

There are a number of tools that can generate EPUB files for you, either from plain text, from XHTML, from Microsoft Word, or even from Adobe InDesign. The tool I use for creating EPUB eBooks is Sigil. Sigil is a basic WYSIWYG EPUB editor that works for producing basic EPUB eBooks. If you want to go beyond basic, in these early days when EPUB tools are less than perfect, it's a good idea to know what's going on under the hood so that you can go in and make necessary adjustments.

For example, Word doesn't export drop caps, but you can edit the XHTML files by hand to allow them. InDesign doesn't export text wrap with its EPUB documents, but you can set up the files so that a quick edit to the XHTML achieves that aim. Just like working on a Web page, the more you work using any tool to generate EPUB documents, the more you will want to be able to get to the code and be able to tweak it.

Besides the iBooks application that Apple provides for the iPhone, iPod touch and of course the iPad. EPUB is supported by other devices and client applications including the Barnes and Noble Nook, and the Sony Reader. The Amazon Kindle, at the time of this writing, does not support EPUB. EPUB is supported on desktop and laptop computers using Adobe Digital Editions (which is free) and on various platform smart phones including Android and Blackberry using products like Lucidor, Stanza, Ibis Reader, Aldiko and Mobipocket. EPUB can be considered a write once read on (almost) any device eBook format.

A great source for much of this post and recommended reading is Elizabeth Castro's great book, EPUB Straight to the Point: Creating ebooks for the Apple iPad and other ereaders, published by Peachpit Press in both print and electronic editions.

What I love most about MacWorld

Adobe was not at this years MacWorld and Apple will not be at the next. If MacWorld survives the loss of these anchors the best part will hopefully remain. My favorite part of MacWorld are the displays around the edge and in the obscure corners of MacWorld. That is where you find passionate developers like Jessie Youngblood and Steven Abbagnaro of Tooble. These are the folks who have the new ideas and the fresh products the ones you don't read about on the A-list blogs or in the trades. Tooble is a cool product and will meet a need I have to use YouTube Videos in classroom presentations.

Technorati Tags: Apple, MacWorld, Tooble, ssloansjca

Free VM Ware?

Do you want to run Windows on your Mac but don't want to buy Parallels or VMWare Fusion? There is a free program called VirtualBox that is Open Source that reportedly does the same thing. According to their Web site:

VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). See "About VirtualBox" for an introduction.

It is on my list of things to try out. As companies lay off talented programmers expected that pool of talent to find expression supporting Open Source projects like this.

Technorati Tags: VirtualBox, Open Source, Apple, ssloansjca

How we use Google Docs

Tech Tips: Google Docs and the Help Desk

About Google Docs
According to Wikipedia, "Google Docs is a free, Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application offered by Google. It allows users to create and edit documents online while collaborating in real-time with other users. Google Docs combines the features of two services, Writely and Spreadsheets, which were merged into a single product on October 10, 2006. A third product for presentations, incorporating technology designed by Tonic Systems, was released on September 17, 2007."

Google Apps @ SJSU
According to a Web page maintained by the SJSU Web Services team (at the time of this writing), "San Jose State University is in the early stages of using Google Apps Education Edition. Currently only faculty and staff are given access. We hope to include students at a later time, when technical challenges around associating student email addresses with Google Apps is resolved." Currently this is being called, "Google Apps @ SJSU".

Known Issues
There are issues using Google Docs if you are intending on inviting university employees into collaboration with people with non-sjsu.edu e-mail accounts. A person with an sjsu.edu e-mail account cannot be invited into collaboration using Google's own brand of Google Docs. We have found, at the help desk, that the best bet is for all parties involved in collaboration to have e-mail accounts that are not in the sjsu.edu domain. We have found, Gmail accounts work best. If you have an sjsu.edu e-mail address and you try to access Google's own Google Docs after being invited by a person not from an sjsu.edu account, you will be forced into an SJSUOne authentication. Even then, you will not be able to get to the document you have been invited to edit. The best bet is to stay off the reservation, for now!

Help Desk Google Docs Work Flow
At the university help desk we use Google Docs extensively for preparation of documentation. This way teams can collaborate on our documentation easily. Because we invite students to collaborate on our documentation we are using the Google's own version of Google Docs. Our work around has been to ask our help desk entire staff to get Google Gmail accounts and to issue invitations to the Google Gmail account for the users we wish to invite to collaborate on the document. We may, as an option, invite them via a seperate e-mail to their sjsu.edu or other e-mail address telling them, "please check your Gmail e-mail account for an invitation to collaborate on a Google Doc."

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca

rms at SJSU

Camera Phone Post: "rms" speaking at SJSU
Richard Matthew Stallman who launched the GNU Project (Gnu's not Unix) expousing Free Software that sought to and finally brought to the world a free version of UNIX (with help from Linus Torvolds) spoke at SJSU today. Most of what he said I have already heard, but what a thrill it was to hear rms (lower case intentional) say it himself. In the first edition of the Hacker's Dictionary, he wrote, "'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'." This was the name he used in him computer accounts. Hacker, in those days, was a term for a person who made things work through unique and creative methods and it did not have the negative connotation it now has.

UPDATE: More and better photos here on Flickr

Richard Stallman coming to SJSU

Free Software GNU Guru coming to SJSU on Sept. 11th
Richard Stallman will speak about the goals and philosophy of the Free Software Movement, and the status and history of the GNU operating system, which in combination with the kernel Linux is now used by tens of millions of users world-wide. This speech will be accessible to all audiences and the public is encouraged to attend. The speech is Tuesday, Sept 11 3:00-5:00pm San Jose State University, "Umunhum Room", Floor 2, Student Union Building, Student Union, Inc., One Washington Square, San Jose, CA.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca

In Defense of LimeWire

In an Email not marked confidential one of our campus techs sent this to the campus community:

Beyond the hypothetical risk of P2P software like Skype, apparently LimeWire is a real security problem. Fortunately nothing on my hard disk is as sensitive as those in the Pentagon, but I imagine some information (like student records or the president's correspondence) shouldn't be shared with the world at large.

Gen. Clark: Sensitive Gov't. Documents Exposed by LimeWire
By Scott M. Fulton, III, BetaNews
July 26, 2007, 10:01 PM

In testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday, Gen. Wesley Clark - the former supreme commander of NATO forces and US presidential candidate, speaking as a board member of and advisor to security software company Tiversa - cited a study by his company revealing that in a period of two hours' search time on the P2P file-sharing system LimeWire, over 200 classified US Government documents were discovered.
...
Later, Clark stated, Tiversa engineers located the entire Pentagon backbone network security infrastructure diagram, which apparently came as part of a package that included a letter from the US Office of Management and Budget warning of the dangers of using LimeWire and other P2P file sharing programs on computers where sensitive or secret documents are stored. The material, it was discovered, was copied from the computer of a single Pentagon contractor, who happened to be a LimeWire user. She didn't share those files intentionally; instead, her local file system was exposed through LimeWire.

The following is my reply to that list: In my opinion it is NOT the existence of LimeWire that is the security issue, it is people who are trusted with secure data that may be either overriding the default security settings in Lime Wire and/or are putting that confidential data into directories that are shared that is the issue. According to a related article in cnet, "Particularly with early versions of file-trading software, new users sometimes accidentally shared the entire contents of their hard drives with the rest of the network. As a result, private information ranging from credit card transactions to banking passwords could be exposed. After pressure from Congress, most file-sharing programs have installed some warning to people to make it clear which directories are being shared, however."

Not using p2p file sharing software does not insure the security of confidential data. For example; I had my laptop stolen last November in a house burglary. The thieves also stole credit cards and bank records. I lost plenty of my own confidential data. Even though I do not often use p2p file sharing software, my personal information was compromised. Physical access is root access to almost all computers.

In the new media class I teach, p2p software is a critical tool for my students to accomplish their academic goals. Using shared p2p file sharing software is an important way students can share legitimate and legal creative commons licensed content they are creating.

University employees need to be aware of their responsibilities to protect confidential data and not blame p2p technology for their own failure to do so. University owned computers containing confidential data should NOT be used for p2p file sharing when doing so is NOT university business. I do NOT think protecting confidential information is taken seriously enough at our school, but the problem in my opinion is not the existence of p2p software, the problem is the lack of training and the lack of focus on the protection of confidential information. The problem, in my opinion, is user error.

Technorati Tags: P2P, Free Speech, Lime Wire, Web 2.0, ssloansjca

Google's Purchase of Feedburner

Google + Feedburner = Hooray
I was thrilled to learn of Google's purchase of Feedburner. I learned when my friend Diana sent me sent me a text message as I was driving across rural Oregon. She knew it would make me happy, it did. This is such a perfect fit. Google + Feedburner is such a natural. Google + Feedburner is almost as good as Google + Technorati. Google + Feedburner makes a lot more sense to me than E-bay + Skype ever did.

I see so much potential in this. Google + Feedburner has been one of my favorite combinations for creating Podcasts. For video Google + Feedburner gives you a Vlog plus a Video Podcast. This is the combination that Rayanne Hodson of Freevlog recommends. Google + Feedburner worked very well for my class last semester. All of my students created there own Blogs, Vlogs and Podcasts using this method. This is the workflow I use for my own Vlogs.

It is a great way to create RSS feeds and podcasts, and keep track of who is viewing them. I hope soon Google creates a quick and easy way to enable this to be your default feed for your Blogger blog (and dumps Atom.)

Google + Feedburner is a great way to produce RSS advertising. RSS advertising feeds are a fantastic way to create, engage and build an audience of passionate users. These passionate users, in turn, are your quality consumers who can help you build a better product or service by telling you what works and what doesn't. These are the folks you want seeing your ads and the cool thing is, they want to see your ads. Google + Feedburner will help make this happen.

For educators Google + Feedburner is a great way to see if your students are really consuming your RSS Feeds. Google + Feedburner is good for me. I am stoked!

Technorati Tags: Google, Feedburner, RSS Advertising, RSS and Education, ssloansjca, Instructional Technology, j-school

Cool Tip on Making PDF's on Mac OS X

This is a great Apple Tip:
"This is another one of those “secret, buried-in-a-vault” killer tips that addresses something Mac OS X users have complained about: The file sizes of PDFs that Mac OS X creates are sometimes too big (vs. Adobe’s Acrobat PDFs). believe it or not, there’s a way to get smaller PDFs."
Read More!

Hodson and Dedman on Video Blogging

Ryanne Hodson and Jay Dedman at SJSU
On April 25, 2007 Hodson and Dedman came to SJSU. They spoke to Professor Cynthia McCune's Journalism 163 class about videoblogging. Devon Thames, from my class, was there and she shot a video of their presentation. It is being made available here in multiple parts. Here is part one of their presentation.

Open Source Session

Another Great CATS Session (Updated 3-26-07, 19:00)
Joshua Archer, from the CSU Center for Distributed Education, led this great session. Also speaking was Kevin Kelly from SFSU. They talked about the state of Open Source technology in the CSU system. SFSU is moving to Moodle, an open source alternative to Blackboard and WebCT. Still, there is a reluctance to adopt open source solutions in the CSU system.

The focus of the conversation seemed to be on back end, server side, open source solutions, but discussions also included desktop software like Audacity and Open Office. It was decided to create a Google Group for CATS members who wish to keep abreast and share resources of Open Source projects in the CSU system.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, CATS, CATS2007, Fullerton, CSU Fullerton, California State University, San Jose, Joshua Archer, ssloansjca

Inkscape: Free Illustrator Substitute?

Open Source Illustrator Substitute
Yesterday The Gimp, a possible Open Source (free) substitute for Photoshop, was mentioned on this blog. Business student and local entrepreneur Lambert Lum followed this up with a plug for Inkscape, a Vector Graphics Editor, similar to Adobe Illustrator, that strives to be SVG Compliant, open source, responsive and extensible. Lambert said:

I see you like gimp. Don't forget about inkscape. Inkscape is the open source alternative to Adobe Illustrator. Inkscape is also quite easy to use. After eight hours with the tutorial, I had a full grasp of all the major features.

Like The Gimp, Inkscape will run in Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. Unfortunately for Mac users, (also like the GIMP) it runs in X11 (not for the non-Geek Mac User.) It is sweet for Windows users and I have installed it! I have Illustrator, but often it is too complicated. Inkscape is just right.

GIMP: An open source photo editor

An alternative to Photoshop
So, you want the power of high-end image editing programs like Adobe Photoshop (or Corel PaintShop Pro) but have zero money to spend. The GNU Image Manipulation Program (a.k.a. The GIMP) gives you professional-level image editing capabilities at a budget price. It's free! And it's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Find out more at the GIMP website. The Mac GIMP version runs on the UNIX sublayer of MacOS and requires X11 (a version of Xwindows) which may be a deal breaker for all but the Geekiest of Mac users (not your typical Mac user can work in X11). Supposedly, the Windows version is not so constrained and would be easier on the casual user. There are tutorials to using GIMP on their Website and elsewhere on the Internet.