Do you use FLV video in your Presentations, Engage interactions, or in any Flash content for that matter, and get feedback from users that either the video plays poorly (is choppy), or takes a significant amount of time to display?

This can happen if you use FLV video that is optimized for high-bandwidth situations, but your users are operating in a low-bandwidth environment, such as dial-up modem, or slow DSL connection. Most of the programs that create FLV video allow you to specify a compression setting for the video, where you can specify the output FLV in terms of the target bandwidth rate of the end viewer. It is a good idea to compress your FLV to a level that matches your target audiences bandwidth (for example, you wouldn't want to create an FLV that is optimized for a high-bandwidth situation if your targeted viewers are all using a 56k modem to view your presentation or interaction).

Some of the popular FLV creation programs are:

Sorenson Squeeze

Sorenson allows you to select any number of predefined compression settings, that are labeled rather intelligently based on target bandwidth rate. For example, they have a 56k_Dial_Up predefined setting that is a good compression settings if your users will be viewing the FLV over a 56k modem.

Below I have created a sample movie that shows you how you can apply a compression setting in Sorenson Squeeze.







Flash Video Encoder

Flash Video Encoder has options that are similar to Sorenson Squeeze, but they call it "Quality" in Flash Video Encoder. So lower "Quality" video will be more compressed. Unfortunately they only have quality settings that go down to 150 kbps, which is a compression setting that is targeted for a faster connection than a 56k modem.

Flash Video Encorder is included with Flash Professional, but the available options for quality settings are much more limited than Sorenson's options for compression settings.


Sothink Video Encoder for Adobe Flash

The Sothink Video Encoder allows you to specify "Profiles" (shown below) that allow you to target your output FLV for various bandwidth speeds. The available profiles range from 56 Kbps to 2.1 Mbps.

Note: Video compression is "lossy", meaning the more it is compressed, the lower the quality. Click here for more info on video compression.

Labels: Engage, FLV, Presenter

Doug LeMoine blogs about how the usability of ESPN.COM has deteriorated. At one time in my life I would read ESPN.com several times a day, but now it is so filled with adds, and pop-ups and garbage I can't read it any more.

See the picture below. The highlighted and arrowed 300x500 pixel area is the only real content in a page that is 1260x3000 pixels.


I actually had a tough time trying to highlight the area I viewed as actual content. The colors are so bright on the page it makes it difficult to actually draw someones attention to a specific area.

They have even managed to fit in another ad in the content area.

Labels: Bad UI

A question came up this morning...

Here is the scenario (from large manufacturing company, utility, and hotel chain):

Our users do not have company assigned email addresses or a dedicated
PC. They share a PC in a break room, front desk, or shared kiosk environment. It
is in this type of venue that they take their mandatory e-learning courses and would then subsequently take their quizzes to ensure compliance on company wide matters (diversity training, protection of company assets, corporate ethics policies).

The suggestion has been to use employee id or badge number as the unique log-in. The challenge for us would be how to get the password to the private user if the content is private and email is not provided to distribute that. Also, in a shared environment, there would be problems with cookies for guestbook and perhaps also for would you like to resume where you left off from the course? So, we would need to look at a workaround option for that (Shared computer option so as not to use cookies?).

Question: So given the above environment, how can you track your users in Articulate Online, if they don't have an email address and only use a shared computer?

Answer: What you could do is create your user accounts as if they had email addresses like this:

[userid]@[somemadeupdomain]

The users wouldn't actually get any e-mail here. (It's not a real domain anyways.) They just are using a format that the system requires so it looks like a valid e-mail address.

So if I'm a employee at ACME and my id is: 343219, and Jennifer works with me and her id is: 974311, we would log in as:

343219@acmetraining.com

974311@acmetraining.com

You could create your users by using the bulk upload feature in Articulate Online, which would allow you to specify a password for the user, and wouldn't send any emails to the bogus email addresses. You would just need to get your users that password.

Then, just make any content private that you want to track user progress for. This will avoid any problems that might arise from relying on capturing Guestbook data in a public environment.

You will now be able to track your users progress in Articulate Online even though they don't have an email address.

Labels: Articulate Online

I spent about 2 hours this morning trying to install the AICC/CMI test suite to do a test of some AICC based content. It has been over a year since I installed it last, and I was getting completely confused because it wasn't working after I installed it.

The AICC/CMI test suite is a great application to test AICC based content in a simulated AICC environment. It allows you to log all information that is sent from the content to the LMS.

It is extremely difficult to find any information on how to install and get it working, so I wanted to post install instructions here in case it helps anyone else out, and so I have a record of how I installed it when I need to install it again next year.

Detailed AICC/CMI Test Suite Installation Instructions for Windows XP SP2

1. Follow the instructions on the AICC site for downloading the test suite:
   http://www.aicc.org/pages/aicc_ts.htm
2. Download and install an Apache web server from the following site:
   http://httpd.apache.org/
   
   Note: Any version will do. The docs for the AICC test suite specifically mention 1.3.3, but I am running 2.xx and I have not run into issues yet)
3. Install the AICC test suite downloaded in step number 1
4. Copy "wrapper.exe" that was installed in the AICC test suite folder
   (by default it should be installed to: c:\CMI_TST)
5. Paste "wrapper.exe" into the cgi-bin folder on the Apache web folder
   (by default it should be here: C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\cgi-bin)
6. Copy the following files from C:\CMI_TST
   aicc_launcher.dll
   done.html
   index.html
   ltest0000.aas
   ltest.aam
   ltest.html
7. Create a folder named AICC in the webroot folder of the Apache web server
   (by default it should be here: C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\htdocs)
8. Paste the files from step 6 into the folder created in step 7
9. Right-click on "My Computer"
10. Select Manage
11. Double click 'Services and Applications'
12. Double click 'Services'
13. Double click on 'Apache2'
14. Select the 'Log On' tab
15. Important: Select 'Allow service to interact with desktop'
16. Click OK and restart the computer

After I did this I was able to use the AICC test suite. The reason it was failing for me earlier is that I didn't have the option selected to 'Allow service to interact with desktop'.

I'll write a follow-up post to this as soon as I get some time on how to actually use the test suite. Using it is about as simple as installing it (which isn't saying much).

Labels: AICC

I see a request or forum post every once in awhile that asks for support for Apple's Mac platform. One way that you can run Articulate Presenter, Quizmaker, and Engage on a Mac is to use a virtualization product like VMWare's new product Fusion, which allows you to run a Windows Operating system in a virtual machine inside of a Mac. You can then install any Articulate product (or any Windows based product for that matter), on a Mac.

Basically there are two products on the market right now that I know of that support running virtual machines on a Mac.

VMWare's Fusion

• I use and love their other product VMWare Workstation
• I believe since it is still in Beta it is free to use

Parallels

• Have heard great things about the tool from other Articulate users

Also, if you are interested, check out this topic on Yahoo the other day about the two products.

So if you are dying to run Articulate's products on a Mac, check out VMWare's Fusion or Parallels.

Labels: Presenter

"It's easy" - that is what I said when I first saw the new design of www.articulate.com.

Cool things about the new site design:

• Look and feel similar to Articulate Online
• It is super "clean" and looks "easy"
• New forums look awesome
• Stated mission page

Seriously, after looking at the site for the last week, I really can't get over how visually appealing it is.

Congrats to Gabe, and the other members of the team that made the new website happen. The site really does a much better job of reflecting how easy Articulate's tools are to use.

If you are interested in seeing how Articulate's new site compares to the old site check out The Way Back Machine.