Keeping Pace with ePublisher
February 5th, 2010 by allumsBack a few weeks ago, I wrote “2009.4 and the missing feature“. Customers gave that post some great feedback. People seemed to understand our goals for end-of-year releases. It made sense to them that we dedicate time in our annual release cycle to focus solely upon stability.
As validating as it was to receive that feedback, concerns were expressed regarding the pace of ePublisher releases. The message?
Slow down!!!
The End of an Era
January 29th, 2010 by aporterYesterday we announced the release of ePublisher 2009.4, the culmination of what has been an exciting year of product development here at WebWorks.
In keeping with our standard policy of a two year rolling support window , this means that ePublisher 9.3 is no longer a supported version and is now officially classified as a Legacy Product.
This marks the passing of an era as we have now moved from products based on an incremental release number to supporting products based on a quarterly release cycle and easily identified by the date in which they shipped.
Focus, Focus, Focus
January 27th, 2010 by allumsIt never fails. We ship the quarterly ePublisher release and the challenge begins anew:
What are we going to ship THIS quarter?
Marketing is analyzing, Sales is requesting, and Support is demanding. And on the other side of those groups are our customers. Some, we will delight. Others will curse our names, shocked to find that we have chosen a challenge other than the one they face. The choices are never easy even when the strategy is clear:
All we have to do is choose wisely.
Building New Stuff
January 19th, 2010 by jwilesOne of the things that is challenging for me as a developer is staying on target with regard to ePublisher development when there are so many glittery web-technologies to play with. For example, I have have long yearned for a true AutoMap server which would allow for the Administration of ePublisher/AutmoMap configuration and execution over a web (http) connection. Recently I put together a Google Docs input adapter with the intention of demonstrating the capabilities of the ePublisher architecture. When it comes to inputs, I’ve got far more ideas than I have time to implement.
Bugs and Car Talk Syndrome
January 15th, 2010 by allumsBugs! Isn’t that a great topic to blog about? Well, maybe not. Still, I wanted to talk about this subject because we’ve been missing out on an opportunity to learn from each other, make people happy, and improve ePublisher. There is one catch. Making this change happen requires a partnership between WebWorks.com and you.
2009.4 and the missing feature
January 8th, 2010 by allumsLife here in the Engine Room continues on as always; a combination of brimming potential and vexing challenges. I love creating new things. I love to solve problems. Sometimes I get to do both at once. But not this time.
Is Your Online Help A Security Risk?
January 8th, 2010 by aporterAs you are probably aware, back on December 15th we issued a Security Advisory for our WebWorks Help online help product. The security advisory was the result of several weeks extensive investigation of a potential loophole that could possibly be exploited by malicious software. This was a situation we took very seriously and ensured that our most recent product release (ePublisher 2009.3) included fixes and updates to remedy the situation and remove the vulnerability going forward.
During our investigations and research we quickly discovered that we were far from the first vendor of publishing software to be in this position. It appears that several other vendors have also been similarly affected in recent years.
But what really caught our attention was a comment from a member of the ePublisher community:
“I never considered that my online help could be a potential attack vector!”
Traditionally online help is something that gets generated once and is then delivered with a product, or pushed out to a website. In most cases it continues to just sit there as web technology changes around it, becoming more and more vulnerable to hackers and malicious software.
Over the next few weeks we are planning several events that will hopefully help you answer the question I posed in the title of this post.
“Is your online help a security risk?”
More information will be posted here and on our Twitter feed in the next few days.
Publishing in an Agile World
January 4th, 2010 by aporterAs I mentioned in my post on December 1st, here at WebWorks we are talking to more and more people who are adopting an Agile software development model and as a result wondering how they can adapt their content publishing model to suit.
To help answer that question I have put together a short white paper on “Publishing in an Agile World” that I hope will help answer some of those questions, and in particular show how using ePublisher three stage workflow, of DESIGN. CAPTURE and APPLY, can make the task even easier.
You can find a copy oif the white paper on SlideShare
Or if you prefer just sens me an email at aporter@alanjporter.com and I’ll be happy to send you a copy.
THE WORKS Gets a New Look
December 10th, 2009 by aporterYesterday the new look edition of THE WORKS newsletter was sent out. Our intention with the new version of the newsletter is not only to keep you up to date with the latest happenings at WebWorks, but also to provide ePublisher hints and tips, plus information on industry trends and developments.
We are already getting great feedback, such as:
It’s an excellent way of keeping your users aware of what’s happening on the ePublisher front, and will help teams like us leverage the ePublisher features to provide new capabilities.
Newsletter subscribers also get access to special offers and discounts not available anywhere else, so if you don’t already receive THE WORKS, sign up now on the Newsletter subscription page.
Going Agile with ePublisher? – Let’s chat.
December 1st, 2009 by aporterOver at her just write click blog, top industry commentator and author, Anne Gentle, recently posted an excellent piece comparing collaborative authoring tools.
The blog post had been prompted by the move within her company to adopt an Agile development approach. As Anne remarks the change meant “we’re going from 5 people to 47 people in total who could author external or internal documentation within our two week sprints.”
Later in the piece Anne kindly makes mention of the various ways that ePublisher can fit within this new business model.
Here at WebWorks we are used to the Agile process, we use it internally to great effect and it was key to our switch to delivering four product updates a year. At our RoundUp conference in 2008 we spent a great deal of time talking about the Agile process and how it applied to the whole company.
But over the last six months or so we have seen a marked increase in the number of our customers who, like Anne’s company, are adopting the process and are starting to use ePublisher as a key component of an Agile workflow.
I often mention that I believe we can learn far more about how our software works by talking to customers than we ever can from lab testing, and I’d like to find out just how well ePublisher is doing in this developing new model.
If it works, what does ePublisher provide that helps make it a good tool for an Agile team?
Are there things we could do better to serve the Agile workflow?
If you are on an Agile team, or know someone who is and would be interested in sharing your insights, please contact me at aporter@webworks.com – I’d love to chat and hear your ideas.