To be honest, the results weren’t quite what we had hoped for in terms of quality, after all we are a small software company, not video producers; but the four short videos proved to be fairly popular, and we still see them popping up on other sites and being linked to on a fairly frequent basis.

When one of the old videos was picked up by an online tutorial site a few weeks ago, we started discussing revisiting the idea of producing a new line of videos. The difference is that this time we decided to bring in a local video production team  - we still wanted to keep things informal, but knew there was things we could learn about staging, lighting, and even a little voice coaching.

The first two videos have now been done, and posted on our newly revamped and redesigned You Tube channel. – Click on over to http://www.youtube.com/user/WebWorks2009 to check out all our videos.

As we looked back at out history we realized that each time a new input format was needed, or if a new output format was becoming a significant player in the market place, we would just add it to the ePublisher platform. Throughout the product’s history, users and subscribers to ePublisher were automatically covered, and able to meet changing demands of publishing a variety of content online in a format that their customers were asking for.

But the more we used the phrase, we came to realize that it meant far more than a simple statement about formats…

“We’ve Got You Covered” is a pledge from us to make sure that your relationship with WebWorks on all levels is one that positions you to be successful, not only today, but in the years to come.

Using WebWorks ePublisher is also about:

• Having access to everyone in the company, from support and development teams, as well as Sales, through to senior management, and the CEO – we are all available and ready to listen.
• Full knowledge sharing through our open online documentation, to our regular Tips & Tricks and Newsletters, White Papers and our three popular webinar series.
• A stable well developed product that you can set up once to give you a highly efficient workflow and scalable publishing platform.
• Included full support and maintenance.
• and a lot more..

Even if we are only just putting words to it, “We’ve Got You Covered”  has become the WebWorks philosophy, and it is one that we will continue to develop.

While this approach may be the most efficient to meet one single defined need, or solve one single problem, it is not scalable and can soon lead to development dead ends and an inability to meet new customer requirements. In an agile development environment this can cause real problems.

ePublisher is unique in that it uses the concept of Parcel Publishing to deliver unmatched flexibility and scalability.

Parcel Publishing uses a series of pipelines with well-defined start and end points that break the publishing process down into a series of discrete segments.

Want to know more about Parcel Publishing? Ask for a copy of the latest WebWorks White Paper, and we’ll be happy to send it to you.

When you log a support call, or are chatting with either Customer Service or your Account Manager, it helps us help you if we know what version of ePublisher you are running.

If you aren’t sure which version you have installed and using, it’s very simple to find out.

(1). From the Help menu just select About WebWorks ePublisher.

(2). This will open a splash screen that displays both the version of ePublisher and the build number.

Once you have taken a note of these numbers, you can dismiss the splash screen by simply clicking on it.

During the course of our investigations we came to believe that this was an issue that should be discussed more openly. In particular we felt an obligation to help raise awareness of how and why you need to look at your Online Help as a potential security risk.

Following that original post we planned to host a webinar on the subject. It turned out to be one of the most popular webinars we have ever held and was oversubscribed – twice. That single webinar turned into a series of three.

For anyone who was unable to attend, we have now collected the information presented in those webinars in a new WebWorks White Paper.

The white paper includes sections on:

• Background to our own interest in Online Help security issues.
• Notes on industry trends.
• Why Online Help is particularly vulnerable.
• Security as process (the title of this post comes from that section).
• Taking steps to ensure that you are protected.

If you would like a copy of “Is Your Online Help A Security Risk?” either leave a comment with your email address below, or email me directly  with your request.

All of these are great examples of just some of the potential uses of ePublisher. Another application that we don’t talk about too much, but has been a consistent part of many customer conversations is Project Management.

Using ePublisher is a great way to collate and publish your project documentation into a variety of formats that can be used by every member of the team. As more and more project teams move to online collaboration tools such as wikis, then you can use the tools you are used to, such as Microsoft Word, FrameMaker or a DITA compliant XML editor to produce your Scope Documents, Resource & Staffing, Communication, Security, Test and Training plans. Then simply use ePublisher to deliver them to the online platform of your choice, making it easier to gather feedback, control and manage your project specific content.

Check out the Project Management Body of Knowledge wiki for guidelines on project documentation needs.

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.

For customers still running 2008.1, your new keys were sent out this month, if you didn’t receive and updated key, please contact customer service.

With the current release cycle, please note that 2008.1 will move to EOL (End of Life) status when 2010.1 ships.

A table showing the support status of all versions of ePublisher can be found HERE.

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.

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.

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.