Millions of US citizens must use assistive technology (AT) to read electronic content. A decade ago this month, the US Federal government’s Section 508 regulations went into effect to ensure equal access to information. Just as intended, the regulations – applicable to both the Federal government and its contractors – accelerated commercial activity around meeting […]
View PostHighlights from last week’s meetings in Salt Lake City. Determining the future trajectory of a technology – if you’re interested in the technology and in the uses to which that technology is put – can be fascinating. If your business or institution has a significant investment in electronic document technology, then you’ll probably find it useful to […]
View PostCIOs and IT managers care a very great deal about keeping the computer systems on their networks free of viruses. Most don’t concern themselves with the details of antivirus strategy. Very understandably, they prefer to leave the inner-workings of virus-scanning to the software vendors. No one wants to second-guess their vendor. But maybe you should. […]
View PostAV vendors once again claim to be “surprised” by an attack vector they should have expected. A new complaint is running rife in the antivirus community, this time about PDF and Adobe Reader, the new frontier for viruses, worms and other cyber creepy-crawlies. Let’s unpack a paragraph from the Avast! blog post: Another nasty trick […]
View PostSome secrets are trivial, some are critical. It’s probably a matter of perspective, but failing to redact key information from sensitive military memos on nuclear submarine operations would tend to fit most definitions of “critical”. Ignorance of basic realities about computers and the lack of proper procedures for releasing information is a toxic combination for […]
View PostFew know it yet, but a new paradigm for document capture begins in 2011. This is the year in which PDF/A and PDF/UA become cornerstone International Standards for electronic documents in the decades and centuries ahead. This is the year in which document capture begins its fourth paradigm – semantics. My old company started life as […]
View PostBefore diving into PDF accessibility and Section 508 compliance, we’d like to introduce you to a few basic facts. You’ll hear these again as you learn more about what it takes to make PDFs comply with Section 508, but if you want a FAST overview to get you started, this is it. Almost any PDF […]
View PostSome of us, those who have never read a paper book, may be forgiven for asking: “what’s a page number?” Apparently, the customers of Amazon’s Kindle software/service combination aren’t among them. The humble page is fighting back via the Kindle user; witness today’s announcement by Amazon that version 3.1 of their Kindle software will add “real […]
View PostThoughts on this week’s Beyond the PDF workshop and suggests that scientists join engineers in pioneering real-world solutions for science publishing. The Beyond the PDF Workshop is currently in-session, running from January 19-21, 2011 at the University of California, San Diego. Why is the workshop entitled “Beyond the PDF”? It’s a plain, unvarnished fact that much […]
View PostContents Executive Summary Introduction The Australian Government’s Report What the Report Gets Right What the Report Misses What the Report Gets Wrong Conclusions References & Endnotes Appendix: Four Basic Policies to Promote Accessible Documents Executive Summary This article analyzes the recent Australian Government’s study into the Accessibility of the Portable Document Format for people with a […]
View PostOur applications work harder they used to, and some of our customers have noticed. Appligent Document Solutions server applications now sport: Better recovery when encountering malformed PDFs. Resource consolidation and optimization, and accompanying file size reductions. Conformance with international standards. In certain circumstances Appligent Document Solutions applications can run somewhat slower than previous versions. This […]
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