In 2009 I got the opportunity to spend a week at Adobe HQ as part of a Summer Institute for Adobe Education Leaders from around the world. It was a real honour to have been appointed the first Adobe Higher Education Leader in New Zealand and to be invited to their Summer Institute in San Jose. It was a fantastic week and a great opportunity to meet a lot of exceptionally talented people...both within Adobe and from the Adobe Education Leaders community. We were exceptionally well looked after and got to learn a lot about forthcoming releases from Adobe, as well as it being an opportunity for Adobe to listen to us about suggestions for future projects and how to support the education sector worldwide.

I did however come away with two frustrations - Firstly, I felt that Adobe didn't really appreciate the significance of the Moodle open source Learning Management System in the education sector, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region¹. With the greatest respect to Adobe, I would say that I still don't think they have fully understood its importance within the e-Learning community. Secondly, at the end of a presentation and discussion about the next version of Adobe Connect, we moved on to a discussion about Adobe Captivate...and in particular, how many in the room felt that there was a need for a simplified version of Adobe Captivate...an "Adobe Captivate Lite" if you will, or as I outline here, a suggested Adobe Captivate Elements.

The reason I say this is that I believe that there is still the need for such an application and my reasoning stays much the same as it was in 2009. I shared some of that reasoning with the two Adobe staff immediately after the discussion had taken place at Adobe HQ and it goes along the lines of this....Adobe Captivate was (and is) a very powerful application that has tremendous use in the eLearning community. But it is an application that I don't often recommend depending upon the needs of the people that I am talking to. In many case, I recommend alternatives, despite Captivate being an absolutely superb product².

Saturday October 1

I realised yesterday that it is almost two months since I started using the Orcon Genius. The fact that I have written little about it below in that time, and that I haven't really noticed I've been living with the system, speaks volumes I think. I've been with Orcon for some time, but I don't know if it is the fact I have a new router more or less set up for me by Orcon, or whether that I simply have a new hardware item in the house (although my previous router was great), but I have been very impressed.

That said, there are still some quirks that I have experienced and I think Orcon need to do more for their customers at the time that they first come on board with the Genius. I said early on that in the first email I got confirming my order, there was no detail as to what I had actually signed up for. I commented at the time that I really hated call waiting, and now I suspect I didn't sign up for it...but finding whether that is true or not has been more of a challenge than it should have been. There should have simply been a "Here's what you've ordered" email delivered immediately, followed up by a "Here's how to use each of these things" at the time I went live. Getting a response from Orcon by posting criticism on Twitter isn't a way I like to work (but it gets the response needed) and not how Orcon should be working. Their Help Desk needs to become more responsive!

The only other criticism is a minor one, and that's living with VOIP. I've said previously that I've worked in a couple of organisations with VOIP phones and in those organisations you can really tell the difference in quality between someone calling you on a VOIP phone and someone making a traditional call. I've not experienced any drop in quality with Orcon...in fact I've had some of the clearest phone conversations I have had in a long time. But with all VOIP systems there is that potential for that millisecond of delay between people (especially when you interrupt what the other person is saying) and I do notice that occasionally. I certainly did notice it when a friend called from the UK on another VOIP system. But it's not enough to be frustrating, and it's not enough to make me want to stop using the Genius. I'm saving money and I'm sold on it.

I see they are putting the price up in the next couple of days, so I suspect that if you're interested in the Genius, this weekend is probably a good time to sign up!

What follows is a couple of things I noted down over the past two months...

Saturday August 6

Last night, after reading two superb reviews of Orcon Genius (here and here) I signed up for Orcon's new offering (target date for switch over is August 16 according to the response I received from Orcon's system). I have been an Orcon broadband user for a number of years. Originally, it was when Orcon advertised on my NZMac.com website, but after selling the site I not only stayed with Orcon but changed plans - moving my phone to Orcon, increasing my broadband speed and data cap. Why I hadn't done those 3 things sooner I'm still not sure.

Having signed on to get a Genius I thought I'd write up some notes about the whole experience (for starters, my bill to Orcon each month is going to go from $107 to $85!)....starting with some caveats that Orcon clearly indicate you need to consider...

After almost a week of using Lion I confess I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I would. I'm wishing I had stuck with Snow Leopard in many ways and am in fact turning many options back to act more like they did on Snow Leopard. These are just some random (actually very random) notes from things I discovered.

• I would strongly advise you to create a bootable DVD of the install. Do this once you download the installer, but before you apply it. Learn how to do it here
• Have your serial numbers for software handy. Some software will treat it you like it's the first day of install and prompt you for serial numbers (Snapz Pro for example)
• Try to be as up-to-date with everything before installing Lion. I had to update a number of apps (like my M$ intelligent mouse) because the version installed didn't seem to work once Lion was installed
• Safari - They seem to have killed off the download window. I truly hate that!
• "All my files" as the top item in the side menu. Why can't I access the HD from there? Learn how to get rid of it here
• Where is the little icon to get the left side menu to appear in a window that has just a title bar? I understand it is called the Lozenge and the fix (though it's not really a fix) is here...and is also mentioned here
• The last link also provided a fix for my mouse issues. I have an M$ mouse and the scrolling was reversed. I couldn't find the setting mentioned, so I had to plug in my Apple mouse to then untick the setting.
• The link also provides a fix for disappearing sidebars.
• I really don't like the way that 1Password now looks and behaves. The company say they might fix it in the future, but the changes don't seem welcome (check out the comments)
• I was really impressed that when I logged into my Google Apps For Your Domain account, Safari asked me if I wanted to use that Gmail account with Mail, iCal and iChat. Very clever, but sadly it didn't work properly. It's probably because I don't have a Gmail account, but Google Apps Gmail account
• Apple Mail can't import from Microsoft Outlook for the Mac...grrrr!!
• iCal and the Address book - yuck! They look awful on a large iMac screen
• Don't like the fact that the bottom of the Window doesn't have any real estate or the ability to tell you how much space you have left? This page has the fix
• Ars Technica (yet again) do a superb review of Lion
• Versions is very cool !!
• A couple of glitches