On-demand video training for Adobe Connect

It's entirely possible that there are people out there that prefer to read through official user manuals for software products. If you're one of these people, go ahead and hit up the Connect support page for links to documentation galore (sidebar under Adobe Connect 8.0 Help).

If you're everybody else, then you may be interested in some great, free video-based training offered by Adobe. There are two ways to access this library of tutorials:

• Adobe TV - Learn Adobe Connect 8 channel - while you're here, check out the plethora of free Adobe-related training.
• Connectusers.com Getting Started with Adobe Connect 8 curriculum

The actual content is the same, but the videos are organized a bit better on Connectusers.com.

If you're into paid training, there's a great course on Lynda.com presented by (fellow Adobe colleague and friend) Tim Plumer Jr.

Renaming Pods

Did you know that you can easily rename pods simply by double-clicking on the pod title bar? Once you've entered the new pod title,  hit the "Enter" key and you're done!



 Why would you want to do this? A few reasons off the top of my head:

• if you take a lot of notes in a persistent meeting room, you may want to change the pod title to reflect the note contents, so it's easier to find later
• If you upload images, documents or videos directly into a Share pod and don't like how the filename becomes the pod title
• If you're creating polling questions, you may want to change the pod title so you don't just see Poll1, Poll2, Poll3, etc. in your Pods > Poll list.

?launcher=false. Opening meetings in a browser

In the last post, we talked about how you can force participants to join via the meeting add-in. Today, I want to share a quick tip on how to force meetings to open in a web browser (and Flash Player), even if you have the add-in installed. To do this, simply append a ?launcher=false to your meeting room URL. This trick is especially useful for Mac users, because it allows you to open up multiple instances of Adobe Connect simultaneously. Due to an OS-level restriction on opening up an application multiple times (e.g. the meeting add-in), Mac users will need to add ?launcher=false to their meeting room URLs when joining a second Connect meeting.

?lightning=true. Forcing the install of the meeting add-in.

One of the great things about Adobe Connect is that it just works. You invite someone into your meeting room, they click a link and join the meeting - no pop-ups, no downloads, no hassle. Of course, the secret sauce is the Flash Player which is installed on just about every desktop connected to the Internet.

However, if you want all your participants to install the Adobe Connect Meeting Add-in to join your meeting (there are a few good reasons for this), you can do this by adding a ?lightning=true to the meeting room URL, e.g. http://my.adobeconnect.com/abbas?lightning=true. Participants simply agree to the lightning install download and that's it!

Connecting...

Hi everyone. I don't think we've met.

So let's start with a quick introduction: My name is Abbas Rizvi. I'm a Senior Solutions Consultant with Adobe Systems, focusing almost solely on Adobe Connect. I've been at Adobe for over six years, with much of that time spent on Adobe Connect.

Now, if you don't know what Adobe Connect is, you are one of many who haven't yet been let into the best kept secret in web conferencing. Start here for a good introduction.

Speaking of great Adobe Connect blogs, here are a few sites/blogs you might want to check out:

• The official Adobe Connect blog
• Adobe Connect on Twitter
• All things Adobe Connect (by Ian Justin @ GetConnect)
• Connectusers.com

Whether you're brand new to Connect, or a long-time user, I hope you'll find the tips shared on this blog helpful.