Although I haven't had time to completely review some of the new releases this week, I wanted to let you know that the folks at Mindomo have released their web based mind mapping application Mindomo 6 which is a major release and rewrite of the application. Mindomo 6 is a very attractive application that at times makes you forget that you are using a web based application running through the browser. I will have more to say about the program but wanted to let you know that Mindomo 6 has been released and if you can give it a test drive. I am including an embedded Mindomo 6 mind map to give you an idea of what is possible. One of my favorite features of online mind mapping applications is the ability to embed your map online by pasting a bit of code into the blog post as you will see. SimTech this week also announced the release of  MindMapper 12 a full featured desktop mind mapping application for Windows. MindMapper 12 now sports the Fluid Interface Ribbon common in many Windows applications making it easier to use. MindMapper 12 now enjoys many more user panes to make the program easier to navigate and use. MindMapper 12 offers users some very sophisticated mapping structures to accomplish brainstorming, project management, presentation of ideas, as well as root cause analysis. MindMapper112  incorporates project management features as well as Gantt Charts for those professionals who need to track ongoing projects. Once I have a chance to sit down with MindMapper 12, I will share with you some of my thoughts. It is exciting to be able to cover this arena and to see all of the choices we have in the tools that we use for our business and professional work. Stay tuned for more thoughts about these applications. In the meantime- if you have a chance go to SimTech's and Mindomo's Website and trial each of the applications and let me know how you make out.

Context Discovery  Inc. the developers of WikiSummarizer today released the Visual Summary View for their leading on-line summarization tool, WikiSummarizer. Now right within the browser you can get a visual overview of key information on any topic within Wikipedia without the need to own a mind mapping software application.  The Visual Summary View will appeal to those users who like the graphic representation of the summary data. The Visual Summary View is interactive and allows the users to open and close nodes as they review the information. The Visual Summary View breaks new ground for summarization on the web with its ease of use and speed. For those users that prefer the outline view that can be accomplished by clicking on the Tree View in your browser. You will be happy to learn that WikiSummarizer- Visual Summary View also works on the iPad  and can be exported to your favorite mind mapping app on the iPad. I have tested WikiSummarizer with iThoughtsHD and the Mindjet app without any issues. So take a look at WikiSummarizer and see what it has to offer.

Acquires social collaboration innovator Cohuman for optimized team accountability and launches Mindjet Connect, a free online service to improve how people work togetherSan Francisco - September 12, 2011 — Mindjet®, the company that improves how people work together, today announced new Mindjet Connect® collaborative work management software to help groups working toward common goals get more done. Mindjet Connect is a cloud-based service that helps groups visualize their best ideas and plans, securely manage and share files, get teams on the same page and access information anywhere, at any time.Forrester®’s Rob Koplowitz indicated in his 2011 report that 43% of information workers work from multiple locations over the course of a month, and that 42% work outside of the corporate firewall. Work is decentralized, moving faster and likely to keep changing at a rapid pace to keep up with the similarly frenetic pace of change in communications, business and technology. Mindjet Connect addresses the needs of this changing workforce."Work today is different. Individuals and teams are overloaded, increasingly virtual and knee deep in unstructured information, resulting in a lack of clarity, accountability and action," said Scott Raskin, Mindjet CEO. "Mindjet Connect goes beyond document management and file sharing, and includes a powerful way to visualize information that provides faster insight and better results."Mindjet also announced the acquisition of Cohuman® (www.cohuman.com), a social task-based web service that keeps teams in sync by making information more people-centric, organized and transparent. With social aspects similar to Facebook® and Twitter®, Cohuman gives people the ability to better coordinate with colleagues on projects and tasks."Where Mindjet Connect helps teams get on the same page, Cohuman helps teams stay on the same page," said Raskin. "The combination of Cohuman and Mindjet Connect will further Mindjet’s vision to help people work better, together."With these announcements, Mindjet is well-positioned to be the leading provider of collaborative work management software.Mindjet Connect will be available free of charge on September 22, 2011 athttp://www.mindjet.com/connect. To find out more about Mindjet Connect visithttp://blog.mindjet.com. To learn more about Cohuman visithttp://blog.cohuman.com.About Mindjet:Two million individuals, small businesses and Fortune 1000® companies using Mindjet understand that working visually and collaboratively brings results. We set the standard in mind mapping and now our focus is to provide collaborative work management solutions that dramatically improve how people can work better together, accomplish goals more successfully and be more productive.Forty-six of BusinessWeek®’s "World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies" rely on Mindjet to see the big picture - let us show you too. ### Mindjet, Mindjet Connect and Cohuman are trademarks of Mindjet, registered in the US and other jurisdictions. Forrester, Facebook, Twitter, Fortune 1000 and BusinessWeek are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc., Facebook, Inc., Twitter, Inc., Time Inc. and The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., respectively, registered in the US and other jurisdictions.

San Francisco - September 13, 2011 — Mindjet®, the company that improves how people work together, today announced the release of Mindjet MindManager® 2012 Professional for Windows®, the most powerful version of the world’s leading visual information software. MindManager 2012 is designed for today’s professionals who need to spark ideas and collaborate with their teams for more productive outcomes.MindManager 2012 is the most significant release in the product’s history including real-time co-editing, enhanced information maps and new desktop interface, plus new brainstorming features that guide users to unleash their team’s creativity. The innovative feature directs teams to:Utilize predefined challenge questions to promote different ways of thinking about the subject Use inspiration cards to generate hundreds of fresh ideas Leverages MindManager’s powerful visual experience to refine concepts and plans "MindManager 2012 has been designed to meet the needs of today’s professional who are constantly barraged with new opportunities and pressing business challenges," said Blaine Mathieu, chief products officer, Mindjet. "The new guided brainstorming feature organizes an outpouring of ideas that can be quickly honed into real solutions for real business needs."In addition, MindManager 2012 integrates with Mindjet Connect®, Mindjet’s cloud-based service (see separate release) to provide open and full sharing of MindManager maps with anyone, anywhere, on any device."Through the Connect cloud-based service, MindManager 2012 customers can freely collaborate on maps with anyone," said Mathieu. "The combination of MindManager 2012 and Connect is nothing short of the future of the collaboration for teams and businesses."MindManager 2012 is available on September 22nd for the upgrade price of $179 USD and $399 USD for new customers at http://www.mindjet.com/mindmanager-pricing.For more information about MindManager 2012 visit the Mindjet blog athttp://blog.mindjet.com.About Mindjet:Two million individuals, small businesses and Fortune 1000® companies using Mindjet understand that working visually and collaboratively brings results. We set the standard in mind mapping and now our focus is to provide collaborative work management solutions that dramatically improve how people can work better together, accomplish goals more successfully and be more productive.Forty-six of BusinessWeek®’s "World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies" rely on Mindjet to see the big picture - let us show you too

One of the shortcomings of the Kindle platform is that it does not support the ever popular ePub format which made it next to impossible to borrow ebooks from the public library. But all that has changed and as of today, patrons of the public library can now take out Kindle eBooks which can be delivered over a WiFi connection or via a USB download. I decided to give it a try and so I  logged into Overdrive and searched for my Public Library which was quickly found. I then logged into the digital library with my Patron Number and clicked in the Kindle books library which allowed me to search for a book. Once I found a book I wanted, I clicked on Add to Cart and when I checked out- I was redirected to the Amazon Kindle page where I could send it to my Kindle. Once I turned on my Kindle the book was automatically delivered over my WiFi connection and I was up and reading in no time. The process was fast and efficient. Having access to the eBooks from my Public Library  library will open up all kinds of possibilities now for reading adventures using my Kindle.

While Adobe Captivate 5.5 is an easy to use tool- it is great that Adobe will be offering free eSeminars to walk you through the finer points.  To register for one of the seminars just click in the link. Enjoy! Brian Alternate Reporting and Quiz Result Analyzer in Adobe Captivate 5.5Thursday, Sept. 22 - 8 a.m. PT/11 a.m. ETJoin Dr. Pooja Jaisingh and Vish to learn about the alternate options available for quiz reporting like Acrobat.com and Internal Server. They will also show you how to analyze the results using Adobe Captivate Quiz Results Analyzer. Let’s Explore the Branching View in Adobe Captivate 5.5Thursday, Sept. 29 - 8 a.m. PT/11 a.m. ETJoin Vish and Dr. Pooja Jaisingh to learn how to use the Branching panel effectively in Adobe Captivate 5.5. Deep Dive: Effective Soft Skills Training in Adobe Captivate: Part 3Wednesday, Oct. 12 - 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ETJoin Dr. Allen Partridge for Part 3 of an advanced tutorial on creating soft skills simulations with Adobe Captivate. This session is recommended for intermediate and advanced users and assumes fundamental awareness of Adobe Captivate. Dr. Partridge will demonstrate and break-down the elements commonly used in creating soft skills simulations. This will be a technically oriented session focused on advanced actions and creating the logical decision trees and complementary functions to make advanced branching dependent projects really sing.

Jeff Bezos will take the stage this coming Wednesday at 10:00 am in NYC and will unveil the latest Kindle offering. From following the bloggers, it looks like we will see a 7 inch back-lit touch screen color Kindle that will be running a customized version of the Android operating system. The color Kindle will be positioned as a ebook reader very much like the Nook Color has for the past couple of years. However, the color Kindle will offer you rich media through the Amazon Store where you can download and play songs, movies and of course download your books. The color Kindle will support WiFi at this time and will come with a Browser giving you access to the web and the full range of Amazon Store services. What is really exciting is the price point that everyone n the web has been has been speculating about. Some have shared that they believe the new Kindle Color Reader will be priced below $250 dollars which will certainly get everyone excited about the potential for this tablet/ereading device. Having access to a color eReader like the Kindle Color with good performance and access to the web could certainly shake up the tablet market. So I know I will stay tuned to the announcement this Wednesday to find out all of the details. We certainly live in exciting times! So check back here next week for the Kindle Color update.

It is easy to capture our students' imagination and attention when we use visuals in our teaching. Of all the things we can do in the classroom non-linguistic representation of ideas has been demonstrated to be linked to achievement and retention of information. In this day and age of computers and technology it is quite liberating to touch a marker to whiteboard. Now imagine if any wall or blackboard or desk could be turned into a writing surface with a simple and easy to use product. Well your quest has been answered, you see, Magic Whiteboard was just recently launched in the United States and AssistiveTek, LLC is one of the premier resellers of the product.  Magic Whiteboard is a supercharged whiteboard on a roll that can be put up anywhere in seconds, and sticks with static. The magic lies in the statically charged polypropylene film that clings to almost any flat surface.  This film can be written on with standard dry erase markers and erased just like a standard whiteboard. Magic Whiteboard is portable and reusable making your investment cost effective. This easy to use solution requires no special set up or installation-simply peel a sheet off the roll, adhere to a wall and start writing. You can use standard dry erase markers to draw with and erasing is simple and easy. If you are looking for a cost effective tool to engage your students in their learning then take a look at Magic Whiteboard- you will be happy you did. Magic Whiteboard is $56.99 for a roll of 25 perforated sheets which gives you over 65 feet of whiteboard writing surface. Order your Magic Whiteboard today and get started with this exciting new product.  Click this link to watch a video about the product.

Wow! Amazon announced today that they will be shipping on November 15th the Kindle Fire with a 7 inch color multi-touch screen for $199 dollars. With all the speculation it looks like they delivered on their promise of a highly functional reader complete with access to the web, ebooks, apps, music, and streaming video. At $199 dollars  they will carve out a niche for those consumers who were waiting on the sideline to jump into purchasing a tablet of their own. The Kindle Fire will be powered by a dual core processor and host a multi-touch screen (7" multi-touch display with IPS (in-plane switching) technology and anti-reflective treatment, 1024 x 600 pixel resolution at 169 ppi, 16 million colors) and come standard with Wi-Fi and a USB 2.0 Micro-B connector along with a the built-in Amazon Silk browser for fast web surfacing. The Kindle Fire is reported to be able to run for 8 hours on a full charge and can be charged with the wall AC Adapter or via a USB connection to a computer. The Kindle Fire will ship with has a native email client that can support Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL etc. Of course you will have access to the entire Amazon collection of music, videos, apps, and music which you can purchase for their store. This looks like the Amazon Kindle Fire will hit that sweet spot for a powerful but easy to use device that can serve as portable  tool when we are away from our desks. For now the Kindle Fire only support Wi-Fi,  but I would imagine if it is a success in the marketplace that we will see a 3G version as well. From the likes of it, it doesn't look like the Kindle Fire supports Bluetooth- but I will have to delve into that a little more. Amazon has put on their boxing gloves and looks to be in for the long haul as they position the Kindle Fire as an  alternative to Apple's iPad. At a price point of $199 dollars the Kindle Fire is sure to be a winner for consumers. The Kindle Fire can be pre-ordered now from Amazon for a mid November delivery.

October has been an incredibly busy month for me and so my blog posts have slowed down. Between presentations, workshops, and teaching my days have been full. Of course there is always time for new technologies and just last week my iPhone 4S arrived on the scene. It is an incredible device and with the large number of apps it is overwhelming-even for me. Setting up the iPhone was quick and easy to do, and once I connected it to my Google account, my contacts and schedule came streaming in. Talk about smooth integration. As much I will become wedded to my iPhone 4S, thinking about the whole category of smartphones for students with disabilities is really intriguing. Just last week I did a demo of Siri, Apple's integrated assistant for my graduate students and was thinking about all of the applications for students that we work with executive functioning disorder. With Siri it is possible to create Reminders easily using your voice as well as enter Events directly into the calendar. Apple has once again taken the initiative to build a speech recognition engine into the iPhone 4S which allows users to use natural language to control certain aspects of the phone. I'm sure over time new functionality will be added that will even take the Siri technology even further. In fact, Apple has integrated speech recognition into all aspects of the iOS 5 which I have found works really great. Simply click on the microphone which is located on the onscreen keyboard and start dictating. You will find the speech recognition to be highly accurate and a great tool for instant messaging and for composing emails. Have to run but look for more posts about using the iPhone with your students with Executive Functioning Disorder- coming soon!