Paul Barnes

CM Group to launch their SaaS based learning management system LUMINOSITY REACH on 28th September at the World of Learning, NEC, Birmingham, UK.

Paul Barnes — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 11:02:44 +0000

CM Group are launching LUMINOSITY REACH at the World of Learning Show at the NEC in Birmingham, UK on 28^th -29^th September. LUMINOSITY REACH is set apart from its competitors by its speed of set up and ease of use and its low cost, pay-as-you-go approach. Customers can set up their LMS in just a few clicks and load up any SCORM compliant elearning courses regardless of which toolset was originally used to create them. Customers are not faced with any up-front set up fees or licence cost. Perhaps just as importantly they are not locked into long contracts and can exit the system at any time just as easily as they joined it.

LUMINOSITY REACH can optionally be branded to reflect the customer’s colours and logos and can be used to generate a full range of management reports.

Technical Director Alex Mackman said, “Some organisations have been unhappy for a while with the older style of LMS, finding them too complex and expensive to install, integrate and run. LUMINOSITY REACH changes the game by supplying all the functionality you need in a streamlined form which is quick and easy to set up and easy to access and operate.“

There are a range of straightforward, pay-as-you-go options that will suit organisations of all sizes. All are easy to understand and provide a fully flexible and scalable solution.

Managing Director Tim Buff said, ”The system is hosted on high availability secure servers and is easy to turn on and easy to exit if it’s no longer required. There are no financial penalties and no long term contracts. Users can switch between plans as and when they wish to and, if they don’t want to use the system any more, they just turn it off. We believe that LUMINOSITY REACH supplies the ultimate in flexibility, cost effectiveness and ease of use.”

CM Group is launching two new products at the World of Learning Show in Birmingham on 28^th -29^th September. LUMINOSITY SYNERGY is a SaaS based online review portal for any SCORM compliant eLearning courses. LUMINOSITY REACH is a SaaS based pay-as-you-go learning management system. Both systems support any SCORM compliant eLearning courses, regardless of which authoring tool was used to create them. CM Group invites its current and prospective partners to stand D120 at the NEC in Birmingham, UK on the 28^th-29^th September 2010 to see the new products and obtain no obligation free trials of the two new software products.

For all eLearning producers: CM Group to launch LUMINOSITY SYNERGY, the revolutionary new SaaS based, eLearning course review system on 27th September at the World of Learning, NEC, Birmingham, UK.

Paul Barnes — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:55:10 +0000

Leading eLearning authoring software supplier CM Group has confirmed the launch of their latest innovative eLearning product. LUMINOSITY SYNERGY provides a dramatic new way to enable invited stakeholders from within and outside an organisation to review and comment on draft eLearning courses. LUMINOSITY SYNERGY is provided as a SaaS based offering that is highly effective, low cost, quick to set up and easy to use. It is the second of two new LUMINOSITY products being launched at the World of Learning show, the other one being LUMINOSITY REACH, a SaaS based learning management system.

Often the person reviewing a new eLearning course is a subject expert or a business manager. Their time is valuable, especially if they are on the staff of an external customer organisation. LUMINOSITY SYNERGY makes it easy and quick for even occasional reviewers to use the system, saving them time and effort. The whole review experience becomes painless and productive which will significantly improve the whole experience of an eLearning producer and its customer.

Previously, reviewing draft eLearning courses and then gathering, triaging and managing feedback has been confusing and time consuming for both stakeholders and authors, with spreadsheets and side documents trying to keep track of multiple versions of review comments and answers. LUMINOSITY SYNERGY solves this by providing a secure online portal where invited reviewers can review eLearning courses and comment against each page in a tracked discussion thread. The benefit is that reviewers don’t spend any time using separate tools and referencing comments, enabling them to better focus on the quality of the course. The entire review process is transformed into a simple and effective collaborative process.

As with all the other Luminosity products, the focus has once again been on ease and speed of use; the interface is instantly intuitive and the result is faster, more professional, more effective reviews.

Technical Director Alex Mackman said, “LUMINOSITY SYNERGY is ideal for any eLearning producers who do not have collaborative authoring systems or for those whose older generation systems do not support this type of innovative review approach. LUMINOSITY SYNERGY works with any SCORM compliant courses whatever the authoring system was originally used to create them.”

The LUMINOSITY product family are a flexible and scalable set of solutions to enable small to large organisations to deploy the practical benefits of eLearning. All share the combination of extreme ease of use together with rapid deployment and all deliver high quality results.

About CM Group

CM Group specialises in advanced information and learning methodologies and technologies. With three operating divisions, the Company is one of the UK’s largest creators of bespoke eLearning for clients via its Content Master division. Content Master is a Microsoft Premier Vendor for its work with the leading US software company. Through the CM Luminosity division it supplies organisations of all types with the Luminosity collaborative rapid eLearning software development and delivery platform, the most functionally rich, yet easiest to use system of its kind on the market. CM Consulting is a Microsoft Gold Partner and offers a range of consulting and software development services to clients. With offices in the UK and USA, CM Group is ideally placed to help clients with the full range of business and technical issues they face in harnessing the latest technologies and Luminosity is the ideal basis for an eLearning development and delivery strategy.

For further information contact:

Tim Buff

www.cm-luminosity.co.uk

Tel: 01454 269222

Email: timb@cm-group.co.uk

CM Group announce the launch of two major new additions to the LUMINOSITY product suite at the World of Learning Exhibition at the Birmingham NEC on 28th to 29th September

Paul Barnes — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:33:09 +0000

28-Aug-2010 » Training Press Releases » Major eLearning software authoring supplier CM Group has announced the upcoming launch on 28th September of two exciting SaaS based additions to its LUMINOSITY eLearning software suite. The new products will share the LUMINOSITY family name and are codenamed LUMINOSITY REACH and LUMINOSITY SYNERGY.

Details of the new products are still secret, but they are known to supplement the existing highly successful LUMINOSITY STUDIO collaborative rapid eLearning authoring platform.

CM Group Managing Director Tim Buff said, “No details of the new products will be released until early September, with the full product launch scheduled for the 28th September at the NEC. What I can say is that the additional products will be SaaS based, highly practical and very cost effective. Just as LUMINOSITY STUDIO has changed the game in the world of collaborative eLearning authoring, these new products will provide striking and innovative solutions to a wide range of organisations which either create or use eLearning, or who are interested in doing so in the future.”

About CM Group
CM Group specialises in advanced information and learning methodologies and technologies. With three operating divisions, the Company is one of the UK’s largest creators of bespoke eLearning for clients via its Content Master division. Content Master is a Microsoft Premier Vendor for its work with the leading US software company. Through the CM Luminosity division it supplies organisations of all types with the “Luminosity” collaborative rapid eLearning software development and delivery platform, the most functionally rich, yet easiest to use system of its kind on the market. CM Consulting is a Microsoft Gold Partner and offers a range of consulting and software development services to clients. With offices in the UK and USA, CM Group is ideally placed to help clients with the full range of business and technical issues they face in harnessing the latest technologies and Luminosity is the ideal basis for an eLearning development and delivery strategy.

For further information contact:
Tim Buff
CM Luminosity
Tel: 01454 269222
Email: timb@cm-group.co.uk

Toy Story

Paul Barnes — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 17:49:18 +0000

I’m currently sitting here watching Toy Story 2, a film I haven’t seen in a very long time. Appreciating the graphics from somewhat ten years ago, it brings me to post a video of my friend’s final year project for 3D modelling tools.

Watch and enjoy this amazing piece that was created by Alan Adesalu using 3DS Studio Max.

Windows Mobile Card Trick: Magic Poker Flip

Paul Barnes — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 09:32:13 +0000

Check out this Windows Mobile application created by young Chinese magician, Jonathan Lu.

If you think you can figure out the secret behind the trick, email Jonathan at:

magic.poker.flip@gmail.com

Here are some screenshots to help you on your way.

Student Hosting for £1 a Month

Paul Barnes — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:29:48 +0000

Get web hosting for £1 a month at 123-reg.co.uk.

This offer includes:

Plus hosting package (normally £4.99 a month)
a free .info domain name
Full versions of industry-standard Microsoft software

Competition Winners

Paul Barnes — Mon, 17 May 2010 16:41:53 +0000

Congratulations to Ian Wah and Alex Smith, winners of the Imagine Cup and Microsoft Photosynth competitions.

Imagine Cup 2010 Registrations

Ian won a copy of Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate after registered up for this years Imagine Cup. His name was randomly chosen out of a list of all others who had registered for the Imagine Cup 2010 and entered into the competition.

Imagine Cup 2010 Registrations Competition Winner

Microsoft Photosynth

Alex won a Microsoft Lifecam Show webcam for this entry as part of the Microsoft Photosynth competition, which had a theme of “Liverpool”.

Microsoft Photosynth Competition Winner

To view the other entries for the competition, follow this link.

If you would like to make your own Photosynths, then you can get started by visiting www.photosynth.net

Microsoft Office 2010 Beta

Microsoft Office 2010 is almost here and you can currently try the beta for free by following this link.

Microsoft LifeCam Show

Interested in getting a webcam? Follow this link for more information about the Microsoft LifeCam Show.

Windows Azure and Silverlight (Getting Started)

Paul Barnes — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:17:09 +0000

This blog aims to show you how to set up your machine for development with Windows Azure and Silverlight.

Microsoft Visual Studio

To begin with, you must first install either Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 or Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. Students can get Visual Studio 2010 Professional for free at Dreamspark.

Note: If you are using Visual Studio 2008, you must upgrade to at least Service Pack 1.

Silverlight SDK and Tools

Silverlight 3 SDK

Silverlight 3 Visual Studio Tools

Windows Azure Tools

Once you have set up Visual Studio and Silverlight, you must download and insture the Windows Azure tools which work in Visual Studio. These tools currently work in both Visual Studio 2008 and 2010.

Setting up your machine

Now that you have the software and tools needed, you need to make a few changes to settings on your local machine. To begin with, open Control Panel and then find the ‘Turn on Windows features on or off’.

Step 1

Start
Control Panel
Programs
Under Program and Features (Turn Windows features on or off’

Step 2

Expand Microsoft .NET Framework 3 (or the version u have installed)
Enable Windows Communcation Foundation HTTP Activation

Step 3

Expand Internet Information Services
Expand World Wide Web Services
Expand Applications Development Features
Enable ASP.NET
Enable CGI

Step 4

Expand Common HTTP Features (underneath World Wide Web Services)
Enable Static Content

Once these steps have been completed, click ok and install the selected features.

Now that you have changed these settings, you are ready to start developing.

Setting up a Web Role

To begin with, you must open up your version of Visual Studio in administrative mode. To do this, right click the launch icon and choose ‘Run as administrator’

For the purpose of this example, I will be using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.

Select a new project.
From installed templates on the left, choose Cloud
Choose ‘Windows Azure Cloud Service’
Give it a name
Press ok

Choose ASP.NET Web Role
Click on the arrow pointing to the right
Click ok

You will now be presented with your work space for your Cloud application.

Setting Up a Silverlight Project

Now that you have set up your web role, you can now create a silverlight project to connect to that web role for publishing.
In the Solution Explorer, right click on the Solution
Choose Add and then New Project

Choose Silverlight from Installed Templates
Choose Silverlight Application
Click ok

The following screen will then pop up. Ensure that the Silverlight application is being hosted on your chosen Web Role. Also, keep all the boxes ticked. This automatically creates a test page for you so that you can begin developing.

You will then be presented with your workspace for your Silverlight Application. For this exercise, I have created a simple texblock containg Hello World. After I click on the start debugging button (or press F5) the application loads up in my browser.

As you can see, deployment also works in Mozilla Firefox. The blue icon in the bottom right hand corner lets you know that the simulation environment is being initialized.

And there you have it, the foundations for creating a Silverlight application and preparing it using Windows Azure.

Further Development

Microsoft Expression Blend 3

If you wish to develop a silverlight application, after initializing it like above, you can work on it using Microsoft Expression Blend.

Students can get Microsoft Expression Blend 3 for free at Dreamspark.

Windows Azure

At the moment, when running the applications, they are running in a simulation enviornment. If you wish to actually deploy an application onto the cloud, you will have to sign up to one of Windows Azure’s pay plans. More information for this can be found at Windows Azure’s website.

A Bit of Microsoft Fun

Paul Barnes — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 19:23:13 +0000

Taking a quick break from my work, I recently came across these humerous videos featuring Bill Gates from a few years ago. Incase you haven’t already seen them, here they are for your enjoyment:

Bill Gates Goes To College (Napoleon Dynamite)

Bill Gates’ Last Day at Microsoft

Also, here is a video from the Microsoft Office team that you might enjoy

Microsoft Office The Movie

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional for Free!

Paul Barnes — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:51:47 +0000

Students can now download Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional for free from Dreamspark or from their universities MSDNAA.

“Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional is the essential tool for individuals performing basic development tasks. It simplifies the creation, debugging, and deployment of applications on a variety of platforms including SharePoint and the Cloud. Visual Studio 2010 Professional comes with integrated support for test-driven development, as well as debugging tools that help ensure high-quality solutions.”

Download it now for free! What are you waiting for?

Here are a few resources to help you on your way: