News Media Alert and Invitation
Please pass along this message and pointer to others who might be interested.
April 26, 1998 - updated
Contact: Mark Rauterkus
Publisher, SportSurf.Net 108 S. 12th Street Pittsburgh, PA 15203-1226 USA mrauterkus@SportSurf.Net Voice: 412-481-2540 - Eastern Time Daylight Only PLEASE Cell: 412-720-0108 - When on the roadE-books (Electronic Books) Technology Briefings and FREE SuperCard Concepts Visits Eastern US Cities
Open invitation. Everyone welcome to attend.
Past Tour Locations:
San Antonio, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Corolla, NCFuture Tour Locations:
PITTSBURGH, PA -- 1998: E-books present a fantastic solution to a wide audience of readers and content authors. Learn about E-books and discover why the FN E-book document type is well positioned to become a "killer-application" in 1998 and beyond. Furthermore, an in-depth discussions of the possible future acquisition and resulting setting FREE of the technical assets of SuperCard family of titles, is part of the agenda.
New York City, Long Island, Hartford, Boston and Corolla, NCFootNotes is an internet-linked, interactive multimedia electronic publishing, authoring and delivery system target to the education sector.
Students and teachers can use point-and-click methods to create documents that engage the internet. These web-linked E-books with pages, chapters, index, glossary, citation references give access unlimited multimedia files. The client-side E-books can grab files on any local disk, CD, Syquest, Zip or network. The E-books remove most mysteries of downloading any FTP file or http page. The E-books also live-link to the user's Browser for direct URL connection.
FootNotes E-books are extendable by the addition of home-grown or third party plug-in modules. Supplied modules include an HTML Publisher, eMailer, Launcher and Browser-Assistant.
The Books are lockable by the author and the free player allows for unlimited distribution. Registered users get to deploy the "Send to Bookshop" menu to automatically publish on the internet.
The latest release includes better email, LiveLinks to any browser and unlimited use of graphics as links.
Future releases, very speculative at this point, center upon the possible acquisition of the technical assets that are now being sold by Allegiant Technologies, Inc -- that include SuperCard. SuperCard makes the core foundation to the FN E-books platform. The S.S.S. Trust has been established to accept donations for the possible acquisition and freeing of the code base to SuperCard.
Independent publisher, Mark Rauterkus, of Pittsburgh, Pa. is touring to present information on E-books and the upcoming release of an academic E-book authoring tool, FootNotes Mac.
Rauterkus' book-imprint, Sports Support Syndicate, produced more than 100 titles in the past 10 years. "We've abandoned all book production and associated costs of paper, ink, storage, shipping and returns. The transition to strictly digital delivery has been a bumpy."
In 1989 the SSS released books with computer-disk supplements. Those E-books failed to gain marketplace acceptance. "Publishers and teachers with valuable lessons materials have living the saga of content positioning, hitting all the stops: CDs, web sites, email responders, e-zines, discussion groups, hybrids and shareware. We are gearing for DVDs as well. But, by far, the most elegant, most compelling, and most astonishing process and tool suite centers around FootNotes E-books."
The half-day events are being held to convey an understand and future vision for the E-book framework to early adapters and cutting-edge publishers. Authors, independent publishers, educational technology leaders in school districts, college professors, webmasters and multimedia producers should be interested in these tools and insights. Furthermore, Mac users who have used SuperCard and HyperCard should have keen interested in the advantages of these publishing format options.
The entire FootNotes on-line user manual is 44 pages in length. It is simple, interactive and extendable. Junior High classrooms can master these documents right from the start. Quizzes, homework assignments and lesson plans can all fit into FootNotes E-books. The E-books make sense for an academic setting.
The official new-product release date from the USA publisher was set to occur in March, 1989. However, a digital version of SuperCard could not be provided for the bundle as exected. So, the FootNotes E-book program has been made available, but without the fanfare of a first release, yet. Nonetheless, school site license options are available.
FootNotes Mac trial version is posted to the web and FTP site for free downloads. The trial version is free and allows for E-book authoring with a restricted number of pages.
Only the paid version of FootNotes entitles web authors to utilize the built-in posting to the publicly accessible internet bookshelves. The E-book contents can be exported into HTML and posted to the web. Or, E-books can be put onto the internet with a special FTP location set-up for each author and their E-book users.
A schedule of technology briefings includes:
Boston, Phili, New York, Hartford people should send an email message to Mark, mrauterkus@sportsurf.net.
These "work presentations" and discussions are part focus group, tutorial and consulting/feedback. The topic areas cover software development issues central to multimedia, RAD and software developmentIf you, or user-groups you know, are interested in meeting and spending a half-day of your time covering these topics with me this week --- please write.
The Phili meeting is going to be in Hatfield on Wed AM. (South of Allentown) The other meetings, Thurs, Fri. Sat. Monday the 30th, 1, 2, and 4th.
San Antonio, Tx., 2:00 pm, February 21, Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort
9800 Hyatt Resort Drive, San Antonio, Tx 78251 phone: 210-647-1234Local Host: Tommy Simmons, Employment Law Advisory Network, Inc.
www.hirenfire.com
Dallas, Tx., 7:00 pm, February 25, Univ. of Texas Dallas, Callier Center
1966 Inwood Road, Dallas, TX 75235Map to the Callier center on the SportSurf.Net/tour web page.
Located half mile north of InfoMart.
Exit I-35 at Inwood. Right onto Medical Center Drive. Center on Left.
Look for Green Awning for entry.
Host: Paul Dybala, dybala@audiologyinfo.com phone: 214-905-3041
Dallas Part 2: 11:30 am, February 26, Tony Romas, Addison, TX
Beltline Road and Addison - Tony Romas Restaurant 972-661-2671Local Host: Jeff Hoffman, jeff@timeleverresources.com
Time Lever Resources phone: 214-943-4522
Pittsburgh, Pa., 2:30 pm, March 6, Pittsburgh International Airport
Main Concourse, Air-Side, Fridays Restaurant, Fridays = 412-472-5160Special Visitor: Robert Abrams, rhabrams@cats.ucsc.edu
Local Host: Mark Rauterkus phone: 412-481-2540
Cleveland area, Mentor, Ohio, 1:00 pm, March 17, Performance Concepts Inc.
7855 Division Drive, Mentor, Ohio 44060 phone: 216-974-9550Host: www.pcioh.com
March 17 meeting is the date for the new product release.
Corolla, N.C., May 17, 1:00 pm.
Contact Mark Rauterkus, mrauterkus@SportSurf.NetBackground:
SportSurf.Net is teaming with academic programmer, Hugh Senior, Flexible Learning Company of the UK to promote, resell and support the FootNotes E-books. The hosting of the technology briefings are in preparation of the official USA release. The technology briefings include some focus group activities. There are no admission charges to attend the technology briefing, sans food and drinks.FootNotes Mac is a new commercial software title that is geared for the Educational vertical markets. FootNotes Mac is the first in a series of FN E-book products. Various white papers and information tours are forthcoming to be delivered on or before March 17.
K-12 Solution Bundle Expected! Probable titles include:
- SuperCard, www.Allegiant.Com
- FootNotes, www.SportSurf.Net/FootNotes
- WebAlias, www.Lakewoodsoftware.Com
- Life Map for Concept Mapping, www2.ucsc.edu/mlrg/clr-conceptmapping.html
- Cascading Style Sheets editor, http://interaction.in-progress.com
Thanks for your interest.
FAQs
I live near Philadelphia and may be interested in attending, but please fill me in a little more on the agenda. Is this SuperCard or FlameThrower or both?
Both
Is this you showing some of your work product,
Just a little bit -- as we talk about the possibilities of Killer Applications -- and FN E-Books come up in the talks.
Is this talking about the future of SC/FT based apps on the internet, or what?
Mainly the future.
Have you done these before?
Yes. 3 in Texas 2 months ago. Cleveland, Pgh.
Who has attended?
I've now met about 10 from the SuperCard list, and so. Some of my vendor partners and a couple authors have attended too. These are just small group meetings, but some have take some trips of some miles to attend and meet.
How have the meetings gone?
Very well. Great feedback. I realize objections. Lots of extra examples come out of them.
What are the objectives/goals for these meetings?
In part, to explain plans -- so to sharpen the saw when going to VCs (Venture Capital) in due time to help save the SC Assets.I'm the one, who for the past year nearly, has advocated putting $ up to buy SC and FT and such, and then putting the code into the FREE REALM. I call this FREE SC. Not no-charge -- but rather OPEN SOURCE Code. I've got a trust fund open now to collect money to make this occur.
I think some info on the meetings is on my www site about tour, alert.
And, some info on the FREE SC promise is on the site too, about /Allegiant and the trust.
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