Category Archives: Portfolio
Exciting News: Portfolio Server 10 Nominated for Macworld Award!
March 28th, 2012 by Alexandra Barltrop
This week the lovely people at Macworld UK have nominated our Portfolio Server 10 under the Best Professional Software category in the Macworld Awards! It’s fabulous to see it receiving such great recognition in recent months.
For 17 years, the Macworld Awards have established themselves as THE event in the UK Apple calendar, recognising the products and vendors that make a significant contribution throughout the year.
All the winners are chosen by the Macworld editorial team and Macworld’s army of enthusiastic readers, celebrating the most innovative and successful products and companies in the Apple community for their achievements and contributions to the industry. The Best Professional Software category falls under the Editors awards, which means they decide who wins… Come on guys… You know Portfolio Server deserves it—it’s an awesome product! You said so yourselves after all!
To read Macworld’s five-star review of Portfolio Server, please click here.
The Awards will be held on 21st June at the Grand Connaught Rooms, Central London. For more details on how you can attend and party the night away with the creme de la creme of the industry, please click here.
If Portfolio Server wins I’m totally prepared to do a speech in the style of Meryl Streep standing on stage in front of a crowd of my adoring fans! … I want to thank my mum and dad… my ….*wipes tear*… my makeup artist…. ;D
Joking aside, huge thanks to everybody who has supported Portfolio Server since its launch and massive thanks to Macworld for recognising it as an Editors Choice for 2012.
Fingers crossed it wins!
Check out our Presentations on Web Fonts and DAM from the TFMA Event in London!
March 14th, 2012 by Alexandra Barltrop
We had an amazing time at the Technology for Marketing & Advertising event in London a couple of weeks ago. It was our third year attending and we were happy to meet many of you who are as mad about fonts and DAM as we are!
Davin Kluttz, our Senior Product Manager came all the way from Extensis HQ in the US to present two amazingly well received seminars (seriously, they were queuing out the door!) for us.
The first one was “Classy, Clowny or Crude? How your site’s typography affects your brand”, which illustrates how web typography affects your website, and how you can select and implement web typography that is just right for the job. So many people these days think it’s OK to use Comic Sans on their websites. This may come as a shock, but it just doesn’t cut the mustard! Davin illustrated this by showing how some iconic brands would look if their logos were in this font (Chanel, Coca-Cola, Star Wars) which got several laughs from the crowd. To drive the point home, he also showed us several examples of “classy”, “clowny” and “crude” web typography, which gave the audience a feel for the direction in which they should be taking their sites.
The second one was entitled “What does this DAM thing do?” Ever find yourself pulling your hair out trying to locate an image in a sea of thousands? Don’t you think it would be nice to preview a video on your iPad without a special plug-in? Or even just have access to all your digital content on the go, so you are able to act fast if a client unexpectedly throws a “let’s see it now” lasso around your neck? Well Extensis has a solution for all of these problems and it was all nicely wrapped up in this presentation, which not only explained what an ”asset” is, but also demonstrated how to leverage digital asset management solutions to find, locate, archive and access files, regardless of location.
If you couldn’t make it to the show, couldn’t get in to the theatre or would simply like to see what we had to say on web typography and digital asset management, we have very kindly provided the slides from both presentations below!
Enjoy! If you have any feedback, please let us know – we’d love to hear from you.
Portfolio Server 10.1 update now available
December 15th, 2011 by Edward Smith
Today we released a free v10.1 update for Portfolio Server 10 users that includes:
- Support for OS X Lion
- Support for Apple ProRes video codec
- Improved login and folder navigation performance in the Web Client
- Support for preview clips in the Desktop Client
- Option to open original video files in external players using the Desktop Client “Switch to Original” command
- Several NetPublish template fixes
- Additional bug fixes and performance improvements
The 10.1 update is available for all components including the Server and Desktop Client, as well as the NetPublish and NetMediaMAX solution packs.
Download the v10.1 update and release notes
If you’re not already using Portfolio Server as your digital asset management system you can download a free 30 day trial of Portfolio Server 10.1.
Extensis Compatibility with Mac OS X Lion
July 20th, 2011 by Edward Smith
Today Apple released the latest and greatest version of their operating system, Mac OS X Lion (10.7). Now that the cat’s out of the bag, here’s the scoop on Lion compatibility with Extensis products:
[NOTE: Updated versions now available of Suitcase Fusion and Universal Type Server]
Suitcase Fusion
We plan to release a Lion compatibility update for Suitcase Fusion 3 within the next few weeks.
Universal Type Server
Universal Type Server 3 is compatible with Lion, but requires the separate installation of Java runtime because Lion no longer ships with Java pre-installed. We plan to release a Lion compatibility update for Universal Type Client 3 within the next few weeks.
Portfolio Server
The Web Client is Lion compatible, and viewing NetPublish sites from a web browser running under Lion is also compatible. We plan to release a Lion compatibility update for the Desktop Client (v10) this summer followed by a Lion compatibility update for Portfolio Server 10, NetPublish (v10) and the NetMediaMAX External Media Engine (v10) in autumn.
Portfolio Standalone
Portfolio Standalone (v8.5) users should download the v8.5.6 update.
Out of office? No problem for Portfolio Server 9.5.
November 16th, 2010 by Jim Kidwell
Out of office? No problem for Portfolio Server 9.5. You can manage your graphics from everywhere using the Portfolio Web Client to upload, manage keywords, perform searches, or convert and download files – all within your web browser.
Portfolio Server 9.5: Alles an einem Ort finden!
Hören Sie auf zu suchen!
Kommt Ihnen das bekannt vor? “Ich habe keine Ahnung, wo die Datei liegt, aber ich finde sie…früher oder später”. Jeder im Bereich Design und Marketing kennt dieses Problem. Sie arbeiten mit hunderten und tausenden von Dateien wie Photos, PDFs, Layouts und anderen Media-Dateien. Und es werden jeden Tag mehr. Wenn Sie ständig auf der Suche nach Ihren Dateien sind, fällt es schwer, sich entspannt zurückzulehnen.
Beginnen Sie mit dem Finden!
Es gibt einen einfachen Weg, wie Sie wieder Kontrolle über Ihren Computer gewinnen und Ihre Dateien effizient verwalten: Extensis Portfolio Server 9.5 bzw. Extensis Portfolio Studio. Mit unseren brandneuen Lösungen ist das Suchen und vor allem das Finden von Dateien einfach. Egal, ob Sie in einem großen Unternehmen oder einem kleinen Kreativ-Team arbeiten – die ewige Suche nach Ihren Daten ist ab sofort Geschichte. Nutzen Sie ab sofort Portfolios leistungsstarke und einfache visuelle Suchfunktionen im Web und auf dem Desktop. Hier erhalten Sie Ihre persönliche kostenlose Test-Version.
Sie werden es lieben!
Freuen Sie sich über die automatische Katalogisierung: Extensis Portfolio Server 9.5 arbeitet hinter den Kulissen und scannt Ihr Netzwerk, fügt alle neuen Dateien hinzu und gleicht Veränderungen ab. Mit der Vergabe von Keywords gestalten Sie die Suche nach Dateien noch schneller und eindeutiger.
Nicht im Büro? Kein Problem für Portfolio Server 9.5. Ihre Grafiken können Sie überall verwalten. Mit dem Portfolio Web Client laden Sie Daten hoch, verwalten Keywords, führen Suchen durch oder konvertieren Dokumente und laden sie herunter – und das alles in Ihrem Webbrowser.
Aktuell testet die deutsche Fachpresse Portfolio Server 9.5 und Portfolio Studio. Sobald die Ergebnisse vorliegen, informieren wir Sie. Also bleiben Sie dran!
Free Master Keyword Lists to help you quickly configure your digital asset manager
November 9th, 2010 by Jim Kidwell
Our previous Creative Workflows Master Keyword List was so popular that we decided to release a few more lists. We wanted to deliver something that wasn’t overly focused on a single workflow, so we’ve provided several lists that apply to a variety of situations. We hope that by importing these lists you can save a little time – who wants to spend time typing out every year in the past and current century, or the name of each US state?
Keyword lists accelerate metadata tagging and offer a convenient way of searching by allowing selections from a list. Keyword lists also help avoid inconsistencies with typos, spelling, pluralization, and subjective names by providing a predetermined and pre-approved list of values.
This keyword pack contains lists of:
- World Regions
- Countries
- US States
- Major US Cities
- Years (1900 – 2099)
- Outdoors
- Academia
Download the keyword pack here.
A Sample Master Keyword List for Digital Asset Management in Creative Workflows
August 25th, 2010 by Jim Kidwell
A keyword list is a series of words or phrases used in a digital asset management (DAM) system to organize metadata tags and simplify file searches. Extensis has created a keyword list of terms inspired from our experience with graphic design and marketing communications workflows. The list could also be used for PR, advertising, print and publishing, retail, and media workflows.
A master keyword list includes a predefined list and taxonomy of search terms. This provides users with the convenience and consistency of choosing from an existing list of tags when applying keywords or other metadata to images, photos of people or products, videos, marketing collateral, and sales literature. With keyword lists users can quickly choose from a menu of available keywords instead of manually typing in search terms.
Our sample keyword list for creative workflows can be used as is, or as a starting point. The list can be edited using any text editor or within many DAM systems after import. We recommend reviewing the list with stakeholders, especially those who will be searching or tagging assets. Remove any terms that do not apply, add any relevant terms that were not included, and rename terms as needed to fit your organizational vocabulary. For example, “Customer Story” could be called “Customer Profile” in your organization.
Download the sample master keyword list here.
Extensis support for Adobe CS5
July 1st, 2010 by Jim Kidwell
Universal Type Client
Today we released an updated version of the Universal Type Client for Mac that includes new auto-activation plug-ins for Adobe InDesign and Illustrator CS5. This is a free update for all Universal Type Server users.
Download the update (v2.1.2) here.
We are also developing a Windows version of the Universal Type Client that will contain CS5 plug-ins, and plan to have an updated installer early this fall.
Suitcase Fusion
The current version of Suitcase Fusion 2 for Mac and Windows is compatible with Adobe CS5 products. You can activate and deactivate fonts and Suitcase Fusion 2 places fonts in Adobe CS5 application font lists.
We will be releasing new plug-ins for Adobe InDesign and Illustrator CS5 with Suitcase Fusion 3 later this summer.
New Photoshop plug-ins
As a special bonus, along with a number of great new features, Suitcase Fusion 3 will include entirely new plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop. The new plug-ins will feature the same reliable Font Sense technology for precise font auto-activation that you’ve come to expect from Extensis font management plug-ins.
Free Upgrade to Suitcase Fusion 3
Beginning July 1st, all purchases of Suitcase Fusion 2 will receive a free upgrade to Suitcase Fusion 3 when it’s released later this summer.
Portfolio
We continue to test Portfolio to be sure that files generated by CS5 applications are cataloged and converted appropriately.
Digital Asset Management tools, tips, and tricks
June 25th, 2010 by Edward Smith
This week we introduced a new resource called DAM Street Smarts. It’s an email we’ll be sending out periodically with practical, ready-to-implement tips, tricks, tools and other relevant resources.
Our first edition features a spreadsheet for use as a Metadata Planning Tool. This tool can help improve the metadata planning process or can be used to record existing schemas for training and documentation purposes.
Sign up for DAM Street Smarts and download the free Metadata Planning Tool.
What your biggest DAM challenge?
February 8th, 2010 by Jim Kidwell
We’re a fan of the folks over at CMS Wire. They have developed a good amount of digital asset management content that is frequently quite interesting. Of note, recently they published a survey to their readers that asked “What is your biggest Digital Asset Management challenge?”
The survey results are actually quite revealing, and if you’re considering implementing a solution soon, worth exploring. Leading the pack at this time is “Taxonomy/Metadata development.”
If you’re not familiar with metadata, it’s all of the information that can describe your digital asset. As an example, for a photograph, you have the EXIF data such as shutter speed, aperture, flash metadata that is automatically embedded by digital cameras. Yet in addition there are quite a few other pieces of data that you might want to capture that describe the image’s content, use in projects and so forth. When you have thousands of images to catalog, the process of tracking this type of metadata can become overwhelming if you don’t have established procedures.
To help you determine your own internal procedures, we’ve developed a list of 5 Tips for Advanced Metadata Management. Hopefully they’ll help you establish procedures that make your DAM workflow smooth and efficient.
