Our Superficial Review of Surface: It Works with Tizra!

The new Microsoft Surface tablet was on the doorstep at Tizra HQ this morning, and we took a little time to run it through some basic tests. Overall, our feeling was in line with the reviews: Nice hardware, and potentially attractive for those looking for a more mobile way to use MS Office. Still a ways to go on software, though.

We tried the Windows RT version of Internet Explorer 10 on a few Tizra sites, and overall they worked as expected, though interactions with the new reading interface we've just developed (more on this soon) were sluggish. Part of it may be incompatibility with some underlying scripts, which will be tuned as IE 10 becomes more of a factor. Part of it was probably just our unfamiliarity with new Metro interface.

So for now, our minds are open on Surface as a device, but more importantly, we're thrilled to see another major player striving mightily to develop better ways for users to interact with the great content our customers deliver through Tizra.

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Using XML to Create a Better Online Reading Experience for the American Payroll Association

Congrats to the American Payroll Association on their recent launch of XML-based publications on Tizra! Thanks to this collaboration, APA's authoritative books for payroll professionals are now available in crisp, reflowable HTML, creating a user experience that feels like a truly digital native product, rather than a conversion from print. XML-based publishing also creates a better mobile reading experience, supports more precise search and navigation, and opens the door to better accessibility for users with low vision and other disabilities. Our partners at Scribe did a great job supporting APA through the process of producing the XML for loading into Tizra, and we’d definitely recommend them to anyone interested in such a transition. It’s hard to overstate what a big step forward this is for Tizra as a platform and a company. XML has long been planned for in the product's architecture, but now for the first time, we have a working example that demonstrates t...

FEB 11: Catch our Lightning Demo at Tools of Change

When the first Agile PDF sites launched recently, we promised we'd be saying more soon about how the sites were built. Well, the first public demo is coming up at the O'Reilly Tools of Change Conference in NYC: The Five-minute Publication Site —Part of the TOC Lightning Demos Series, February 11, 7:30-8:30pm, Broadway Ballroom As the name suggests, we'll be showing just how quickly a publisher can move from PDF files to a flexible, customizable website selling digital content. And of course, if you've got a bit more than five minutes, we'd be happy to answer any questions. We'll be exhibiting immediately after the demos at the TOC Faire , and happy to talk at any point during the rest of the conference. Drop us a note at info@tizra.com .

Slater Invests in Tizra

This is a big one for us. Rhode Island's Slater Technology Fund is betting $500,000 that Tizra will "really open the floodgates for book-based content from thousands of publishers." Their investment caps a year in which we've gone from four people , two dogs and an idea to a company that someone besides us and our friends and families believe will set online publishing on its ear. We even have our very own Forbes article . Thanks to the folks at Slater for being great advisors as well as investors, and to the many friends and family members who preceded them!

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