TweetEditor’s Note: Introducing a new guest blogger to Cherryleaf’s blog: Dr. Tony Self of HyperWrite. Where are all the technical writers? I have often wondered why there are so few technical... [[ For the full article, see http://www.cherryleaf.com/blog.htm]]
Technical Writing
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Most Topular Stories
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Where are all the technical writers?
Cherryleaf Technical Authors Blog21 May 2013 | 12:15 am -
Agile for Information Development
EServer TC Library: Recent Additions14 May 2013 | 3:08 pmSoftware development methods seem to change more often than the seasons, and just when information development professionals are familiar with one approach a new one comes along. One method that has received wide acceptance and seems to have some staying power, however, is the Agile software development method. As described by the Agile Manifesto (2001), Agile software development is: a group of software development methodologies; based on iterative and incremental development; solutions evolve through collaboration of cross-functional teams. Clymer, Laura -
That versus which
CyberText Newsletter16 May 2013 | 2:30 pmBased on a writing tip I wrote recently for my work colleagues… Bottom line: Use ‘that’ if the phrase is integral to the meaning of the sentence (i.e. a ‘restrictive’ or ‘essential’ clause). Use ‘which’ if the sentence can stand alone without the phrase (i.e. ‘non-restrictive’ or ‘non-essential’ clause); a ‘which’ clause typically expands on or enhances the information already given. ‘Which’ typically follows a comma, whereas ‘that’ rarely does. A good test for when to use ‘that’ or ‘which’ is to remove the clause—if the sentence still makes… -
Writing & Grammar: Nauseated by Nauseous
I Came, I Saw, I Learned...16 May 2013 | 9:13 amby Jennie Ruby Just as software experts have to keep up to date with the latest versions of software, professional writers and editors have to keep up with the latest versions of English. Our language gains new nouns and verbs constantly, and our existing words change meanings. Old rules of usage fall out of fashion or are debunked by the latest scholars, and common errors our school teachers pounded into our heads may have become accepted as correct over time. Here is a pair of words that have been undergoing some of these changes: nauseated nauseous In Strunk and White's The Elements… -
Rob Ford and right-wing hypocricy
Core Dump 2.021 May 2013 | 2:25 amNews broke last week that Toronto’s mayor, Rob Ford, had allegedly been videod smoking crack cocaine. So far, the video, apparently recorded on an iPhone, hasn’t ended up on YouTube, but hopefully it’s only a matter of time before that happens, and puts a final end to Ford’s disgraceful political career. Over at rabble.ca, Michael Laxer puts the story into a wider context. It’s worth reading. There is an understandable temptation to regard all of this as a bad joke and an irrelevance or to see it as merely fodder for the international press and late night…
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ffeathers
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Python as a useful tool for technical writers
15 May 2013 | 1:25 amEvery now and then, and perhaps particularly so when working on a wiki, we technical writers need to manipulate our content in some way that’s not provided by our content management system. A few times recently, I’ve dabbled with Python to solve some problems. Do you often find the need to wrangle your content outside your CMS, and do you use Python or another scripting tool? Python is a scripting language. It’s easy to learn, especially if you’ve done some programming in other languages. It’s just the ticket for data manipulation. It also offers a number of… -
STC Summit 2013 wrapup #stc13
8 May 2013 | 2:13 pmToday is the last day of STC Summit 2013, the annual conference of the Society for Technical Communication. All the sessions are finished, and I’m wrapping up my blogging before getting on a plane. You’ll find my posts under the tag stc13 on this blog. Kudos and a big vote of thanks to Paul Mueller, Chris Hester and the STC conference committee for organising such a great event. From my point of view, the organisation was flawless. I had fun, learned a lot, met great people, and spoke my piece to my satisfaction too. All of those are thanks to the hard work of the organisers. There… -
Data visualisation at STC Summit 2013
8 May 2013 | 9:16 amThis week I’m attending STC Summit 2013, the annual conference of the Society for Technical Communication. I’ll blog about the sessions I attend, and give you some links to other news I hear about too. You’ll find my posts under the tag stc13 on this blog. This is the last session of the conference! It’s called Data Visualization: Seeing through the Numbers, presented by Phylise Banner. Phylise will also present some material from Rob Mitchell. The most important map in the world Phylise showed us a map of the Soho area of London. For the work we do as technical communicators,… -
A marketing communications career at STC Summit 2013
8 May 2013 | 8:00 amThis week I’m attending STC Summit 2013, the annual conference of the Society for Technical Communication. I’ll blog about the sessions I attend, and give you some links to other news I hear about too. You’ll find my posts under the tag stc13 on this blog. I’m attending a session titled A Marketing Communications Career: Making the Transition. The presenters are Barbara Giammona, Vici Koster-Lenhardt, Rich Maggiani, and Eric Koup. Summary of how marketing looks from the tech comm side How does a technical writer move into marketing? Someone comes and asks you to write content for… -
Engaging infographics at STC Summit 2013
8 May 2013 | 6:56 amThis week I’m attending STC Summit 2013, the annual conference of the Society for Technical Communication. I’ll blog about the sessions I attend, and give you some links to other news I hear about too. You’ll find my posts under the tag stc13 on this blog. Michael Opsteegh is about to present a session called Planning and Creating Engaging Infographics. I’m delighted to be here, having survived the Atlanta Ghost Tour last night and just two hours’ sleep. Introduction Michael started by discussing the graph on the front page of the Wall Street Journal this morning. Like most…
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Just Write Click
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Documentation as Conversation with CSS
22 May 2013 | 6:47 amThree types of speech balloons: speech, thought, scream. I love to explore new ways of conveying technical information, and I’m interested in documentation as conversation. Last year I wanted to convey a “side note” on each page of a Sphinx site, as if the page were talking to you. I needed to let people know that there are additional documentation pages available. So, I went looking for a CSS design that would let me put the note into a particular tag and style as I like. I found it at Pure CSS speech bubbles. The humorous part was figuring out what speech bubbles are also… -
Who Wrote OpenStack Grizzly Docs?
26 Apr 2013 | 5:49 amSneaking a peek at the numbers for documentation along with the code should show us pointers about docs keeping up with code. As I suspected, there were about three major contributors to the operations manuals that span all the projects, and about three major contributors to the API docs. Also not a big surprise, I am the major contributor to both. My spidey sense felt it but I had a real gut check with the actual data. What’s difficult about this data analysis at this time is that we still need to release the docs even while we plan for the next six months. What I really want to do is… -
How It’s Made: the OpenStack API Reference Page
14 Apr 2013 | 4:25 pmGlad you asked! The site at http://api.openstack.org is a collection of HTML pages, and one page has an especially interesting story about how it is built. The http://api.openstack.org/api-ref.html page provides a listing of all the API calls for all OpenStack APIs that contribute docs to the page. Currently the only API that is still a work in progress is the Networking API, but here’s a patch in review and they soon will be included also. The page has a lot of Javascript and CSS, DocBook and XSLT, XML and JSON behind it, which enables a few cool features. One is the details button,… -
Developers, Writers, and First Jobs
8 Apr 2013 | 10:51 amI constantly try to network locally with Austinites, and I’m meeting more tech writers with diverse backgrounds. One of Austin’s slogans is “Keep Austin Weird” and while our writers aren’t necessarily weird, their backgrounds can be! For example, I know of one award-winning novelist in Austin who writes manuals during the day and novels at night. Did you know that Sara Gruen was a laid off Oracle tech writer who wrote “Water for Elephants” during a National Novel Writing Month? Those are cool stories of a writer’s path. At a staff meeting a… -
Tools and skills in the red
12 Oct 2012 | 7:50 amIf this isn’t a snapshot of our industry, I don’t know what is. A couple of observations: “Documentations” [sic] to me indicates an English-second-language speaker. Members listing that term as a skill is 245K, larger than the 107K “Technical Documentation”. Looks like it’s an easy popularity contest winner for “Technical Documentation” over “Technical Communication” with nearly 5 times as many LinkedIn members citing “Technical Documentation” as a Skill. Content strategy as a Skill listing is growing 16% year over…
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The Content Wrangler
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In Search of Professional-Grade Content Marketing
14 May 2013 | 3:07 pmScott Abel By Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler Most marketers just don’t get it. Twitter is not a fax machine. A PDF is not an eBook. Brands aren’t inherently interesting. Millions of people rely solely on smartphones to access the web. And nobody—except maybe your boss—checks your Facebook page in hopes of discovering your latest product announcement. In just a few short years, the marketing landscape has changed dramatically—but most marketers haven’t. It’s not entirely their fault. Change is hard and humans tend to resist it. Even marketers. Today’s consumers live in a… -
“Word Up!” Gets APE’d by Guy Kawasaki (That’s a Good Thing)
12 May 2013 | 11:00 pmEditor’s Note: Join us May 17, 2013 at 10:00AM PT for our BrightTALK webinar, Language Matters: How To Write Powerful Sentences & Paragraphs, featuring Marcia Riefer Johnston. Register today! It’s free. Marcia Riefer Johnston By Marcia Riefer Johnston Many thanks to The Content Wrangler, Scott Abel, for introducing me to Guy Kawasaki’s inspiring work and for encouraging me to tell this story. —Marcia Recently, I had an experience that any writer would give an arm for. I had my book APE’d by Guy Kawasaki. Who’s Guy Kawasaki? When big companies want a speaker to… -
Technical Communication Industry Benchmarking Survey Results Summary
5 May 2013 | 4:34 pmThis is a summary of The Content Wrangler 2012 Technical Communication Industry Benchmarking Survey, an informal, web-based survey that compared responses from over 500 companies from countries around the globe. The results are not scientific, but do provide us with meaningful data points and help us spot trends. For instance, one major trend we noticed is the adoption of structured XML content (44% of companies surveyed create XML content; 81% of those firms use DITA; 30% use custom DTDs; 16% use DocBook). The results of our research indicate that innovation is driven by complexity. The more… -
[Infographic] Interactive eBooks: Behind The Scenes
30 Apr 2013 | 8:00 amInteractive eBooks leverage the latest mobile and graphic technologies to take readers beyond the printed page with captivating interactive experiences to deepen the impact of the written word. Check out the workflow involved in converting a printed book to an interactive eBook (brought to you by Aptara). Aptara – Transforming Content into Knowledge -
[Video] Exploring The Need For Intelligent Content In eBooks
26 Apr 2013 | 1:30 amRobert Glushko, Adjunct Professor at University of California, Berkeley, School of Information opened the 2013 Intelligent Content Conference on Corporate Publishing. His talk centered around a recent project he undertook — the making of an interdisciplinary textbook. “It’s a hard project to write [an interdisciplinary text book] because it changes what a book is, a lot,” Glushko said. The solution, he discovered, “was to make it into an eBook” based on intelligent content. Glushko takes the audience on a journey as he explores this initiative. Along the…
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I Came, I Saw, I Learned...
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Adobe RoboHelp: Shared Review
22 May 2013 | 4:01 amby Willam Van Weelden When creating content within my Help System, I often put my content through a review process. Reviews help to ensure my content is correct and easy to understand. A recurring question by RoboHelp users is how they can use RoboHelp to gather reviews efficiently. Fortunately, RoboHelp has a review option that allows reviewers who don't own Adobe RoboHelp to review your RoboHelp content. The only thing reviewers need is a PDF of your RoboHelp content, Adobe Acrobat or the free Adobe Reader. Working with shared reviews consists of three stages: Creating a PDF for review… -
Adobe Captivate: Repurpose Preferences
21 May 2013 | 7:15 amby Kevin Siegel Have you ever visited the Preferences dialog box in Adobe Captivate (Windows users, Edit > Preferences; Mac users, Adobe Captivate > Preferences), made several changes and later, maybe months later, needed those settings on another computer running Captivate? I'm betting your answer is yes, and you've had a tough time ensuring the Preferences in one project match those in another. When I teach Adobe Captivate, I try to stress the value of creating a project template (and creating templates from scratch is a big part of my Captivate 6 Advanced class). If you… -
Writing & Grammar: Nauseated by Nauseous
16 May 2013 | 9:13 amby Jennie Ruby Just as software experts have to keep up to date with the latest versions of software, professional writers and editors have to keep up with the latest versions of English. Our language gains new nouns and verbs constantly, and our existing words change meanings. Old rules of usage fall out of fashion or are debunked by the latest scholars, and common errors our school teachers pounded into our heads may have become accepted as correct over time. Here is a pair of words that have been undergoing some of these changes: nauseated nauseous In Strunk and White's The Elements of… -
eLearning: What's My Motivation?
15 May 2013 | 1:43 pmby AJ Walther Motivating a dog is easy. There is absolutely nothing my dog won't do for a treat. But motivating a human? Particularly an adult human? That's a complex process. If something (like, say, training) doesn't have an immediate payoff, how do we motivate adults to participate? If we want them to participate in their free time, are we looking at an insurmountable task? I recently ran across an article on the CommLab India blog by Aruna Vayuvegula on Motivational Factors to Consider in eLearning and LMS Design. Vayuvegula referenced a paper called Worker Motivation in… -
Adobe Captivate & RoboHelp: Incorporate eLearning within a Help System
14 May 2013 | 10:17 amby Kevin Siegel Like many of today's technical communicators, I wear many hats and use multiple tools to communicate with my learners. For instance, I use Adobe Captivate to create most of my eLearning content, and Adobe RoboHelp to create my Help Systems. It wasn't all that long ago that eLearning content and Help Systems served different roles and different audiences. There was rarely talk of combining the two technologies. These days, more and more technical communicators are being tasked with creating effective Help Systems for an audience that is more distracted and stressed out…
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I'd Rather Be Writing
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What Does Content Re-Use Look Like in a Web CMS?
17 May 2013 | 8:46 amOne challenge I’ve recently been considering is how to handle content re-use on a web content management system, such as Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, or some other web platform. Let’s say you’re writing about ACME widgets and have three different audiences: ACME developers, ACME sales people, and ACME administrators. All your help content is hosted on the same web platform. In this scenario, you have a lot of different information, much of it overlapping. For example, with your ACME widgets, you have some conceptual info, some strategic info, some configuration info, some… -
Structured Authoring Versus the Web?
14 May 2013 | 11:51 pmI recently listened to the Scriptorium webinar on the State of Tech Comm, which I found well-worth my time. One theme I keep hearing is a trend toward structured authoring. In Scott Abel‘s benchmarking survey (which the webinar uses as a starting point), Scott found that 44% of companies are using structured XML content, with 81% of those companies using DITA for their structure. Clearly structured authoring is a trend with a lot of momentum. At the same time, structured authoring doesn’t seem to include a web-like format. Mark Baker noted this absence of a web output in a… -
Why Long Topics Are Better for the User
6 May 2013 | 11:18 pmIn my previous post, Do Short Topics Make Information More Findable, I argued that shorter topics make it more difficult for users to find information. I ended the post by saying that topics that are more substantial make content more findable. But how big should the topics be? Obviously not the length of a book, because that switches us right back into the book paradigm. There’s probably not an exact way to determine topic length, because so much depends on the context of the information and the task at hand. But basically, a good topic answers a good question. What’s a good question? -
Do Short Topics Make Information More Findable?
5 May 2013 | 9:29 pmIn my last post, which now has more than 80 comments, I noted that authoring with DITA seemed to encourage authors to create a lot of little topics. DITA experts chimed in to say DITA doesn’t constrain users with topic length in their outputs — authors can combine topics as needed. However, one commenter noted that short topics are a best practice anyway: Most users I have written for have no desire to read or skim through a long page of information. They want an answer to a specific problem. For these users, chunking instead to [create] narrowly defined topics is far… -
Does DITA Encourage Authors to Fragment Information into a Million Little Pieces?
22 Apr 2013 | 9:50 pmI’m currently exploring the possibility of authoring content in DITA (using a tool such as easyDITA), publishing to an HTML web help output (through the DITA Open Toolkit), and then importing the output into Drupal (through some Python scripts someone has created). This sounds like a good workflow to me, but I’ve kind of run into a little problem. I want to nest some tasks into larger topics rather than having the tasks stand alone as their own TOC entries. Reason being, if every task has to stand alone in the TOC, I’ll end up with a TOC that looks unnecessarily long and…
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CyberText Newsletter
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Headline and image juxtaposition
20 May 2013 | 2:30 pmSeen in our local Sunday paper: The ‘Labs’ article was about meth labs, but at first glance it looked like it was about dogs as the picture next to it was of a labrador cross. Either the editor did this deliberately for a laugh, or it was an unfortunate error. It’s the sort of thing Jay Leno used to feature in ‘Headlines’ on his show ;-) Filed under: Humor -
That versus which
16 May 2013 | 2:30 pmBased on a writing tip I wrote recently for my work colleagues… Bottom line: Use ‘that’ if the phrase is integral to the meaning of the sentence (i.e. a ‘restrictive’ or ‘essential’ clause). Use ‘which’ if the sentence can stand alone without the phrase (i.e. ‘non-restrictive’ or ‘non-essential’ clause); a ‘which’ clause typically expands on or enhances the information already given. ‘Which’ typically follows a comma, whereas ‘that’ rarely does. A good test for when to use ‘that’ or ‘which’ is to remove the clause—if the sentence still makes… -
No wonder the world has a plastic problem
15 May 2013 | 2:30 pmOn Saturday, I bought three small — and cheap — items from a big-name department store and a hardware store. Each came in packaging that wasn’t warranted, even if the price of each item had been much higher. Exhibit 1: The watch The first item was a watch. I no longer buy expensive watches — a $10 to $20 watch does just fine at telling the time. As I work from home, I only wear a watch occasionally, so spending big bucks on a watch seems silly. My last $10 watch lasted me a couple of years, but it died recently — the battery went and the band was on its last… -
Misleading ads from Qantas Frequent Flyer
14 May 2013 | 2:30 pmI’ve been a Qantas Frequent Flyer and Qantas Club Life Member for just over 20 years (yikes!), and so I get their promotional emails, which seem to come with increasing regularity. Most of the time I just delete them, but occasionally one catches my eye, especially when it offers what I perceive to be a ‘very good deal’. A bit of background… Perth hotel prices are EXORBITANT, and they’ve been ridiculously high for several years. We’re in a resources boom, so hotel room prices mid-week (in particular) are through the roof. To even find a decent hotel… -
Mental model disconnection
9 May 2013 | 2:30 pmI was looking up a website for a local bathroom renovation company. This image was on all their web pages: A cooktop and range hood just don’t fit my mental model of a bathroom, so I checked their entire website to see if they did kitchen renovations as well, and found NOTHING to indicate that they do. Their business name clearly states that they do bathroom renovations. Which leads me to wonder WHY they have an image of a range hood and cooktop on their bathroom renovation site. Did their web designer just grab any image from the internet and plonk it there? Or do they do kitchen renos…
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Cherryleaf Technical Authors Blog
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Google adds conversational search-by-voice to Chrome’s Help
22 May 2013 | 8:53 amTweetGoogle has updated Chrome in build 27 to include conversational voice search, and this feature extends to the Help pages. According to TechCrunch, it transcribes your queries in real time. It... [[ For the full article, see http://www.cherryleaf.com/blog.htm]] -
Where are all the technical writers?
21 May 2013 | 12:15 amTweetEditor’s Note: Introducing a new guest blogger to Cherryleaf’s blog: Dr. Tony Self of HyperWrite. Where are all the technical writers? I have often wondered why there are so few technical... [[ For the full article, see http://www.cherryleaf.com/blog.htm]] -
Cherryleaf joins Wired Sussex
16 May 2013 | 6:16 amTweetCherryleaf has joined Wired Sussex, a Brighton-based membership organisation for companies operating in the digital, media and technology sector in Sussex, UK. Wired Sussex works to help members... [[ For the full article, see http://www.cherryleaf.com/blog.htm]] -
Towards an Agile authoring methodology – webinar recording
16 May 2013 | 1:02 amTweetYou can now watch the recording of our webinar on “Towards an Agile authoring methodology”, via Adobe’s website. Agile development is a way of managing IT development teams and projects that... [[ For the full article, see http://www.cherryleaf.com/blog.htm]] -
Technical writing career paths in the UK
10 May 2013 | 12:55 amTweetHere are the slides on “Technical writing career paths in the UK”: Thanks to everyone who contributed. [[ For the full article, see http://www.cherryleaf.com/blog.htm]]
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Core Dump 2.0
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Rob Ford and right-wing hypocricy
21 May 2013 | 2:25 amNews broke last week that Toronto’s mayor, Rob Ford, had allegedly been videod smoking crack cocaine. So far, the video, apparently recorded on an iPhone, hasn’t ended up on YouTube, but hopefully it’s only a matter of time before that happens, and puts a final end to Ford’s disgraceful political career. Over at rabble.ca, Michael Laxer puts the story into a wider context. It’s worth reading. There is an understandable temptation to regard all of this as a bad joke and an irrelevance or to see it as merely fodder for the international press and late night… -
SwiftKey on sale
20 May 2013 | 6:42 amLifeHacker reports that SwiftKey, the best replacement keyboard for Android, is on sale for $1.99. If you have an Android phone or tablet, this is the best $2 you could spend on upgrading your phone. Nancy and I have been using it on our phones for a while now, and like it a lot. It’s worth it for the predictive text (which is startlingly accurate) and the keyboard layout and features, which are fare superior to the default Android keyboard. Highly recommended. -
2013 Nebula Award winners
19 May 2013 | 10:58 amThe 2013 Nebula Awards were awarded last night. The Nebulas are voted on by members of SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America), the SF writers’ professional guild. This year’s winner for best novel was Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312, a book that I got halfway through and couldn’t finish. I haven’t read any of the other novel nominees. John Scalzi has posted the list of winners Novel: 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK) Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed (DAW; Gollancz ’13) Ironskin, Tina Connolly (Tor) The Killing Moon, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit… -
Posts may be sparse for a bit
12 May 2013 | 3:53 pmPosts may be sparse here for a while. For the next few days I’m attending a SharePoint conference in Toronto, which means I have to leave here early and will be home late. After that, it’s the Victoria Day weekend (otherwise known as the May 24 weekend, where 24 doesn’t refer to the date). The weekend after that is my 25th anniversary and my son’s birthday. So I may be more or less offline here until the beginning of June. I’m sure you can find other ways of amusing yourself. -
2013 Locus Awards Finalists
10 May 2013 | 2:04 amLocus has announced the finalists in its annual Locus Awards readers poll. My tastes must be pretty mainstream – I’ve read 3 of the 5 books nominated for best novel, and have the 4th on my Kindle. If you’re curious, my pick would be Scalzi’s Redshirts. SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL The Hydrogen Sonata, Iain M. Banks (Orbit US; Orbit UK) Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen) Caliban’s War, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK) 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK) Redshirts, John Scalzi (Tor; Gollancz)
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Tech Writer News (Elephant)
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Translatable But Debatable - ערירי (ariri)
17 May 2013 | 10:00 pmAs a term meaning “childless,” the word ערירי (ariri) is first found where God promises to reward Abram generously and Abram asks what the point of any reward is with no one to bequeath it to: מה־תתן־לי ואנכי הולך ערירי (“what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless” — King James). It’s not the sort of response you’d expect to hear from a childless man today, for example from some elderly bachelor offered a prize on a quiz show. Read more... -
Translatable But Debatable - Gvartan
17 Apr 2013 | 8:30 pmAn English-speaking woman I once worked with would refer to a sturdy, muscular man as a mac, because in the media someone often calls out “Hey, mac!” to such a fellow and she reckoned it had something to do with strength, like a Mack truck. To me it makes as much sense as many other word derivations, but unfortunately none of the dictionary writers have got behind it.Read more... -
Translatable But Debatable - Mishka’im
17 Mar 2013 | 10:30 pmSo what are these persistences called in English — these things that can make us perceive inexactly, or act neurotically, for sedimental reasons?Read more... -
Resilience Tip - Impact vs. Memory
7 Mar 2013 | 5:05 am“You weren’t listening to me!” “Yes I was! You said…” And they in fact repeat back exactly what we have just said. Familiar interaction? And yet, have you ever felt less than satisfied when that happens? Why this lack of satisfaction? What has happened, or perhaps more accurately, what has not happened They obviously did hear us, so what is still missing? What are we actually trying to do when we communicate?Read more... -
Translatable But Debatable - אס"ק (asak)
17 Feb 2013 | 10:00 pmEphraim Kishon wrote a story once about a Purim party where the people try hard to celebrate but leave more gloomy than when they arrived. Evidently it’s a failing of ours. When I went to the Internet to research the term “asak”— which refers to the good cheer, informality, and celebrations that go with the approach of graduation from an army course — what I found more than anything else was soldiers looking for ideas of exactly how to cut loose and have fun for the occasion, being without inspiration themselves.Read more...
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STC AccessAbility SIG
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Raffling off Digital Outcasts at STC Summit 2013
2 May 2013 | 1:01 pmSome of you may remember hearing Kel Smith speak in 2011 at the STC Summit in Sacramento. Since then, one of Kel’s projects has been writing a book. Well, that book is available now, and you may win a copy of it! All you have to do is leave your business card at the AccessAbility SIG table during the Communities Reception on Monday evening. You can read about the book, “Digital Outcasts: Moving Technology Forward Without Leaving People Behind“, on the book’s dedicated website. An excerpt from the website says, [the book] will address key trends in technology and their… -
AccessAbility SIG Roadmap to the STC Summit 2013
25 Apr 2013 | 7:30 amHere’s the roadmap for the accessibility and usability sessions at the STC Summit 2013 in Atlanta! This is a follow-up to Karen Bachmann’s article on “User Experience and Accessibility Information at the Summit” on the STC Notebook. We put together Summit highlights from the AccessAbility SIG perspective. SIG business meeting We will have an informal SIG business meeting on Monday, May 6 from 12.00 PM – 1.00 PM in Hanover AB. Grab some lunch somewhere in the hotel and come along to meet other SIG members. Non-SIG members are most welcome, too. Cynthia Lockley, the… -
April 10 Webinar “Universal Accessibility: Creating E-Books Anyone Can Read”
21 Mar 2013 | 12:38 pmAnnette Reilly, STC Fellow and STC Standards Council Chair, sent us news about an interesting NISO webinar to be held April 10 at 1 PM to 2.30 PM ET. STC is a member organization of NISO and our members can participate in the webinar at NISO member rates. You can go straight to the webinar registration details or read this introduction first. One of the exciting aspects of e-books and the newer standards for them is the ability content creators have to create a format that provides for accessibility for everyone. From individuals who are visually impaired to those that have cognitive or… -
Oops! The Twitter Feeds Disappeared–Now What?
17 Oct 2012 | 10:18 amMany websites used RSS feeds to include tweets in their site. These RSS feeds are no longer available and in their place, Twitter is providing embeddable timelines that are interactive. Instead of reading tweets in a Twitter widget on a site and then going to Twitter to reply, retweet, or view tweeted photos, we can now interact with a tweet without having to leave the website. I am replacing our old RSS feeds on this site and in the Jobs Board with the new code. Create your own embedded timeline right now using the new timeline settings page on twitter.com, or read more about how embedded…
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EServer TC Library: Recent Additions
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Agile for Information Development
14 May 2013 | 3:08 pmSoftware development methods seem to change more often than the seasons, and just when information development professionals are familiar with one approach a new one comes along. One method that has received wide acceptance and seems to have some staying power, however, is the Agile software development method. As described by the Agile Manifesto (2001), Agile software development is: a group of software development methodologies; based on iterative and incremental development; solutions evolve through collaboration of cross-functional teams. Clymer, Laura -
Getting Started with Content Strategy in Technical Communication
14 May 2013 | 3:06 pmContent strategy may not affect your short-term goals, but it needs to be part of your long-term planning. Thinking about content strategy is the difference between asking, “How do I get this PDF formatted correctly?” and “Should we be delivering PDF to our customers?” To begin moving toward content strategy in your organization, you need to learn about the organization and its goals. What are the goals that executives are striving to meet this quarter, this year, and in the next three years? O'Keefe, Sarah -
Speak for Your Users through an Expert Review
14 May 2013 | 3:05 pmYou know you lend value to a product by being the user’s advocate. However, your role in many cases is that of documenting as clearly as you can what might not be intuitive or obvious in the product’s design or interaction. That’s because technical communicators are frequently brought in at the end of the product development process, when problems in the application must be addressed in the documentation, not fixed in the product. What if you could influence the timeline so that the product got better for target users during development? Wouldn’t that result in better sales and better… -
Minimalism Updated: 2013
14 May 2013 | 3:04 pmThe Minimalism Agenda has been an important contributor to best practices in information development since its origins in the work of John Carroll at IBM more than 30 years ago. It has influenced the development of many common practices among information-development professionals, including a focus on user tasks, user language, scenario-based design, comprehensive solutions content architecture, and just plain good writing. We continue to follow the important work done in the Netherlands by Hans van der Meij, the continuing contributions of Janice (Ginny) Redish, our colleague, and… -
Reclaiming Experience: the Aesthetic and Multimodal Composition
13 May 2013 | 8:21 pmRecent scholarship points to the rhetorical role of the aesthetic in multimodal composition and new media contexts. In this article, I examine the aesthetic as a rhetorical concept in writing studies and imagine the ways in which this concept can be useful to teachers of multimodal composition. My treatment of the concept begins with a return to the ancient Greek aisthetikos (relating to perception by the senses) in order to discuss the aesthetic as a meaningful mode of experience. I then review European conceptions of the aesthetic and finally draw from John Dewey and Bruno Latour to help…
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Shanghai Tech Writer
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Bike to Work Day at Google!
9 May 2013 | 10:18 amBike to Work Day at Google! is a post from: Shanghai Tech Writer Today is Bike to Work Day! Google has a self-powered commuting program that allows employees to collect stamps for each day we bike to work. The stamps are worth some $ amount which we can donate to charity later. I’ve earned 32 stamps this year so far, worth $196.90! I could have earned more because there were many days I forgot to check in! Related Articles:The Commute Gets Longer and Longer… (9)Obama’s Half Brother Mark Ndesandjom Lives in China (0)An Early Dismissal (0) -
Dynamic Help Center and Documentation
3 May 2013 | 11:04 amDynamic Help Center and Documentation is a post from: Shanghai Tech Writer I’ve been quite busy over the past few weeks getting ready for the launch of a new product and help center. This is the first time I get to build a brand new help center from scratch, so it’s been quite a learning process figuring out how to design/configure a help center. So while I’m a technical writer, I don’t just write articles all day long. Matter of fact, the bulk of my time is spent meeting with different people on the team (product managers, content experts, support team, marketing),… -
Learn Programming from Lynda.com
3 Mar 2013 | 9:00 amLearn Programming from Lynda.com is a post from: Shanghai Tech Writer I just found out that Google has a site license with Lynda.com, which is an online training library of software and programming skills videos. The site contains hundreds of online courses, including Adobe Software, JavaScript, WordPress, HTML, and other web development tools. I’ve been wanting to learn some programming but don’t have the bandwidth to take an actual course in a classroom. I like how each course on Lynda.com is broken down into chapters and segments, so that each video is about 4-5 minutes. I can… -
Technical Writing: An Ongoing Collaboration
28 Feb 2013 | 3:45 pmTechnical Writing: An Ongoing Collaboration is a post from: Shanghai Tech Writer As a technical writer, I work with various teams before, during, and after product development. Even though my job title is Technical Writer, I actually don’t spend too much time writing! Most of my day is spent doing everything else. To give you an idea of what I do, below is a list of different teams I work closely with on a regular basis. Technical communication is a very cross-functional job! Documentation Team: I’m part of a group of technical writers that write documentation for a specific area… -
Job Opportunity: Documentation Writer at Google
22 Feb 2013 | 3:00 amJob Opportunity: Documentation Writer at Google is a post from: Shanghai Tech Writer There’s an opening for a Documentation Writer in Google Mountain View. Message me if you are interested. The Documentation Writer is a flexible, creative, ambitious writer who fully understands and articulates the values of Google and Google products. In this job, you’ll work both independently and as part of writing, product development and support teams, confidently managing a variety of interests while interacting with engineers, product managers and writers. You will become an expert on…
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Intext Writing
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Cheat Sheet for Better Writing: False Phrases and Style Slip-ups
20 May 2013 | 6:10 amThere’s not much that will destroy your professional credibility faster than sounding ignorant or uneducated. And using the wrong phrase or mangling a word is a great way of sounding like you just fell off the turnip truck (Need proof?). But good writing goes beyond good spelling and good grammar—you need good style, too. A writer with polished writing style is the James Bond of content. Except your life will rarely be in danger, there’s no women, and you can forget about those wonderful gadgets. But otherwise, just like James Bond. So here is the third and final cheat sheet to better… -
Cheat Sheet for Better Writing: Gorgeous Grammar
13 May 2013 | 6:17 amPhoto: courtneyguttenberg (Flickr) A lot of people are shy writers because they’re afraid they’ll embarrass themselves grammatically. Maybe they’ll dangle a participle in public or misplace their modifiers. Well, the good news is, if you’re a fluent speaker of English, you’re not likely to fall on your duff, grammatically. But there is the possibility of stumbling a little. So here’s a quick cheat sheet to guide you with some of the most common grammatical errors. Refer to it frequently and you’ll find your business writing improving in no time! Run-on sentences. Separate two… -
Cheat Sheet for Better Writing: Common Confusions
6 May 2013 | 6:05 amIf you’re intimidated by the idea of writing—especially writing anything that will actually be read—you’re not alone. Often it’s the subtle differences in similar words that trip us up. So here’s a quick cheat sheet to better writing that clarifies some of the worst offenders in the English language. This post is the first in a four-part series of cheat sheets for better writing. You can also download the master cheat sheet. There/they’re/their. There refers to place. They’re means “they are.” Their means it belongs to them (“Their website is beautiful”). Then/than. -
How to Qualify Your Content with Users
29 Apr 2013 | 6:06 amPhoto credit: viZZZual.com (Flickr) The danger about writing a user guide is the possibility that you’re completely missing the mark. It’s possible that those installation and getting started instructions you spent hours perfecting weren’t at all what your users needed help with—they really wanted to learn about your plugins. Or, that slick PDF manual you created has gone unread because your customers have been looking online for help. How do you make sure you’re providing the right content in the right way for your users? Easy—just ask ‘em! Here’s just a few ways you can… -
Why and How to Use Branding in User Guides
22 Apr 2013 | 5:57 amPhoto credit: Clydehurst (flickr) You brand your website and Facebook page. You brand your product and packaging. You probably even brand your office space. But do you brand your user guide? If not, you’re missing an opportunity and sending an unintentional message to your customers. Your customers see the user guide as an extension of the product and of your company, so it’s important that you give it the same attention everything else receives. Branding tells your customers they can trust the user guide (and by extension, your company) because you’ve invested your name and reputation…
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Kai's Tech Writing Blog
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TCUK13 early bird registration is a steal!
20 May 2013 | 10:22 amFrom now through 28 June, you can get an all-inclusive registration for TCUK 2013 on 24-26 September in Bristol at the members’ rate* for 560 GBP, that’s approx. 860 USD or 670 EUR. And I do mean all-inclusive! That rate includes Tuesday of workshops, choose 2 of 6 Wednesday and Thursday of 2 dozen+ presentations in 3 streams Tuesday and Wednesday nights’ bed and breakfast accommodation at the conference hotel Gala Dinner on Wednesday evening Dinner on Tuesday evening Lunch and refreshments on all three days * Member rates applies to members of the ISTC, of any TCeurope… -
What I learned at the STC Summit 2013
9 May 2013 | 9:07 amHere are my lessons from the STC Summit 2013. This was my second summit after Chicago last year. (This is part of my coverage of the STC Summit 2013 in Atlanta.) Prepare to have your questions reframed! To me, this is one of the greatest benefits of a tech comm conference: You arrive with a question – and get it “more than answered”. I talked to someone who came to Atlanta trying to find the right tool and quickly started collecting different leads. Then one conversation in the hallway made her realize that she should first re-evaluate her processes and postpone the tool… -
STC13: Alyson Riley about effective IA
9 May 2013 | 8:47 amIn her session “Building Effective IA Teams in Resource-Challenged Times”, Alyson Riley from IBM offered her take on the recent theme that tech comm needs to “speak business” to prove its worth. (This is part of my coverage of the STC Summit 2013 in Atlanta.) Alyson argued that “nice to have” initiatives are no longer compelling enough to get tech comm a budget or a mandate. To play a mission-critical role in a corporation, tech comm must plug into the corporate strategy. However, that strategy and its stakeholders usually isn’t waiting for us to put… -
STC13: Lee LeFever on the art of explanation
7 May 2013 | 4:04 amLee LeFever is the founder of CommonCraft, best known for the instructional videos with the drawn paper cut-outs that a hand moves around as a voice explains how stuff works. He presented their approach to explanation which focus on empathy with the audience to foster understanding. (This is part of my coverage of the STC Summit 2013 in Atlanta.) Explanations are hard and try as you might, they can still fail – as anyone knows who has given driving directions to a stranger and then seen them make the wrong turn. The key to good explanations is empathy with the “explainee”,… -
STC13: User Assistance, Tech Comm, and Learning
6 May 2013 | 8:07 pmThe session “User Assistance, Tech Comm, and Learning” brought together four seasoned professionals to discuss common grounds between tech comm and e-learning: Nicky Bleiel, who moderated, Kevin Siegel, Saul Carliner, and Matt Sullivan. (This is part of my coverage of the STC Summit 2013 in Atlanta.) The panel, moderated by Nicky Bleiel. Photo by @viqui_dill. Saul’s opening statement pointed out important differences between tech comm and training: Tech comm doesn’t aim at information retention, but training does. Tech comm’ers mainly create content, but trainers…
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I Came, I Saw, I Learned...
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Adobe RoboHelp: Shared Review
22 May 2013 | 4:01 amby Willam Van Weelden When creating content within my Help System, I often put my content through a review process. Reviews help to ensure my content is correct and easy to understand. A recurring question by RoboHelp users is how they can use RoboHelp to gather reviews efficiently. Fortunately, RoboHelp has a review option that allows reviewers who don't own Adobe RoboHelp to review your RoboHelp content. The only thing reviewers need is a PDF of your RoboHelp content, Adobe Acrobat or the free Adobe Reader. Working with shared reviews consists of three stages: Creating a PDF for review… -
Adobe Captivate: Repurpose Preferences
21 May 2013 | 7:15 amby Kevin Siegel Have you ever visited the Preferences dialog box in Adobe Captivate (Windows users, Edit > Preferences; Mac users, Adobe Captivate > Preferences), made several changes and later, maybe months later, needed those settings on another computer running Captivate? I'm betting your answer is yes, and you've had a tough time ensuring the Preferences in one project match those in another. When I teach Adobe Captivate, I try to stress the value of creating a project template (and creating templates from scratch is a big part of my Captivate 6 Advanced class). If you… -
Writing & Grammar: Nauseated by Nauseous
16 May 2013 | 9:13 amby Jennie Ruby Just as software experts have to keep up to date with the latest versions of software, professional writers and editors have to keep up with the latest versions of English. Our language gains new nouns and verbs constantly, and our existing words change meanings. Old rules of usage fall out of fashion or are debunked by the latest scholars, and common errors our school teachers pounded into our heads may have become accepted as correct over time. Here is a pair of words that have been undergoing some of these changes: nauseated nauseous In Strunk and White's The Elements… -
eLearning: What's My Motivation?
15 May 2013 | 1:43 pmby AJ Walther Motivating a dog is easy. There is absolutely nothing my dog won't do for a treat. But motivating a human? Particularly an adult human? That's a complex process. If something (like, say, training) doesn't have an immediate payoff, how do we motivate adults to participate? If we want them to participate in their free time, are we looking at an insurmountable task? I recently ran across an article on the CommLab India blog by Aruna Vayuvegula on Motivational Factors to Consider in eLearning and LMS Design. Vayuvegula referenced a paper called Worker Motivation in… -
Adobe Captivate & RoboHelp: Incorporate eLearning within a Help System
14 May 2013 | 10:17 amby Kevin Siegel Like many of today's technical communicators, I wear many hats and use multiple tools to communicate with my learners. For instance, I use Adobe Captivate to create most of my eLearning content, and Adobe RoboHelp to create my Help Systems. It wasn't all that long ago that eLearning content and Help Systems served different roles and different audiences. There was rarely talk of combining the two technologies. These days, more and more technical communicators are being tasked with creating effective Help Systems for an audience that is more distracted and stressed…
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IT4Buddy
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English Worksheet for Nursery
6 May 2013 | 6:09 amRelated content: Math worksheet for Nursery -
Math worksheet for Nursery
5 May 2013 | 9:11 amRelated content: English Worksheet for Nursery Math worksheets of Play Group English Worksheet for Play Group English Worksheet for Play Group of letter A -
English Worksheet for Play Group
4 May 2013 | 7:40 amRelated content: English Worksheet for Play Group of letter A Math worksheets of Play Group Worksheet of Math for Play Group Math worksheet for Nursery -
Worksheet of Math for Play Group
4 May 2013 | 7:33 amRelated content: Math worksheets of Play Group English Worksheet for Play Group of letter A English Worksheet for Play Group -
English Worksheet for Play Group of letter A
4 May 2013 | 7:21 amIn this worksheet we will read and write about letter A. A is first letter of English. Tell the kid the voice A (AAAAA). The word starts from letter A like A Apple, A Aero Plane, A Arrow. Must complete the drawing work because it is necessary the practice for holding pencil . Related content: [...]
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Java,Unix,Hadoop,tomcat tutorials,examples
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Top 10 LS command examples with tutorials in Linux/Unix
21 May 2013 | 5:58 pmTop 10 LS command examples in Unix /Linux Ls is one of the frequently used command in Linux as well as UNIX and it is important to know about this command Ls command list the names of files or directories in a directory.ls command sort the files alphabetically and output to standard console. when ls command is executed, Linux server do inode sorting and outputs the files on alphabeticallyin -
Best 10 Simple examples of Grep Command in linux and Unix with tutorials
20 May 2013 | 4:56 amTop 10 Simple examples of Grep Command with explaination in linux Grep is popular and powerful command in linux and unix operating system. Each developer and QA in software development need to know about grep command usage. Questions on Grep is asked by almost all interviews for developer/QA role. Every one in Software field must know the Grep Usage and commands Grep is used to search in file -
Top 3 Examples of variable arguments or varargs feature in java
10 May 2013 | 6:02 amVariable Arguments feature in java Varargs Feature in java Variable arguments feature is one of java language feature introduced in java 5. Java 5 introduced lot of new features like Enum feature[] etc. method have multiple arguments, this arguments count are fixed, with Variable arguments feature in java5, method can have multiple arguments(zero to many) to be passed without defining -
Top 3 Java Text Formatting examples : MessageFormat
3 May 2013 | 9:19 amWhy MessageFormat is introduced:- Before MessageFormat is introduced, we used to process the messages using String concatenation, the disadvantages with String class processing is Strings are immutable objects, more objects are created in heap memory and these messages order is not same for every language, because of this problems, Sun has introduced text format classes like MessageFormat -
How to Internationalization java applications
3 May 2013 | 3:12 amHow do we Internationalization in java Usually applications are developed in english, but when we want our applications to target users or customers of different countries, Sun provides Internationalization concept in java. Internalization or I18n is set of java classes or interfaces provided by java to support the global application in java. It means java applications works with multiple
