May 6th, 2012
Featured links for the week of April 30, 2012:
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May 4th, 2012
For all you computer nerds reading this (I know there are a few), in celebration of Day against DRM, O’Reilly is having a half-price ebook sale – and all of O’Reilly’s ebooks are DRM free. Today only so act fast.
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May 4th, 2012
NASA has put together a wonderful, inspirational video called Pursuit of Light. It looks at the Earth, the solar system, and our place in the universe. It ends with this capton: “We’re heading out. Join us”.
Watch it in HD if you can. It’s worth it.
NASA dreams big science. In this awesome new short, NASA presents the Earth, the planets, the Sun, and the endless universe beyond. Come for the cool, stay for the music, take away a sense of wonder to share. It’s six minutes from Earth to forever, and you can see it here!
This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?10958
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May 3rd, 2012
By now, I expect that most technical writers are thoroughly familiar with Google search and how to squeeze the most out of a search query. But Google has many more products than search, and some of them can be even more useful. Roger Renteria has an article on TechWhirl that explains how to use some of the more advanced features of Gmail and Google’s Android (assuming you have an Android smartphone). I use both and I found a lot of things in this article that I didn’t know about.
Google is everywhere. Really. So it’s no wonder Google wants to help you migrate into the cloud, and they make it easy because their services work seamlessly and amazingly well with each other. If you have a Google Account, you have access to a plethora of programs and services, some of which you may not even be aware of, that can make your everyday life much more productive. These services can be a boon for technical communicators who want to break the chains of the old-fashioned desktop and move their digital lives onto personal, mobile, smart devices.
Here’s a list of tips and tricks to Google your way to productivity, and save yourself the grief, frustration, and anger associated with trying to live the digital life; some quick ideas for setting up filters and labels to easily manage the flood of email; apps to protect your smartphone’s pictures and contacts; and using Google tools and apps offline.
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May 2nd, 2012
One of the highlights of my attendance at the WritersUA conference in March was getting to interview Joshua Tallent, the author of Kindle Formatting and the founder of eBook Architects. He gave two presentations at WritersUA – my notes from those are up on TechWhirl.
The interview covers a lot of ground: what technical writers can contribute to ebook production, the future of e-reader devices and ebook formats, and why publishers are so uncomfortable with ebooks, among other topics. I really enjoyed talking with Joshua and I hope you’ll enjoy the interview, which is now published on TechWhirl.
Do you think that there’s an opportunity here for technical writers who are looking for new challenges to move into this field? Tech writers have been working with various online formats for quite a while and we understand how to structure content and make it easier to display and use in various output formats.
JT: Yeah, that would be really good for the publishing industry to see. There’s always a lot of bleed over that would be helpful on both sides. As long as we can get past the single source idea, because I don’t think that single source will be possible in the near future. There are just too many proprietary display engines and proprietary formats that are coming out.
I think the technical writing community can teach the publishing industry a lot about metadata, a lot about taxonomies, a lot about the deep information that you have, and the capabilities that you have to draw that information out and to give people more data as they read. That would be helpful.
Also tech writers could help with interfaces. There are a lot interfaces used in technical writing, search interfaces, indexing interfaces, that would also be helpful in the standard eBook market.
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May 2nd, 2012
The nominees for the 2012 Locus Awards have been announced. These are for the best SF and fantasy of 2011 as nominated and voted on by the readers of Locus magazine, the monthly news magazine of the SF field.
These are the nominees for best SF novel:
- Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
- 11/22/63, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton as 11.22.63)
- Embassytown, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
- Rule 34, Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
- The Children of the Sky, Vernor Vinge (Tor
Out of the five, I’ve read Rule 34 and The Children of the Sky. Both were good but not outstanding. I plan on reading 11/22/63 and possibly Leviathan Wakes.
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