Thursday, March 04, 2010
Audiobook DRM versus library patrons
Here's a great cartoon explaining why libraries shouldn't use DRM (digital rights management) on their audio books, and why users will end up pirating the books anyway.
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Flare 6 released
MadCap Software announced the release of Flare 6 today. I found out about it on Tom Johnson's blog about three hours before the e-mail from MadCap arrived in my inbox at work.
So of course I downloaded it and installed it as fast as I could manage. On first glance, it doesn't look that different from Flare 5, though it's obvious they've been making some subtle but welcome usability tweaks in the interface. But there are some interesting new features. One I will definitely be using is the tagging feature that lets you add metadata to files. There's also a new output format for mobile devices.
Along with Flare, MadCap also released new versions of Analyser, XEdit, and Echo.
Tom's blog post includes a podcast interview with MadCap's Mike Hamilton, who talks about the new features and drops a few tantalizing hints about future development.
So of course I downloaded it and installed it as fast as I could manage. On first glance, it doesn't look that different from Flare 5, though it's obvious they've been making some subtle but welcome usability tweaks in the interface. But there are some interesting new features. One I will definitely be using is the tagging feature that lets you add metadata to files. There's also a new output format for mobile devices.
Along with Flare, MadCap also released new versions of Analyser, XEdit, and Echo.
Tom's blog post includes a podcast interview with MadCap's Mike Hamilton, who talks about the new features and drops a few tantalizing hints about future development.
Labels: MadCap., software, technical communication
Monday, March 01, 2010
Working with multiple Firefox profiles
I've known for a long time that Firefox supports multiple profiles, but I've until I read this LifeHacker article, I didn't realize just how useful that feature could be.
Instead of installing every single extension for every task into the same Firefox profile, why not separate them into separate profiles, organized by task? Think of Firefox like an Operating System for the web, and each profile as a separate application—one profile is used for basic web browsing, another for writing, another for web development, and so on.
Most of the writers at Lifehacker HQ use different profiles for writing, researching, and personal browsing on a daily basis. It keeps your Firefox instances running smoother, and each profile is streamlined for accomplishing the kind of things you want to accomplish with that profile.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Managing graphic file paths in FrameMaker
One of the annoyances about FrameMaker is the way it chokes on missing graphics when you move documents or books around from one directory to another. FrameScript wizard Rick Quatro has developed a solution - a set of FrameScripts along with a matching Excel spreadsheet that lets you easily manage the paths for all of the graphic files in a book. Find out more on Rick's blog.
Labels: FrameMaker, software
Sunday, February 14, 2010
OpenOffice.org vs. Microsoft Office
Bruce Byfield has written several comparisons of Microsoft Office versus OpenOffice.org. His latest is the fourth and covers the major parts of each suite in detail. He finds that Writer is superior to Word for many tasks - something that many writers struggling with Word's instabilities and inconsistencies may find encouraging.
The fact that OpenOffice.org is free software predisposes me to prefer it. However, until I completed the analysis, I had no idea what the results would be. They ended (if you haven't been keeping score) with OOo and MSO in a tie for general interface and spreadsheets, OOo in the lead in word processors, and MSO ahead in slide presentations. What these results suggest, I think, is that both office suites are mature products. Given a moment's thought, that shouldn't be surprising, since OOo's development goes back more than 20 years. But we tend to think of OOo as a recent development, so the closeness of the comparison may come as a bit of a surprise.
This is the fourth time I have compared the two office suites. Each time, the differences between them have gotten smaller. Now, they are less than ever before. For those of us in the Free Software community, the latest results help to prove what we have known all along: opting for free software does not mean being satisfied with inferior tools. Of course, you might disagree with my conclusions, depending on your needs and expertise. But what they emphasize, more than anything else is that today free productivity apps can stand toe to toe with their proprietary equivalents, and win as often as they lose.
Labels: Office 2007, software
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Cures for information exclusion
If you've been working as a technical writer for any length of time, you'll be familiar with the concept of information exclusion, even if you don't call it by that name. It happens when you aren't included in the project development loop, or developers update software without telling you, or that a project release is due in a week, and hey - we need the help updated too.
Tom Johnson has a good article about it, and what you can do to fight back. It means digging into your organization's bug tracking system.
I should note that this won't work in every organization. Not all control their development process through a bug tracking system and some use separate bug tracking and change management systems to manage bugs and enhancements. But in general, getting access to the tools that your developers and QA group use to track their work is a good idea.
Tom Johnson has a good article about it, and what you can do to fight back. It means digging into your organization's bug tracking system.
Don’t be intimidated by JIRA, or whatever bug tracking software you use. JIRA is your best friend, because now that you know the secret — that JIRA controls all information about a project — you can start to leverage this information source to influence updates and changes to the application as you see fit.
You know that capitalization error on the home page of your app that is driving you nuts? Stop complaining about it in project meetings. Just log it in JIRA and it will probably get done. How about the error message box that says, “Object reference not set to an instance of an object.” You’ve been telling developers for months that no one will understand it. But they aren’t waiting for an email from you to specify how to fix it. No, they’re waiting for the item to appear in JIRA. Like a cook waiting for an order, developers will simply see the request on their screen and get to work.
Not every thing you slip into JIRA will get implemented. The tough fixes will be procrastinated, just like you have procrastinated the toughest help topics in your help. When developers feel weary and tired, and when they’re winded from playing too much ping pong, they’ll cherrypick the easy JIRA items that require nothing but simple text updates — your capitalization pet peeves, the label misspellings, those inane on-screen messages that developers typed while they were half-asleep. As long as you stick your requests in JIRA, they will eventually get done.
I should note that this won't work in every organization. Not all control their development process through a bug tracking system and some use separate bug tracking and change management systems to manage bugs and enhancements. But in general, getting access to the tools that your developers and QA group use to track their work is a good idea.
Labels: software, technical communication
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
DocFetcher searches file contents
DocFetcher is a small, free file search utility that searches both for filenames and for content inside your files. If you have privacy concerns about Google Desktop or want something with less overhead, then this might be worth a look. LifeHacker has a short review.
Labels: software
After the Deadline checks your writing in Firefox
After the Deadline is a Firefox add-in that checks your spelling and grammar in Firefox. If you do a lot of commenting or writing blog posts, this might be worth looking at as it is more customizable and has more features than Firefox's built-in spell checker.
Labels: software
Monday, February 01, 2010
Automate any GUI with Sikuli
There are a lot of macro recording applications out there, some application-specific (FrameScript, VBA), and some more generic (MacroExpress). Sikuli is a new take on the latter type, but instead of recording keystrokes, it works by reading screen captures. To get a better idea of how this works, watch the short video embedded in this LifeHacker article. It looks like it could be useful in many situations, although it's not as flexible as a full-scale API-based scripting language.
Sikuli is a research project developed at MIT, is cross platform, and free.
Sikuli is a research project developed at MIT, is cross platform, and free.
Labels: software
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Calibre E-Book Management
Earlier this week I posted a link to the 10 best open source software tools of 2009. On that this was an e-book utility called Calibre, which I downloaded and have been testing.
In November, I bought a Dell Mini 10v netbook. I wanted a netbook so I would have a small laptop that I could use when travelling and also as a reader for PDFs and e-books. Over the years, I've accumulated a collection of SF novels in various e-book formats, mostly PDFs, from sources like Project Gutenberg and the Baen free library. However, I soon found that reading PDFs on the netbook was a less than optimal experience. The screen has a 16 x 9 aspect ratio, which means that it'll only display about 1/3 of a page of text if I have it sized to a reasonable font size. And PDFs don't reflow the text column when you resize the width of the window. It's possible to convert PDFs to HTML, but reading in a browser has its own limitations.
Calibre solves all of those problems and does quite a bit more. First, it's a library management tool as well as a reader. You build a library of e-books by importing files - PDF, HTML, text, .doc or .rtf, or e-book formats such as EPUB or LIT. You can grab metadata (publisher and cover graphics, for example), rate books, and tag them by category. Best of all, you can convert PDFs to e-book formats - I've found that EPUB seems to work best, and view them with Calbre's built-in viewer, or upload them to your e-book reader, if you have one. Using the e-book reader, you can resize the window and font size to whatever you find comfortable, and the text will reflow to fit.
As an added bonus, Calibre can act like a feed reader. You can download the content of newspapers and magazines save them as an e-book, and read them offline. I've pulled in the contents of the latest issues of The Economist and The Atlantic as a test and it works beautifully. What content you get will depend on the site's subscription policy - for Scientific American, for example, you'll get abstracts of the feature articles, but the full text is behind a paywall. You can schedule downloads, so you have your favourite morning paper waiting for you when you get up.
Calibre is one of the best and most useful software programs I've come across in quite a while, and it's free and open source, which makes it all the more remarkable. I've seen many commercial applications that aren't as polished, feature rich, or useful. If you like it, you can contribute to the author via Paypal from a link on his site - I've just sent my contribution.
In November, I bought a Dell Mini 10v netbook. I wanted a netbook so I would have a small laptop that I could use when travelling and also as a reader for PDFs and e-books. Over the years, I've accumulated a collection of SF novels in various e-book formats, mostly PDFs, from sources like Project Gutenberg and the Baen free library. However, I soon found that reading PDFs on the netbook was a less than optimal experience. The screen has a 16 x 9 aspect ratio, which means that it'll only display about 1/3 of a page of text if I have it sized to a reasonable font size. And PDFs don't reflow the text column when you resize the width of the window. It's possible to convert PDFs to HTML, but reading in a browser has its own limitations.
Calibre solves all of those problems and does quite a bit more. First, it's a library management tool as well as a reader. You build a library of e-books by importing files - PDF, HTML, text, .doc or .rtf, or e-book formats such as EPUB or LIT. You can grab metadata (publisher and cover graphics, for example), rate books, and tag them by category. Best of all, you can convert PDFs to e-book formats - I've found that EPUB seems to work best, and view them with Calbre's built-in viewer, or upload them to your e-book reader, if you have one. Using the e-book reader, you can resize the window and font size to whatever you find comfortable, and the text will reflow to fit.
As an added bonus, Calibre can act like a feed reader. You can download the content of newspapers and magazines save them as an e-book, and read them offline. I've pulled in the contents of the latest issues of The Economist and The Atlantic as a test and it works beautifully. What content you get will depend on the site's subscription policy - for Scientific American, for example, you'll get abstracts of the feature articles, but the full text is behind a paywall. You can schedule downloads, so you have your favourite morning paper waiting for you when you get up.
Calibre is one of the best and most useful software programs I've come across in quite a while, and it's free and open source, which makes it all the more remarkable. I've seen many commercial applications that aren't as polished, feature rich, or useful. If you like it, you can contribute to the author via Paypal from a link on his site - I've just sent my contribution.
Monday, December 28, 2009
10 Greatest Open Source Software Of 2009
From NixCraft via Scott Nesbitt, here's a list of the 10 best open source software programs for 2009. Out of the 10, I had six installed on my PC, and immediately added a seventh, the wonderful e-book utility, Calibre. (More on that one later). All of these are top-flight programs and well worth a look.
Labels: software
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
PowerPoint frustrates student
I'm not a fan of PowerPoint. I've sat through too many deadly dull presentations by people who didn't know how to make a presentation interesting. So it saddens me to find out that universities have been infected by the PowerPoint virus. At least the students will be prepared for the real world when they graduate.
Professors who use PowerPoint tend to present topics very quickly when they don’t have to do anything but talk. If every example and every diagram is on the screen, there isn’t much time for me to take notes on the subject of each slide. Lectures aided by chalkboard visuals are easier to take notes from because I can write what the professor writes on the board at the same time. Also, because there is usually more chalkboard space than screen space, if I am behind on note-taking, the visual will probably still be on the board for me to copy a few minutes later. A lot of professors try to solve this problem by handing out the lecture slides before class, or by posting them online. While this is great for a lot of students, it doesn’t work for me because I learn best and am most engaged if I have to take notes as if my grade depended on having a great record of the class and I would never see the material again. In classes with handouts, I tend to zone out and have to work harder to pay attention. Studies have shown[pdf] that taking high-quality notes improves organic memory: I rarely use my notes after the lecture because the act of physically writing information down helps me remember more of what goes on in class.
Labels: Microsoft, software, technical communication
Friday, November 06, 2009
If you have a Google account, look at Dashboard
If you have a Google account (in other words, if you use Google Docs, GMail, Blogger, and so on), you'll want to look at the new Google Dashboard, which puts all of the settings for your Google applications on one page.
Labels: software
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Review of Ubuntu 9.10
The Globe and Mail's Lynn Grenier reviews the latest release of Ubuntu, 9.10, aka Karmic Koala. Nothing much new here in the release, but it looks like a good solid upgrade, and an alternative to Windows.
As Linux matures, it's becoming more and more of an OS accessible to the average user. KK is another step in that direction. There are still a few foreign concepts for a Windows convert to absorb, but on the whole Ubuntu 9.10, Karmic Koala, is a package that won't be a horrible stretch for the novice, yet contains enhancements for the Linux guru as well.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Keep an eye out for Mozilla Raindrop
The Mozilla Foundation has started work on another piece of software, called Raindrop, which looks to be a more intelligent e-mail/messaging client than what we have now.
I'm definitely looking forward to seeing this, but I wonder what effect it will have on the development of Thunderbird. I've been using Thunderbird for quite a while, and I prefer it to any other e-mail clients I've used, but it definitely hasn't kept pace with the Web 2.0 world (Yes, I know there's a new version coming, and I'm waiting to see what it's like, but I won't install a beta e-mail client).
It'll also be interesting to see how Raindrop will compete with Google Wave, which from what I've read about it so far, seems way too complex for its own good.
The goal of Raindrop is to make email and messaging personal again, and allow complete customizability in how you manage that information. It brings in content from multiple, sources such as Twitter, RSS feeds, and email, and presents it in one central, web-based front end. Thus, instead of having to watch multiple sources just to keep up on your personal conversations, you can focus on one single bucket.
Raindrop can also decide which conversations are important to you and your life, and "bubble up" that information to the top—while keeping the less important messages out of the way. In addition, like all Mozilla projects, Raindrop will be extensible—whether through HTML, Java, CSS, or APIs—in order for you to further personalize your experience.
I'm definitely looking forward to seeing this, but I wonder what effect it will have on the development of Thunderbird. I've been using Thunderbird for quite a while, and I prefer it to any other e-mail clients I've used, but it definitely hasn't kept pace with the Web 2.0 world (Yes, I know there's a new version coming, and I'm waiting to see what it's like, but I won't install a beta e-mail client).
It'll also be interesting to see how Raindrop will compete with Google Wave, which from what I've read about it so far, seems way too complex for its own good.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
How Google Wave can drown tech writers
Google Wave has been causing a lot of buzz in the blogosphere recently. I'm not particularly interested, at least not right now - I have enough time keeping up with Twitter and Facebook. I can see the usefulness of it, but until it gets more widely adopted, I'm staying away.
However, it bears watching, as it and the media trends it represent are affecting the way that technical writers work. And if you don't keep up with the trends, or worse aren't even aware of them, you're likely to find yourself unemployed. will Kelly looks at the issue in more detail in this post.
However, it bears watching, as it and the media trends it represent are affecting the way that technical writers work. And if you don't keep up with the trends, or worse aren't even aware of them, you're likely to find yourself unemployed. will Kelly looks at the issue in more detail in this post.
The impending launch of Google Wave is something for every technical writer to watch. Because if they have been doing their job the same way from day one, then Google Wave's undertow is going to pull them down into the surf.
However, if they are embracing online collaborations tools, instant messaging, and related technologies then they are going to think Google Wave is game changer for technical communications because it offers a new range of communications and collaborations options.
An organization's adoption of Google Wave offers up a number of benefits for technical writers and their documentation. However, all parties involved in technical documentation development need to embrace Google Wave's new communications and collaborative model because Google Wave puts many long time staid processes online.
Labels: software, technical communication
Monday, October 19, 2009
Guide to setting up a virtual PC
Setting up a virtual PC - a computer emulation running in RAM - has become easier during the last few years, to the point where it's almost ready to become a mainstream computing tool. Gizmodo has published a guide to virtualization that will step you through the process if you haven't done it before.
Intimidating erminology aside, here's what desktop virtualization means today: You can run just about any OS, Mac OS X excluded, inside any other OS. Ubuntu in Mac OS? Sure. Windows 7 within Windows XP? Why not? Windows ME within Snow Leopard? Nobody's going to stop you, I guess! And these aren't patchy, half-assed experiments we're talking about here—these are fully-functioning installations that'll connect to USB peripherals, access the internet, share files with your host OS, and run almost any software, short of 3D games. You can set up as many of these things as you want, and delete them in a matter of seconds. It's pretty great, is what I'm trying to say.
Best of all, virtualization is now something you can try—and stick with—for free, thanks to software like Sun's VirtualBox. It's a free download on any platform, and it does its job spectacularly. Here's how to get started.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Install old-school help viewer in Windows 7
If you're using, or planning on moving to, Windows 7, you'll find that the older version of Windows Help doesn't work. In other words, you won't be able to read .hlp files. However, if you need it, you can download and install the Windows Help viewer for Windows 7.
Labels: software, technical communication
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Clean Up Text utilty
Although most people can use Microsoft Word to get a document to look the way they want, few can do it efficiently. This can cause problems if you have to work with someone else's document -- for example, to import it into RoboHelp. Clean Up Text is a little Word Add-In that you can use to clean up documents that you receive from other people. It will perform several tasks, like removing leading andf trailing spaces and converting hard paragraph breaks to paragraph formatting.
Labels: Microsoft Word, software, technical communication
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Theme Builder for Office 2007
We're still not using Office 2007 at work, which is just as well, because I can just imagine the documents I'd get to edit once people started playing around with themes. Still, if you need a quick way to pretty up a document, it's hard to go wrong by picking a theme. But you may need to customize it, and for that you'll want Theme Builder, a free tool from Microsoft. LifeHacker has a brief review.
You can make a copy of the themes under your Office Install -> Document Themes directory, and then open them up in the Theme Builder application to customize just about any aspect of the theme. Once you've finished, you can save them out to your documents folder and use them from any Office application by choosing the Browse option under the themes panel's drop-down menu. If you want them globally available, you can save them out to the Office installation directory where the rest of the theme files are.
The application is a bit of a pain to get going, but could be a huge timesaver for making sure all your Office documents have a consistent look. Theme Builder is a free download for Windows only.
Labels: Microsoft Word, Office 2007, software
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
More articles about CSS
Here's a selection of 15 articles about CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) compiled by Chris Spooner. They cover topics like the DIV tag, sprites, menus, and lists, and will give you a pretty good background in what CSS can do.
Labels: software, technical communication
Monday, October 05, 2009
Using WebWorks ePublisher to publish to Confluence wiki
Recently Quadralay added support for the Confluence Wiki to its WebWorks ePublisher product, making Confluence the third wiki to be supported by ePublisher. This means that you can take large, complex documents and convert them to wiki format and easily publish them to the Confluence wiki.
The process of publishing to a wiki in ePublisher is a bit more complex than building online help, but still a lot easier than doing it manually. It's described in detail in this article from the ffeathers blog. If you use Confluence (or one of the other wiki formats that ePublisher supports - Moin Moin or MediaWiki) this article is worth a look.
The process of publishing to a wiki in ePublisher is a bit more complex than building online help, but still a lot easier than doing it manually. It's described in detail in this article from the ffeathers blog. If you use Confluence (or one of the other wiki formats that ePublisher supports - Moin Moin or MediaWiki) this article is worth a look.
Labels: software, technical communication
Using Google Docs to produce surveys
Google keeps adding new features to Google Docs, for example, the ability to create forms. As CyberText Newsletter points out, you can use the forms tool to create simple surveys.
Labels: software, technical communication
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Simple HTML tooltips
Tooltips, those little yellow popup text windows, have been a feature of help in Windows for some time. WritersUA has published an article by Dave Gash showing how, with the aid of a couple of open source scripts, you can easily implement them in your HTML pages.
A developer friend of mine working on a Web app for a Los Angeles client had asked if I knew of a handy script that would display small amounts of help text -- "popups, expanders, or some such hooey," as he delicately put it -- for his form elements. I promised to look through my vast library of scripts and get back to him straightaway, then resumed work on my own contract and promptly forgot about the entire conversation. Not deliberately, of course; I just didn't make a note of it. And for some reason, if I don't write things down, they forget me.
The following week I was on my mobile phone provider's site looking up some call statistics when my mouse brushed across a tiny question mark icon next to an input field, and some help text appeared. Well actually, it didn't simply appear, it gradually faded into view. And it wasn't just a couple of words, it was several lines long. And it had a border and a background color. And rounded corners! And a little pointy descender like a speech balloon! It was awesome; I was transfixed; serendipity had struck.
I wasted no time scouring the page for the code reference (you gotta love "View Source"), and thereby discovered the script I soon provided to my developer friend and here present to you. To see it in action, just hover over any of the little "Top" graphics following this article's headings. Spiffy, eh?
Labels: software, technical communication
Monday, September 28, 2009
Saving Google Reader posts as PDFs
Here's an article that might be useful to those of us who use Google Reader a lot - save articles as PDF files. It also explains hoe to use some of the new features added recently to Google Reader-ones that I have to admit I wasn't aware of until I read this article.
Labels: software
Sunday, September 27, 2009
XML Mind Editor 4.5 has more DITA support
The XML Mind XML Editor has been updated to version 4.5 and includes more DITA features and support. Especially interesting is the DITA Converter that they've bundled with it.
DITA support is now bundled in XMLmind XML Editor. This support has been greatly enhanced. It is now as comprehensive as DocBook support in XMLmind XML Editor. Most of the enhancements come from XMLmind DITA Converter.
XMLmind DITA Converter (ditac for short) allows to convert the most complex DITA 1.1 documents to production-quality XHTML 1.0, XHTML 1.1, HTML 4.1, JavaTM Help, HTML Help, PDF, PostScript®, RTF (can be opened in Word 2000+), WordprocessingML (can be opened in Word 2003+), Office Open XML (.docx, can be opened in Word 2007+), OpenOffice (.odt, can be opened in OpenOffice.org 2+).
XMLmind DITA Converter is free, open source, software licensed under the very liberal terms of the Mozilla Public License version 1.1.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Some more web apps
The migration of software to the cloud continues apace. LifeHacker has a review article listing 10 of their favourite web applications. Out of the 10, there are several that a technical writer could use, especially Lovely Charts, the Aviary Suite, and ScreenToaster.
Labels: software, technical communication
Friday, September 11, 2009
Time to update OpenOffice.org 3.1
If you are using OpenOffice.org version 3.1, you should update immediately to 3.1.1, as there's a security bug that could be nasty.
(1) HIGH: OpenOffice.org Word Document parsing Multiple Vulnerabilities
Affected:
OpenOffice.org 3.1
Description: OpenOffice.org is an open-source office software suite for
Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, and other operating systems. Multiple
vulnerabilities have been identified in OpenOffice.org which can be
triggered by opening a specially crafted Microsoft Word document with
vulnerable installations of OpenOffice.org. The first issue is an integer
underflow error in OpenOffice.org while parsing certain records in the
Word document table. The second issue is a boundary error while parsing
certain records which can lead to heap overflow. Successful exploitation
in both the cases might allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code. Note
that, depending upon configuration; documents may be opened by the
vulnerable application upon receipt, without first prompting the user.
Full technical details for this vulnerability are available via source
code analysis.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
References:
Secunia Research Security Advisories
http://secunia.com/secunia_research/2009-26/
http://secunia.com/secunia_research/2009-27/
Vendor Home Page
http://www.openoffice.org/
SecurityFocus BID
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/36200
Monday, September 07, 2009
Inkscape resources
Inkscape is an open source, vector illustration program similar to Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw!. Like it's commercial cousins, it's a powerful, complex program that will likely take some time to master. Ostatic has put together an article listing several resources for Inkscape that will help you get up to speed.
Labels: software
Friday, August 28, 2009
How projects really work
Here's an updated version of a cartoon that I first saw when I took a course on the Rational Unified Process back in 2001, after I'd joined the TSX. Sadly, it's true for some projects, especially the documentation part.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Color Scheme Designer
Color Scheme Designer is a web-based application that will help you pick a pleasing color scheme from a color or small set of colors. It's easy to use and has some sophisticated features. According to LifeHacker:
You can generate single monochromatic, complimentary, triad, tetrad, analogic, and accented analogic color palettes. You can simulate color-based vision disorders to see how your design colors will look—they even list the percentage of people suffering from the disorders. A preview function populates a dummy web page with your color scheme, which is a handy tool for seeing how your selected colors look together off the palette.
While the page-simulator is a really great trick, the best feature of Color Scheme Designer is the ability to export your palette not just as a Photoshop palette—a common limitation of many web-based generators—but as HTML+CSS, XML, TXT, and GPL (the palette format for GIMP).
Monday, August 17, 2009
Twitter guide for business users
TechRepublic has put together a short guide to Twitter aimed at business users. Along with decent coverage of the basic Twitter functions, it covers destop clients and links to the more popular mobile clients for various platforms. Keep a copy handy for when your boss asks you why you're always texting on your iPhone.
Labels: software
Friday, August 14, 2009
Get all 100K Unicode characters into your documents
Cybertext Newsletter posts about a simple application (4 MB, run from a thumb drive) that catalogs all Unicode characters. You can easily view and search to find the specific character that you need and insert it into your document.
BabelMap is a free downloadable EXE (just under 4 MB) you can stick on a thumb drive or on your desktop. It contains all 100,000-plus Unicode characters AND it is searchable. It’s available from: http://babelstone.co.uk/Software/BabelMap.html
Labels: software, technical communication
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Interview with Firefox 3.6 director
If my browser stats are accurate, most people reading this blog use Firefox, so you might be interested in this interview with Mike Beltzner, the director of development for the next release of Firefox.
Lifehacker: What's a typical day like as a director of Firefox? How would you chart your time use throughout the day?
Mike Beltzner: It depends, although I don't want to give a "depends" answer. I'd say that 50 percent of my day is communication. As director of Firefox, my job involves coordinating the activities of a cast of thousands contributing to the software we produce. I help people understand the most important thing they could be working on today. We're working on 3.5.2 today for instance, so problems with builds will come up, and I'm coordinating the release team, and engineering team, and a lot depends on clear communication. ... (With) Mozilla's weekly planning calls, I'm helping at moderating them and making sure everyone understands where to expend their efforts to get most value.
Another 25 percent of my day is spent gathering feedback about the product, and from that, figuring out what's important, and figuring where to go. It's asking ourselves, what are the most important things to be (scheduling) out for next version, so maybe I'd say "future planning" is really that 25 percent of my day.
The other 25 percent could be considered management, the traditional kind. The Firefox management team makes sure developers don't have to worry about expenses, and helping those having troubles getting access to certain systems. All that doesn't even count the little extra things I do. I'm a software designer at heart, so I still spend some time working on designs with the user team.
Labels: software
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Word in a wiki world
Ars Technica writer Jeremy Reimer looks back at the evolution of Microsoft Word over the last 20 years and finds that it has a cloudy future, as wikis and other web-based writing tools are becoming more capable.
In my own case, I've preferred using FrameMaker to Word for any serious writing projects. For small things and personal use, I now use Google Docs. Word 2010 looks like it has some interesting features, but I wonder how many companies who are currently using Word 2003 will ever upgrade.
So that's basically the end of Word at work. Well, at my workplace at least. I have a friend who spends hours and hours taking Word XML documents and untangling them programmatically to extract their data into other formats, and I'm glad I don't have his job. Other friends use Word at work as a matter of course, simply because nobody wants to change. Change is a funny thing, though. One day you wake up and everything is on a wiki somewhere. How did that happen? It happens in much the same way as typewriters suddenly disappeared—because a better alternative arrived. Word—and I know I'll be attacked for saying this—is the new typewriter.
Maybe I'm wrong. Software is, after all, infinitely adjustable, something that typewriters aren't. Microsoft has put some effort into making Word part of the new Web-based world, such as adding support to post an article directly to a blog, including uploading pictures. It's worth noting, however, that this feature was added as a last-minute afterthought. Word, at its advanced age, is unlikely to change what it fundamentally is at the core. For me, the program no longer serves any purpose in my life. Maybe Word 2010 could win me back, but I doubt it. The love is gone, and all the new features in the world won't bring it back.
I've even abandoned Word for my own personal writing. These days, all my writing is destined for the Web, but I still need a place to compose my initial drafts. I can basically use anything for this—I've used NotePad, TextEdit, even FinalWriter on my Amiga. In the end, however, I settled on a very slick software program called Scrivener, available for OS X. It simplifies and enhances the writing process by using a model based around user-defined document sections, not pages of virtual paper. Scrivener has a decent "Save as HTML" feature, which, unlike Word's, produces sane and readable HTML, but even that needs to be cleaned up somewhat before it can be sent to the Web. A much simpler solution is to just copy and paste the text. Where do I paste into? The now-ubiquitous Web text entry box, available on every blog, content management system, and wiki on the planet. It's fast and simple, the perfect combination for our accelerated world.
In my own case, I've preferred using FrameMaker to Word for any serious writing projects. For small things and personal use, I now use Google Docs. Word 2010 looks like it has some interesting features, but I wonder how many companies who are currently using Word 2003 will ever upgrade.
Labels: Microsoft Word, software
Friday, July 31, 2009
Using Wolfram Alpha as a writing tool
Wolfram Alpha many unique features, but one of the more interesting is its ability to work with words. For example, type in "words ending in ology" and you'll get a list of 122 words, including aetiology, auxology, and campanology, to name just three that I'd never heard of.
The Wolfram Alpha blog has an article about what Wolfram Alpha knows about words. It looks like we have another handy tool for writers.
The Wolfram Alpha blog has an article about what Wolfram Alpha knows about words. It looks like we have another handy tool for writers.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Did PowerPoint contribute to the Columbia disaster?
Edward Tufte, well-known for his pioneering work on information design and analysis, has an online excerpt from his book, Beautiful Evidence, in which he examines the PowerPoint presentations created at NASA during the Columbia mission. He finds that the hierarchical structure imposed by PowerPoint may have contributed to the disaster by burying key information in lower levels of the hierarchy.
Unfortunately, his web site has blocked copying, so I can't excerpt the relevant portions here, so you'll have to read them for yourself. They're well worth reading and taking to heart. I will quote one brief passage from his conclusion:
Unfortunately, his web site has blocked copying, so I can't excerpt the relevant portions here, so you'll have to read them for yourself. They're well worth reading and taking to heart. I will quote one brief passage from his conclusion:
Serious problems require a serious tool: written reports. For nearly all engineering and scientific communication, instead of PowerPoint, the presentation and reporting software should be a word-processing program (emphasis his) capable of capturing, editing, and publishing text, tables, data graphics, images, and scientific notation. Replacing PowerPoint with Microsoft Word (or, better, a tool with non-proprietary, universal formats) will make presentations and their audiences smarter.
Labels: software, space, technical communication
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
How they built the Apollo 11 software
This article about the development of the software for Apollo 11 gives a good sense of just how far we've come in 40 years. The Apollo command module software ran on 1 MHz processor with 2K of memory, and most of the software was hard-coded into memory. And the software wasn't perfect either, as the error during Apollo 11's descent proved.
During the Apollo 11 Lunar Module’s descent to the Moon 40 years ago today, Garman played a direct role in preventing a mission abort. Several warning lights and computer overload alarms came on as the craft descended just above the Moon’s surface, causing worry in Mission Control, but all of Garman’s pre-flight simulation experiences told him that the alarms were not critical and the landing could continue. Without hesitating, and without panicking, the 24-year-old NASA computer engineer confidently gave the “go” to continue the mission.
Granville Paules, was a 32-year-old guidance officer for one of the Apollo 11 mission teams and remembers that moment well.
“The alarms went off on during descent,” Paules said. “It was a conflict between the on-board systems and the computer was starting to get overloaded. Garman had a simulation where a similar thing had occurred about three weeks before that, so he knew what to do. It probably would have been a lot scarier, possibly even an abort for the landing, if we had not had that simulation. I can say that the odds of aborting that lunar landing were a lot higher than people want to believe. That simulation gave everybody the confidence to turn off the alarm and ignore it.”
Labels: software, space, technology
Sunday, June 28, 2009
GIMP - An Introduction
GIMP is one of the major open source applications - a bitmap editor that rivals PhotoShop in features. Like PhotoShop, it's a complex application that can take a while to master. The Digital Photography School site has put together an introduction to GIMP, with more tips, tricks, and tutorials to follow.
Labels: software
Monday, June 22, 2009
100 free tools for writers, authors, journalists
Here's a list of 100 free tools from writers, authors, and journalists. Categories include Publishing and Content Management, Blogging, Dictionaries and Spell Checking, and so on. Most, but not all, are open source. (Thanks to Scott Nesbitt for the tip).
Labels: software
Microsoft Help3 resources
Microsoft announced Help3, a new help system designed to work with Visual Studio 2010 applications. They gave a presentation on it at WinWriters, but I haven't heard anything from that. Now CyberText Newsletter has a post with some links to resources on Help3.
Labels: Microsoft, software, technical communication
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Top 10 Firefox 3.5 features
The final version of Firefox 3.5 will be out soon, probably by the end of the month, and it has many new and interesting features. Some of the best are outlined in this Lifehacker post. Private browsing, better Awesome Bar filtering, and a faster JavaScript engine look to be the most useful
Labels: software
Saturday, June 20, 2009
LoopApps - a free web-based PDF tool
LoopApps is a web-based PDF tool with some fairly advanced functions. According to LifeHacker:
You can convert multiple formats like TXT, RTF, and DOC files into PDF files, or pull directly from URLs you input. You can merge multiple files together in the order you want. Files can be electronically signed using the ESIGN service, conveniently available without an account. Almost all of the functions are available without a login, but signing up for a basic account allows you to access more advanced features like the ability to shift the page order in your documents.
Labels: software
Monday, June 15, 2009
The Writer's Rough Guide to Everything Flare
Here's another site for MadCap Flare users, The Writer's Rough Guide to Everything Flare. Recent articles discuss various ways to do code highlighting. I'll be bookmarking this one, as we are hoping to move to Flare in the near future.
Labels: MadCap., software, technical communication
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Download Adobe Technical Communication Suite trial
You can now download a trial version of the Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2 instead of having to order an installation DVD from Adobe. Of course, you'll need a fast connection to download it - the beta download was around 2 GB.
Labels: software, technical communication
Twitter as a medium for release notes
Twitter is getting pretty popular these days. If you're not using it yourself, you've almost certainly heard the buzz about it. If you're a technical writer, you're probably wondering just how much useful information can you get across in 140 characters. Quite a lot as it turns out, according to this article by Sarah Madox, a writer at Atlasian, the makers of the Confluence wiki.
If you're new to Twitter, the article contains a good introduction to it, as well as some useful guidelines on how best to use it.
And yes, I'm on Twitter.
If you're new to Twitter, the article contains a good introduction to it, as well as some useful guidelines on how best to use it.
And yes, I'm on Twitter.
Labels: software, technical communication
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
MadCap releases Flare 5 and Blaze 2
MadCap Software has announced the release of Flare 5 and Blaze 2. This is a major upgrade adding DITA import and export and many other features to both products. For a list of new features, see this page on MadCap's site, or view the What's New Guide (86 page PDF).
This is a major release, especially for anyone contemplating a move to DITA in the future. It's pretty clear that MadCap are now in the drivers seat in the technical communication software field.
This is a major release, especially for anyone contemplating a move to DITA in the future. It's pretty clear that MadCap are now in the drivers seat in the technical communication software field.
Labels: software, technical communication
Monday, June 08, 2009
More on Flare versus RoboHelp
Ivan Walsh recently blogged about Flare and Robohelp, a post that generated a fair amount of reader comment. He's now collected some of that into another post, and if you're interested in either tool, it's well worth reading.
My recent article on moving from RoboHelp to Madcap Flare seems to have generated interest in the technical writing community. Rick Stone made some excellent points that I’d like to share here. As the points raised are so detailed, I have created a new post to address each one. Again, thanks to Rick and here goes.
My recent article on moving from RoboHelp to Madcap Flare seems to have generated interest in the technical writing community.
Rick Stone made some excellent points that I’d like to share here. As the points raised are so detailed, I have created a new post to address each one.
Labels: software, technical communication
Thursday, June 04, 2009
MadCap Flare 5 pre-release review
MadCap Flare 5 will be out very soon, and Technically Speaking has a pre-release review. With it's DITA support and many other new features, this looks like a compelling release.
Here are five killer reasons you should consider upgrading your version of Flare to V5 as soon as you can:
1. Workspace improvements in both XML Editor and Source Code View
2. DITA Support
3. PDF Target Enhancements
4. Relationship Tables
5.
Other Enhancements
- Topic Tool bars
- Thumbnail Image Support
- Text Redaction Support
- Improved Performance
- Conditions in Project Organizer
- Backup Differences
- New Toolbar buttons
Labels: software, technical communication
Free software contest
Tom Johnson has hit on a good way to increase his blog readership, at least temporarily. He's running a contest and giving away copies of Snag-It, Cantasia Studio, Author-it and MadCap Flare. Each day he'll post a cartoon and ask for captions. The best caption of the day wins that day's software. For details, s I'd Rather Be Writing.
Labels: software, technical communication
Monday, June 01, 2009
Create charts online with Chartle.net
Chartle.net is yet another web based application, this for creating charts of various types (bar, pie, map, and so on). Read a brief description of it at Lifehacker, or dive right in, as there's no registration required.
Labels: software
Syntext Sern Free XML Editor
Syntext is making available a free version of its Serna XML Editor. Serna renders documents in a WYSIWYG mode using XSL-FO and supports major XML standards, including DITA. The free version lacks support for content management systems and other enterprise-related features.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Get SnagIt 7.2.5 for free
TechSmith's SnagIt is probably the best screen capture tool out there, and until June 5th you can get version 7.2.5 for free. Although it's a couple of releases behind the current version 9.1, it's plenty good enough for most purposes, and you will qualify for upgrade pricing.
Labels: software, technical communication
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Adobe announces security plan
Adobe, beleaguered by numerous security problems in its Acrobat product, has announced a new plan to deal with them and issue updates.
Chief among the changes is a beefed up program to eradicate security bugs from its enormous base of existing code. While Adobe has had a secure product lifecycle in place since 2005, the program has largely emphasized ways to make sure products under development incorporate safe coding practices, Brad Arkin, Adobe's director of product security and privacy, told The Reg.
"What we're doing differently here is shifting our focus for this effort onto the legacy code and looking at it in the light of where would an attacker start first, rather than what is the code that we're working on right now from a developer perspective," he said.
The expansion puts engineers from Adobe's Reader development team side by side with members of the ASSET, or Adobe Secure Software Engineering Team, to identify Reader vulnerabilities that are most likely to be exploited. They use software fuzzers to throw malformed data at the oft-abused applications. They then poor over the results and combine them with threat modeling (and Microsoft's !exploitable Crash Analyzer) to prioritize code that should be rewritten.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Project management in your browser
If i had to pick one program that I could live without, it would be Microsoft Project. Unfortunately, my superiors don't agree, so I've had to deal with it. Project is loaded with features that make it suitable for large, complex projects with hundreds of people, but it's way overkill for a typical documentation group's plan. For that, you could try Gantter, which is web-based project management tool that does a good job of replicating Project's basic features inside a browser. Learn more about it here.
If you don't want to trust your project's data to what is basically the personal project of a (very talented) Ukranian developer, try the somewhat more established OpenProj.
If you don't want to trust your project's data to what is basically the personal project of a (very talented) Ukranian developer, try the somewhat more established OpenProj.
Labels: software
First look at Ubuntu 9.04
Ubuntu 9.04, aka Jaunty Jackalope, was released today and Lifehacker has a first look at it. At first glance, it looks like an incremental upgrade without a lot of major new features.
Although the 9.04 release is a smaller step forward than most of us anticipated, it's still a solid Ubuntu release, and it's still light years ahead of any other desktop version of Linux. Put simply, Linux simply doesn't get any better than this right now for ordinary users, and Ubuntu is the only serious choice if you're tired of Windows or OS X. (If you do decide to make the leap to Ubuntu, consider getting my free-of-charge pocket guide book - see below for a special offer on the print edition.)
However, the Ubuntu guys are going to have to think long and hard about the direction they want to head in from the point onwards. Rather than playing catch-up with Windows and OS X, Ubuntu is now on a par with them. In fact, it's been on a par since 8.04, this time last year.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Adding non-scrolling regions to WebHelp in Flare
Non-scrolling regions were a nice feature of the original Microsoft help that yet you keep titles at the top of a topic while the contents scrolled. Until now, I've never seen a way of implementing them in web-based help, although several people have commented that it should be easy using CSS. Well, now Mike Hamilton of MadCap Software has posted instructions for setting up non-scrolling regions in Flare.
Something must be going around as I have suddenly received several requests for adding non-scrolling regions to topics in WebHelp. If you are not familiar with non-scrolling regions they date back to the days of volcanoes, dinosaurs, and the Microsoft Winhelp format circa Windows 3 and Windows 95.
The non-scrolling region was an area at the top of every topic where the topic title was displayed and then the topic itself scrolled under the title. The nice bit is that this ensured that the topic title was always visible. When Microsoft moved on and developed the Microsoft HTML Help format they did not include any methods for including the non-scrolling region and adopted more of a web-style interface. Many cried, shrieked, and rent their clothing longing for the beloved non-scrolling region, but alas it was gone…at least, for a while.
Now fast forward to modern Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) capabilities and you once again can get your non-scrolling regions back! To build a non-scrolling region in Flare we will be updating three styles in the project style sheet. No code, no script, no digging around with Notepad, just some simple style sheet changes.
Labels: software, technical communication
Monday, April 20, 2009
Pandoc converts markup languages
Pandoc is a free, open source, command-line conversion tool for converting text formatted in any of several different markup languages. It can read markdown, HTML and LaTex, and write to PDF, HTML, RTF, OpenDocument XML, DocBook XML, and several other formats. The demo page gives several examples of what it can do, and there's a web interface that you can use to try it out.
This could be a very useful tool with a lot of applications, especially if you publish a lot of online content.
This could be a very useful tool with a lot of applications, especially if you publish a lot of online content.
Labels: software, technical communication
Monday, April 13, 2009
Beginners guide to virtualization
Here's a good guide to getting started with virtualization using the open-source VirtualBox tool.
Virtualization is a whole computer concept unto itself, at least on the server/enterprise/big-fancy-corporate level. For home users, talk about "virtual machines" generally refers to x86 virtualization. Basically, it's software that allows an entire operating system (the "guest") to run on another OS (the "Host"), whether in a container window, or full-screen, or in what's sometimes called a "seamless" mode, where just one application is run from the "guest"
Why would you want to run a virtual machine on your computer? Plenty of reasons:
* You like using one OS, but need just an app or two from another running in their natural environments—Office or Photoshop in Windows (nine times out of 10), a light-on-resources game, or maybe even some uber-cool Linux app.
* You want to try out some new software, but would rather not chance it mucking up the pretty decent system you've got right now.
* Web sites that don't play nice with the operating system you're running (we're looking at you, almost every streaming site except Hulu and YouTube).
* You're intrigued at the idea of trying out a Linux desktop, but the word "partitioning" doesn't sound like how you want to spend a Saturday afternoon.
Labels: software
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Making GIMP more like Photoshop
GIMP is probably the most powerful, open source image editor. If you're on a budget and can't afford Photoshop, it's certainly a good choice. But if you're used to Photoshop, you may find it either confusing or lacking in features. But there's a lot you can do to make GIMP work more like PHotoshop, as this article shows.
GIMP was never designed to replace Photoshop, yet with every release, it comes a little closer to being able to do so. It can be used to author graphics, create logos and edit photos, as well as make short animations (using GAP). Despite these features, the open-source app is a foreign world for many users switching from Photoshop. Familiar tools are missing, menus are laid out differently and tasks must be accomplished in unknown ways.
In this article, we list eight tweaks to make GIMP a more serious Photoshop replacement option. Version 2.6 was used to test the following tweaks, but past versions of the app should work as well.
Labels: software
Monday, April 06, 2009
Reviewing user interfaces
Technical writers often get to participate in the design of the user interface for the software they're documenting, even if it's just to act as an informal member of the QA group. Very occasionally, they may get to do a more formal review. If you're ever in that position, Rhonda Bracey's article, Reviewing User Interfaces, will be a life saver.
She breaks the review process down into five areas:
- design elements
- text elements
- link elements
- visual elements
- user interactions
and then provides detailed guidelines for looking at each area.
She breaks the review process down into five areas:
- design elements
- text elements
- link elements
- visual elements
- user interactions
and then provides detailed guidelines for looking at each area.
Reviewing an application’s user interface is not about your opinions. Your aim is to improve a user experience to reduce potential user confusion and meet users’ needs. By thoroughly reviewing design elements, text elements, link elements, visual elements, and user interactions, you can ensure users have a positive experience with your application.
Although you can use some software tools to help you with this task, ultimately, your knowledge and understanding of user interface guidelines, standards, and interactions are your best tools for reviewing a user interface
Labels: software, technical communication
Portable Ubuntu runs from a flash drive
Here's an interesting variation on the standard Ubuntu Linux distribution - Portable Ubuntu, which runs as a standard Windows application is small enough to load from a flash drive (although at 438 MB, it's not really small).
If I can free up some space on my flash drive, I'll have to try it out, although I suppose I could just run it off my hard drive.
Portable Ubuntu makes for a great place to test out your more cutting-edge stuff, without having to worry about messing up your working Windows system. The latest beta of Firefox 3.1/3.5? Even easier to run than the portable solution, and you can keep both your Windows and Portable-Ubuntu-launched Firefox browsers open at once.
When you're running Portable Ubuntu, Windows treats it like any other program. You can close down individual app windows from your taskbar, and pop it onto and off your desktop with little hassle.
If I can free up some space on my flash drive, I'll have to try it out, although I suppose I could just run it off my hard drive.
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Prio - a really useful Windows utility
Prio - short for Priority Saver - is one of the most useful Windows utilities that I've come across in a long time. It's a plug-in for the Windows Task Manager that adds several useful features.
It's an extremely useful utility. I've only been using it for a couple of days and it's saved me quite a bit of time and let me clean up a lot of crud that's running on my system.
For example, I scanned through the list of running processes and found one I didn't recongnize - mDNSresponder.exe. The tooltip tells me the path is c:\Program\Files\Bonjour and the copyright is Apple Inc. Well, I use iTunes to download podcasts, and my daughter uses it for her iPod, but I never heard of this one. Googling it tells me that it's used to provide networking services to iTunes. It can go. Killing the process won't stop it from loading again when I restart. However, Prio provides a nifty way around that. All I need to do is right-click on the process and choose Go to Service. It pops me into the Services tab with the service selected. Right-click and choose Start-up Mode > Disabled, right-click again and choose Stop, and it's gone for good. All in less time than it took me to type this.
Prio is very small - 486 KB - yes, that's KB, not MB. Oh yeah, one more thing - it's free for personal use.
I should mention that I found out about this from Steve Gibson's Security Now! podcast, and he likes it too. If you're not listening to Security Now or reading the transcripts that Steve posts on his website, you're missing a lot of very useful and important information.
- Display whether a running process is digitally signed or not
- Display for a process, in a tooltip, the version number, copyright information, and path and file name
- Assign CPU affinity and priority to a prcess, and remember the settings between sessions
- Add a Services tab to the Task Manager
- Add a TCP/IP tab to the Task Manager to display open TCP/IP connections
It's an extremely useful utility. I've only been using it for a couple of days and it's saved me quite a bit of time and let me clean up a lot of crud that's running on my system.
For example, I scanned through the list of running processes and found one I didn't recongnize - mDNSresponder.exe. The tooltip tells me the path is c:\Program\Files\Bonjour and the copyright is Apple Inc. Well, I use iTunes to download podcasts, and my daughter uses it for her iPod, but I never heard of this one. Googling it tells me that it's used to provide networking services to iTunes. It can go. Killing the process won't stop it from loading again when I restart. However, Prio provides a nifty way around that. All I need to do is right-click on the process and choose Go to Service. It pops me into the Services tab with the service selected. Right-click and choose Start-up Mode > Disabled, right-click again and choose Stop, and it's gone for good. All in less time than it took me to type this.
Prio is very small - 486 KB - yes, that's KB, not MB. Oh yeah, one more thing - it's free for personal use.
I should mention that I found out about this from Steve Gibson's Security Now! podcast, and he likes it too. If you're not listening to Security Now or reading the transcripts that Steve posts on his website, you're missing a lot of very useful and important information.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Firefox to get tasks via Ubiquity
I recently installed the Ubiquity extension for Firefox and have been quite taken with it. Type CTRL-SPACE and up pops a command window - type a letter and I get a list of commands that I can select, or continue typing a full command. For example, type "map Pickering, ON" and it opens a Google map of Pickering in a new tab. Much faster than going to the address bar, selecting Google Maps, and typing in the address there.
Now Mozilla has announced that they are going to integrate Ubiquity's functions into the address bar in a future release.
Now Mozilla has announced that they are going to integrate Ubiquity's functions into the address bar in a future release.
Ubiquity, which has been available as a Firefox extension for several months, already has more than 1,200 commands in its library and over 200,000 regular users, according to Mozilla.
Mozilla claims that power could be put to good use. "The basic idea behind Taskfox is simple: take the time-saving ideas behind Ubiquity, and put them into Firefox," the Taskfox wiki claims.
"That means allowing users to quickly access information and perform tasks that would normally take several steps to complete."
Labels: software
Monday, March 30, 2009
More on the Firefox book sprint
One of the more interesting events at DocTrain West 2009 was the Firefox book sprint, in which a team of writers created a manual for Firefox in two days. Eddie VanArsdall was one of the participants, and in this post he talks about what the experience was like and what it showed him about open source publishing tools.
Having seen a demo of the FLOSS Manuals site last fall, I looked forward to the Firefox book sprint with eagerness and curiosity. I had never participated in a real-time, collaborative writing event of that magnitude. So on March 16 and 17, I joined several writers in a conference room in Rancho Mirage, with other writers participating remotely from other US states and other countries. Our goal was to produce and publish a manual for the Firefox browser in two days.
After participating in the book sprint and using the FLOSS Manuals TWiki publishing platform, I am now a wiki publishing convert. Granted, a complete publishing solution takes quite a bit of customized development, but the FLOSS Manuals platform exemplifies the possibilities.
Labels: software, technical communication
MacSnapper, a Mac documentation tool
MacSnapper is a documentation tool for the Macintosh. It can output to PDF, HTML or WordPress formats. Given the Mac lineage, it looks straightforward and highly graphical. You can view the documentation for it, which was created with MacSnapper.
Labels: software, technical communication
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Some neat new IE8 features
The Word 2007 Bible Blog strays from its usual Word focus to look at some interesting new features in Internet Explorer 8, which has just been released. I generally use Firefox, and I don't see anything here that's absolutely compelling, but it is nice to see some focus on usability in this new version. Some of the tab and session management features particularly useful.
How to use BitTorrent like a pro
Since it's development a few years ago, the BitTorrent protocol has become the dominant method of sharing files and downloading content, both legal and illegal, on the Internet. While many people avoid using it because of its association with pirated software and illegal music downloads, there are many legitimate uses - for example, downloading large game demos or Linux distributions. Gizmodo has a good guide to using BitTorrent, which is aimed at people already using BitTorrent but who want to learn more advanced features. But it's well enough done, that it should help new users as well.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Google contacts
Google now has a page that will let you easily manage your GMail contacts. You can also import contacts from other email programs. The page doesn't list Thunderbird as one of the supported programs, oddly enough. I did export my contacts from Thunderbird as a CSV file and imported them into Google's contact list -- it worked, but will require some manual cleanup. Still, it's nice to have all of my home contacts available online.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Google Docs gets some new features
Lifehacker points out that Google Docs has just been enhanced with a search and replace toolbar and a simple drawing application. The search and replace includes wildcards and partial and whole word searches. The drawing application is pretty basic, but will do for simple diagrams and saves in SVG format.
Labels: software
Friday, March 20, 2009
Useful colour utility
Have you ever needed to match a colour in a Word or FrameMaker document that you're working on - for example, make the headings the same colour as a web page. And of course, you don't have the colour values that the web designer used. There's a simple solution - ColorPix. It's a small, free utility that will display the colour values (in several formats) just by hovering its cursor over the object. Neat. And useful.
Labels: software
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Five steps to MadCap Flare
Today seems to be the day for pushing stuff about MadCap Software products. Users of Flare who need help mastering its complexities now have a third-party book to help them, Five Steps to MadCap Flare by Lorraine Kupka and Joy Underhill. The authors say:
Based on the PDF of the TOC, introduction, and sample chapter that's available for viewing online, I'd say that anyone using Flare would find their $50 well spent.
This book is intended for new Flare users. If you’ve been using Flare
for some time and are seeking a book that describes every feature
and concept, this isn’t the book for you.
Our hope is that by stepping through this book, you’ll be able to
successfully plan for and create a Flare project. It won’t have all the
bells and whistles that you can create with Flare, but it will produce
clean online or print output.
Once you’ve mastered the Flare user interface—and have a good
idea of how to build a project using Flare—you’ll be able to learn
more as you use Flare to create more complex projects.
Flare is like an onion. You learn it by peeling back layers one a time
as you gain experience. Our goal is to help you peel back that first
layer—without any tears!
Based on the PDF of the TOC, introduction, and sample chapter that's available for viewing online, I'd say that anyone using Flare would find their $50 well spent.
Labels: books, software, technical communication
Another review of Blaze
A couple of months ago, I published a review of Blaze, Madcap Software's new print publishing tool. Now there's another review, even longer and more detailed than mine, by Geoff Hart, who will be familiar to readers of Intercom and the techwr-l mailing list. Like me, he found some rough edges, but still sees Blaze as a compelling alternative to Word and FrameMaker.
Does Blaze live up to its promise? Like any version 1.x product, Blaze has a few rough edges, as I’ve noted in this review. In particular, the interface isn’t as intuitive or well-organized as in a more mature product like Word or InDesign; it’s not that the software interface is dysfunctional in any way, but rather that it's simply not as refined as older products. A particular problem is how overwhelming the workspace appears at first glance; the disadvantage of such powerful software is that its power makes it intimidating, and that makes it harder than necessary for newcomers to overcome their intimidation and start learning. Aspects such as the XML Editor lack the power and refinement of more advanced editing tools such as Word. The lack of a tutorial, the mediocre indexes in the documentation, and a few glitches in the Help file need some attention. There are also no scripting tools or macros, which means you’ll need a third-party tool such as MacroExpress (http://www.macroexpress.com/) to automate repetitive actions.
These caveats aside, if all the software's features work as well for long documents as they did in my test, Blaze will pose an increasingly credible challenge to both Word and Frame as its interface matures and as MadCap fills in some of the abovementioned gaps in the product's features. Whether you'll enjoy using the software is another matter entirely. Most of us develop strong preferences for how software should work, and the longer we spend mastering a solution such as Word or InDesign, the more resistant we become to changing our work habits to adapt to new software. I found Blaze large enough (and unfamiliar enough after several years away from the world of topic-based authoring tools) that I couldn't get comfortable with the software during my short experience. Had I taken formal training with the software, and spent more time using Blaze until I became comfortable with it, I suspect I'd have liked it better. For now, I can say that its breadth of features makes it a powerful and complex tool that will repay your investment of time learning its idiosyncrasies and becoming comfortable with it—but the longer you've been working with other software, the harder you'll need to work.
Labels: software, technical communication
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Convert CHM to web-based help
chm2web is an application to convert compiled Microsoft HTML Help (.chm) files to a web-based format that any browser can read. While you might think that it's kind of superfluous if you're already using a help-authoring tool like RoboHelp or WebWorks ePublisher, there are a lot of legacy HTML Help files floating around large organizations, and in many cases the original source files aren't available. It's not free, but it is reasonably priced for a utility.
There's another possible workflow, which was suggested in a comment on the Yahoo Help Authoring Tools and Techniques group. You could use this tool to convert DITA-based files to good-looking web-based help. One of the limitations of the DITA Open Toolkit is that the XHTML output is pretty basic. It does, however, do a decent .chm file. You could write DITA topics in an editor or tool like FrameMaker, create a .chm file with the DITA Open Toolkit, and then use chm2web to build web-based help.
There's another possible workflow, which was suggested in a comment on the Yahoo Help Authoring Tools and Techniques group. You could use this tool to convert DITA-based files to good-looking web-based help. One of the limitations of the DITA Open Toolkit is that the XHTML output is pretty basic. It does, however, do a decent .chm file. You could write DITA topics in an editor or tool like FrameMaker, create a .chm file with the DITA Open Toolkit, and then use chm2web to build web-based help.
Labels: DITA, software, technical communication
Monday, March 16, 2009
DITADoclet for Java documentation
IBM developers have released the DITADoclet for producing DITA-compatible Java documentation. Essentially, it produces output similar to the Javadoc tool, but in DITA format, so you can do a lot more with the output than with the output of the standard Javadoc tool. This IBM DeveloperWorks article tells you all you'll need to know to get started. I wish I had this when I was working at Daleen several years ago.
In this article, you will learn how to use DITADoclet, DITA Java API specialization, and the Eclipse IDE to create Java API reference documentation for easy distribution in many formats. DITADoclet generates the DITA Java API files, automatically creates the DITAMAP and MAPLIST files (DITA Java API specialization) for the Java API reference documentation, extracts the developer comments from the Java source code, and migrates the information to the generated DITA API files.
Typically, the Javadoc tool from Sun Microsystems is used to generate Java API reference documentation from Java source code. The Javadoc tool generates the basic structure for the Java API reference documentation, but the documentation is often incomplete and limited to developer comments. Changes to development teams appear to encourage removal of the API writers and editors from the Java API reference documentation process altogether. Developers have time to manage only Java source code files with incomplete comments. This situation clearly presents API writers and others who are interested in producing high quality API documentation with some substantial challenges.
The DITADoclet and DITA Java API solution provides API writers with the tools to generate fully documented Java APIs. A fully documented API can serve several purposes, but the most important reason is to allow the API users to fully understand, search, and browse the API functions that are available to them. To completely use the functionality of the API, software users require an accurate and fully documented API.
Labels: DITA, software, technical communication
Fotoflexer - another web-based photo editor
I blogged recently about the Pixlr online photo editor. I just came across yet another web-based photo editor - Fotoflexer, which if it doesn't have more features than Pixlr, might be a bit easier to use for the average user. About the only thing that I'd use that I didn't see in it is a straighten tool.
With all of these tools becoming available online and mostly for free, you have to wonder who's buying photo editing suites these days.
With all of these tools becoming available online and mostly for free, you have to wonder who's buying photo editing suites these days.
Labels: photography, software
Friday, March 13, 2009
PDF-to-Word web tool
PDF-to-Word is a web based application that does just one thing - convert PDF files to Word format, either DOC or RTF. And it does a pretty good job too, based on the file I sent it as a test. It took about half an hour to email the file back to me, and it was very close to the original PDF file.
This will be a handy tool for those who don't have a full copy of Acrobat to use for conversion.
This will be a handy tool for those who don't have a full copy of Acrobat to use for conversion.
Labels: Microsoft Word, software
Monday, March 02, 2009
Adobe Video Workshop
Adobe Video Workshop is a library of tutorial videos on Adobe products. Unfortunately, there aren't yet any on FrameMaker or RoboHelp, but there are quite a few on Acrobat.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Reduce Firefox memory usage
Here's a simple about.config hack that will substantially reduce the amount of memory that Firefox takes up when it's minimized. In my case it freed up about 50 MB of RAM - not an insignificant amount even on a fast PC with 2 GB of RAM.
Labels: software
10 features you can add to GMail
Google's GMail is pretty powerful on its own, but GMail Labs has been extending it with new features. Here's a set of 10 features you can add to GMail to make it even more useful, including multiple in boxes, extra stars for flagging mail, and offline browsing.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Review of MadCap Lingo 2
MadCap Software have just introduced updates to several of their tools, including Lingo, Capture, and Mimic. I'd Rather Be Writing has a review of Lingo 2, MadCaps's translation memory tool, exploring some of the new features.
Labels: software, technical communication
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Web-based photo editors compared
You can now do some fairly sophisticated photo editing in a web-based editor, but which one is best? Here's a comparison of 15 web-based photo-editors, most of which I have to admit I've never heard of. I was watching my daughter use Picnick the other day and was pretty impressed both by what she could do with it and the features built into the program.
Labels: software
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
How to get more out of Google Docs
I find myself using Google Docs more and more - it's especially handy for creating drafts of blog posts and short articles, and since it's online, I can get at my documents from anywhere I have net access. Google Docs is pretty basic compared to Word or FrameMaker, but there are some sophisticated features hidden behind its simple interface.
Wired has a series of tips on how to get more out of Google Docs. Technical writers will be interested in the tip that shows how to add page and section numbers.
Wired has a series of tips on how to get more out of Google Docs. Technical writers will be interested in the tip that shows how to add page and section numbers.
Labels: software
New security flaw in Acrobat
According to InfoWorld, there's yet another security flaw in Adobe Acrobat. Until Adobe patches this one, be very careful about what PDFs you open.
Update: This Slashdot post links to a couple of ways of defanging the flaw: one o homebrew patch and the other a registry key change.
The flaw affects version 9 of Reader and Acrobat as well as earlier versions, according to Adobe's advisory. A buffer overflow condition can be triggered by opening a specially-crafted PDF, which gives the attackers control of the computer. Shadowserver wrote that the flaw could be exploited on systems running Microsoft's Windows XP SP3.
Adobe called the flaw "critical," it's most severe rating, and said it will release a patch for Reader 9 and Acrobat 9 by March 11. The company said patches for version 8 of Reader and Acrobat will follow, then finally for version 7 of Reader and Acrobat.
Update: This Slashdot post links to a couple of ways of defanging the flaw: one o homebrew patch and the other a registry key change.
LovelyCharts - a web-based Visio clone
I use Visio a lot at work for charts and simple diagrams. I used to use CorelDraw! but switched to Visio almost immediately after it came out. Visio was just so much easier to use. But it's not part of the standard Microsoft Office suite, so a lot of people don't have it. Now we have Lovely Charts, a web-based diagramming application that is just as easy to use as Visio.
Although it doesn't have many of Visio's features, what it does have will be more than adequate for many users. You can create flow charts, sitemaps, network diagrams, and a few other basic diagram types. It requires registration, but it's free for a basic account, which unfortunately allows you to save only one diagram at a time. You can upgrade to a professional account for 29 Euros/year.
I wonder how long it'll be before Google buys them?
Although it doesn't have many of Visio's features, what it does have will be more than adequate for many users. You can create flow charts, sitemaps, network diagrams, and a few other basic diagram types. It requires registration, but it's free for a basic account, which unfortunately allows you to save only one diagram at a time. You can upgrade to a professional account for 29 Euros/year.
I wonder how long it'll be before Google buys them?
Labels: software
Sunday, February 22, 2009
InDesign Secrets
I don't use Adobe InDesign, but if I did, I'd be spending a lot of time at InDesign Secrets. As well as providing a lot of tips and resources, they also have a podcast and a videocast.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Version control for writers
Cory Doctorow has a post on BoingBoing in which he discusses how he uses an open-source program called Flashbake to keep differing versions (every 15 minutes) of all the files he's working on.
I don't know if it would have value for the type of work I do, but I can certainly see the value for creative writers (and any academics who would be studying them in the future).
I was prompted to do this after discussions with several digital archivists who complained that, prior to the computerized era, writers produced a series complete drafts on the way to publications, complete with erasures, annotations, and so on. These are archival gold, since they illuminate the creative process in a way that often reveals the hidden stories behind the books we care about. By contrast, many writers produce only a single (or a few) digital files that are modified right up to publication time, without any real systematic records of the interim states between the first bit of composition and the final draft.
Enter Flashbake. Every 15 minutes, Flashbake looks at any files that you ask it to check (I have it looking at all my fiction-in-progress, my todo list, my file of useful bits of information, and the completed electronic versions of my recent books), and records any changes made since the last check, annotating them with the current timezone on the system-clock, the weather in that timezone as fetched from Google, and the last three headlines with your by-line under them in your blog's RSS feed (I've been characterizing this as "Where am I, what's it like there, and what am I thinking about?"). It also records your computer's uptime. For a future version, I think it'd be fun to have the most recent three songs played by your music player.
The effect of this is to thoroughly -- exhaustively -- annotate the entire creative process, almost down to the keystroke level. Want to know what day you wrote a particular passage? Flashbake can tell you. Want to know what passage you wrote on a given day? That too. Plus, keeping track of my todo.txt file means that I get a searchable database of all the todo items I've ever used, with timestamps for their appearance and erasure.
I don't know if it would have value for the type of work I do, but I can certainly see the value for creative writers (and any academics who would be studying them in the future).
Labels: software
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Microsoft to debut new Help compiler
Microsoft will be showing a new client help system at the next WinWriters conference at the end of March. According to the announcement:
This is exciting news. With Adobe AIR, there are now some new alternatives to the traditional help systems.
Microsoft Help 3 is a new client help system! This help system has been built from the ground up with simplicity, performance and relevance in mind. It was not a straightforward road in getting the project approved, and with a large legacy content base and complex content scenarios, it took a lot of long and heated design discussions with a will to favor simplicity. The end result is a greatly improved deployment model, a fast underlying architecture based on the Zip storage standard and a beautiful new Windows Presentation Foundation based help viewer featuring a web-browser feel. Initially shipping as the product help system for the next wave of Visual Studio products, this system will become available to all Windows developers in the near future. This will be the first wide release of a help system from Microsoft since Help 1.
This is exciting news. With Adobe AIR, there are now some new alternatives to the traditional help systems.
Labels: Microsoft, software, technical communication
Friday, February 13, 2009
Can SharePoint be used as a help authoring tool?
Tom Johnson continues to explore the world of SharePoint. In this post he tries to answer the question "Can SharePoint 2007 be used as a help authoring tool?". If you're a technical writer who thinks that SharePoint might be part of your future, this post is definitely worth reading.
Overall, SharePoint can be a good solution for help content, but it certainly has limitations. If creating a comprehensive printed manual isn’t necessary, it can be an attractive format because you can take advantage of the blog and wiki formats, which do function adequately. If you have multiple authors all contributing content, or a team that needs a dynamic way to exchange information, SharePoint is a good choice.
On the other hand, if you’re tasked with building several role-based guides, and you need both online help and printed manuals, SharePoint won’t work for you. But remember, the printed manual is dying. You could get away with some quick reference guides instead, referring the user to the SharePoint site for more advanced questions. (You’ll still always get the question, “Where can I print all this out?”)
Labels: Microsoft, software, technical communication
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Merging DITA and WordPress
WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms. Now there's a tool that will let you import the XHTML output from the DITA Open Toolkit into a WordPress blog. As Tom Johnson points out, this fills a big gap, providing a good looking webhelp-like output format. Tom also provides a video that demonstrates the process.
Labels: DITA, software, technical communication
Monday, February 09, 2009
Windows screen capture tools reviewed
WritersUA has published a lengthy and detailed review of screen capture tools for Windows, which includes FullShot 9.5, HyperSnap 6.4, MadCap Capture 3, RoboScreen Capture 2, ScreenHunter 5 Free, SnagIt 9.1, and TNT Screen Capture 2.1. The article also includes a feature comparison chart.
I've been using SnagIt for a while now and have no hesitation in recommending it, but your mileage may vary. In any case, any one of these dedicated tools will be far better than trying work with the PrintScreen command and a graphics editor program.
I've been using SnagIt for a while now and have no hesitation in recommending it, but your mileage may vary. In any case, any one of these dedicated tools will be far better than trying work with the PrintScreen command and a graphics editor program.
Of course, it's possible to do almost all of this by pressing+ to copy the active window to the clipboard, and then pasting it into your favorite image-editing application. However, for each screen capture this requires you to go through the same set of actions in order to crop, set the color depth, add borders or edge effects, and finally save it. If you only take the occasional screen capture, then this is fine. But it can become extremely tedious and time-consuming if you have a large number of screens to capture.
This is where screen capture tools come into their own—they are designed to speed up the process by automating the tasks that you would otherwise have to complete using your regular imaging editing application.
Labels: software, technical communication
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Artificial perfection
I don't listen to a lot of current commercial pop music - my tastes run more to jazz, blues, folk, and improvisational rock. But it's pretty hard to avoid when you have teenagers, and I've noticed that the vocal tracks from singers who are known to be barely able to carry a tune still sound oddly perfect. There's a reason for that - a software program called Auto-une. Time has an article describing how the prevalent use of Auto-Tune and other similar tools is affecting modern pop music.
Of the half a dozen engineers and producers interviewed for this story, none could remember a pop recording session in the past few years when Auto-Tune didn't make a cameo--and none could think of a singer who would want that fact known. "There's no shame in fixing a note or two," says Jim Anderson, professor of the Clive Davis department of recorded music at New York University and president of the Audio Engineering Society. "But we've gone far beyond that."
Some Auto-Tuning is almost unavoidable. Most contemporary music is composed on Pro Tools, a program that lets musicians and engineers record into a computer and map out songs on a visual grid. You can cut at one point on the grid and paste at another, just as in word-processing, but making sure the cuts match up requires the even pitch that Auto-Tune provides. "It usually ends up just like plastic surgery," says a Grammy-winning recording engineer. "You haul out Auto-Tune to make one thing better, but then it's very hard to resist the temptation to spruce up the whole vocal, give everything a little nip-tuck." Like plastic surgery, he adds, more people have had it than you think. "Let's just say I've had Auto-Tune save vocals on everything from Britney Spears to Bollywood cast albums. And every singer now presumes that you'll just run their voice through the box."
Labels: music, software, technology
Saturday, February 07, 2009
InDesign and Acrobat tutorials
Layers Magazine bills itself as "the how-to magazine for everything Adobe". They have a large selection of tutorials on Adobe products, but FrameMaker is conspicuous by its absence. However, there is a section on InDesign, which is gaining some traction among technical writers as Adobe adds more long-document features to it with each release.
They also have a section of Acrobat tutorials, several of which describe Acrobat's reviewing and commenting tools.
They also have a section of Acrobat tutorials, several of which describe Acrobat's reviewing and commenting tools.
Labels: software
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Google group for Adobe TCS
Users of the Adobe Technical Communication Suite who are looking for support outside of Adobe's own forums might want to check out the Google group for the Adobe Technical Communication Suite. It doesn't appear heavily used, so a few more members might help.
Labels: software, technical communication
FrameMaker 9 review
Scriptorium have published a detailed review of FrameMaker 9. While the new interface has some useful usability enhancements, there are also some bugs. If you're thinking of upgrading (and I doubt there are very many FrameMaker users who aren't at least considering it), you definitely want to the 9-page review (PDF).
Labels: FrameMaker, software, technical communication
Monday, February 02, 2009
Customizing a SharePoint site
Tom Johnson is using SharePoint at work and has put some of his experience into a long post explaining how to customize a SharePoint site. If you use SharePoint at work, this is a post worth reading.
In another post, he explains how you can simplify the process of adding screen videos, created with Jing, for your users so that only a few mouse clicks are necessary.
Customizing a SharePoint site is not necessary — you can use the default theme or related themes straight from the box. And this is really how SharePoint was intended to be used by the mainstream. But if you don’t want your SharePoint site to look like the hundred other SharePoint sites at your company, you can customize the look and feel. This is something I’ve been experimenting with.
In another post, he explains how you can simplify the process of adding screen videos, created with Jing, for your users so that only a few mouse clicks are necessary.
Labels: software, technical communication
Friday, January 30, 2009
Hexadecimal conversion and more
Palimpsest points out a nifty web-based conversion utility that will convert characters to hexadecimal to Unicode. If you do web or XML development, this will come in handy.
Labels: software
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Pixlr - another good online photo editor
It seems that web applications just keep getting better and more powerful. A good example is Pixlr, an online photo editor that has a good chunk of Photoshop's capabilities in a simple and fast interface. It even does layers. The Globe and and Mail says:
Pixlr in particular is rather eerie in just how closely it recreates Photoshop's feature set—it even incorporates Photoshop's concept of layers. What once was a revolutionary new feature can now be achieved inside your web browser for free.
Of course, not all of Photoshop's features are recreated here, and there are a few rough edges—you can't create anti-aliased text, for example, and many features are simplified, so that you can't apply blending effects to layers or set different parameters on the blur filter. But the simplification works both ways—Pixlr's also a lot easier to use, and for people who just want to edit a few photos on the go, especially in places like internet cafes where installing software is impossible, Pixlr's perfect.
Labels: photography, software
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Sitepoint web developer's reference and tool
I posted the other day about Sitepoint's beginner's guide to HTML. But they've got quite a bit more that's worth looking at. They've introduced a new reference site for HTML, CSS, and Javascript. The CSS reference will be especially useful for anyone using a modern help authoring tool, like RoboHelp 8, Flare, or WebWorks ePublisher.
To add to that, they've introduced a Firefox extension called Firescope that extends the capabilities of the popular Firebug developer's extension to give it even more power.
Based on what I've seen so far, the Sitepoint reference is among the very best out there and the Firescope extension makes it even more useful.
Now, if they'd just come out with an XML and XSLT reference ...
To add to that, they've introduced a Firefox extension called Firescope that extends the capabilities of the popular Firebug developer's extension to give it even more power.
Based on what I've seen so far, the Sitepoint reference is among the very best out there and the Firescope extension makes it even more useful.
Now, if they'd just come out with an XML and XSLT reference ...
Labels: Internet, reference, software
Free help desk software
Technical writers often act as an unofficial extension of their company's help desk when it comes to issues with Microsoft Word or other writing-related problems. And for larger writing groups, help desks often aren't much help, as they don't have the background knowledge or experience with the software a writer users. ("FrameMaker? What's that? Why aren't you using Word like everybody else?")
Writing groups who want to track solutions to their problems might consider using the free version of Web Help Desk software. Anmong many other features, the software allows you to set up and track trouble tickets and to create a knowledge base.
Small groups would probably be better served with a wiki), but Web Help Desk might be a worthwhile approach for larger writing groups.
Writing groups who want to track solutions to their problems might consider using the free version of Web Help Desk software. Anmong many other features, the software allows you to set up and track trouble tickets and to create a knowledge base.
Small groups would probably be better served with a wiki), but Web Help Desk might be a worthwhile approach for larger writing groups.
Labels: software, technical communication
