Tech Writer Today Magazine - TechWhirl
Technical writing and technical communications news, articles and resources for technical writers and technical communicators.
Is this your year to jump on a plane and join the fun in Wiesbaden this year’s tcworld Conference and tekom Trade Fair? It's easier than you think to be part of the 4,000 attendee extravaganza in Wiesbaden, Germany. You'll want to make certain the costs are manageable, the right travel papers, a place to say and enough room in the suite case for that stout you owe TechWhirl for convincing you, but why not head off the Europe for this fantastic event? Continue reading ...
On Monday, June 11, 2012 GrapeCity announced the acquisition of Pittsburgh based ComponentOne Software. While close strategic partners since the 1990s, this announcement nonetheless took many in the industry by surprise. Dan Beall, Product Manager for ComponentOne’s Doc-To-Help software, added some detail to the acquisition, how it has affected his team, and what fans of this software should expect in the future. Continue reading ...
During a talk with Alan Houser, the incoming President for the Society for Technical Communication (STC), we touched on his background, company, work in the STC, and his plans for the upcoming year. Alan talked about the Chinese proverb or the Chinese curse, which says “may you live in interesting times,” and how the current economic turmoil is impacting friends, colleagues and relatives. His vision for the STC in the coming year includes "working to assist our members while we leverage what I think is the most exciting time in the history of this profession." Continue reading ...
Dmitri Ragano understands global. He is currently a senior manager, Internet Applications at Herbalife, a global nutrition company. And, he as good reason since his experience ranges from working in mobile communications in Japan to supporting Fortune 50 companies at Razorfish in the late 90s. He’s a world traveler, a content strategist and the published author of Employee of the Year, which can be purchased on Amazon. Dimitri sat down with Al Martine of TechWhirl a while ago to discuss, shifts and trends in the world of content strategy, effective content teams and his views on making a global content value chain successful. Continue reading ...
Matt Sullivan is the Director of Training for roundpeg, inc, which is a certified Adobe and Web Technology training company. In addition to his director's role at roundpeg, Matt often represents Adobe products at conferences throughout the year. He is an Adobe Certified Trainer for their eLearning and Tech Comm Suite products, as well as an avid surfer, volleyball player and skier. He was kind enough to sit down with TechWhirl a little while ago to discuss training, Adobe and the world of technical communications during an hour-long interview. Continue reading ...
We here at TechWhirl (read Connie, me and about 20 volunteers) are always looking for better ways to collaborate since none of us live in the same city. Sure, there are plenty of tools for sharing information like, well the telephone or email; or if we go all web 2.0, the awesomeness that is Dropbox. But in our experiences, there are few, if any, really great collaborative work management tools out there that allow teams across time and space to effectively do work together in anything close to real-time. We had the opportunity to road test MindManager 2012 and MindJet Connect for our coverage of the LavaCon Conference and here's the report on how they performed. Continue reading ...
It’s time for us to apply a more integrated thinking to our views and the resulting activities so not only can we be more effective, but also provide a better experience for the users of our information. In this article we propose the strategic idea of Integrated Technical Communications. We invite you to read it and let us know your thoughts. Sponsored by Adobe Systems Inc. Continue reading ...
Join Connie, Craig and Al for our First Annual TechWhirl Halloween Playhouse.We converted a few of our Halloween articles and regular articles into online plays. You may as well give the show a try since it doesn't cost anything. No really, this one is completely free since there's no way we could charge for it. Our show contains bad Halloween jokes, variable audio levels and some pretty good music. Continue reading ...
Join us for TechWhirl's first podcast. This month we're talking about documenting user interfaces and how technical writers (and communicators) can keep up with those pesky developers. Podcast can be downloaded or streamed. Go on, click. You know you want too. Continue reading ...