Tech Writer Today Magazine - TechWhirl
Technical writing and technical communications news, articles and resources for technical writers and technical communicators.
I first heard about Write the Docs conference, held in Portland, OR, on April 8-9, on the TECHWR-L email discussion list. But when I first looked at the conference schedule, I thought, “Wait, not a single name involved sounds familiar. Who are these people?” Continue reading ...
I have been beta-testing MadCap Flare 9 as a TechWhirl assignment, but also with an eye for making a software tool choice for a company that has a huge quantity of complex legacy content. To that end, I tested Flare’s conversion capabilities with various documents, help systems, and books, which had been created over a long period of time in a variety of formats. Continue reading ...
Like some other lucky people, I won free passes to SXSW Eco, a conference "committed to finding solutions for a sustainable world," which was held October 3-5 this year. I am not an ecologist, city planner, or environmental engineer. Would I be able to get anything from a conference that was quite far from my typical work life? As it turned out, most definitely. Continue reading ...
My most technical day of the LavaCon 2012 conference occurred on the final morning when I focused on working with DITA by attending two sessions: "Migrating to DITA: How Automated Conversion Works and Why it Matters" (with Patrick Baker of Stilo International) and "Collaboration and Instantiation: Engineering Content in DITA XML" (with Cheri Mullins, of Mullins Consulting, discussing her work at AMD). Continue reading ...
Compared to some other speeches I have heard from Scott, his LavaCon 2012 opening keynote was somewhat subdued, due to at least in part to the head cold he picked up at another recent conference--we know because he apologized on Twitter for being under the influence of sinus meds. However, Scott Abel, in a subdued and medicated state, can still beat just about any speaker for enthusiasm and contagious excitement. I also found this address to be very positively-focused. Continue reading ...
In the summer of 1993, I had an enjoyable university summer job. The research interests of the institute that employed me included creating an artificial intelligence system that could produce automatic précis of legal judgments. The idea was that humans like me would create a précis by hand, by selecting enough sentences from the judgment that it provided a reliable summary. My selections were recorded, and the idea then was to use neural network software to learn from the work of the human editors so that the process of creating a précis could be automated. The researchers had uncovered certain linguistic insights. Continue reading ...
E-books are not a new, or even recent, phenomenon. I encountered my first e-book no later than 1994 (although it might have been earlier) with Project Gutenberg, which was started by Michael Hart in 1971 when he started typing classic texts into his mainframe computer terminal. But the role of e-books has changed drastically in the past few years, and now more e-books are sold than hardcover books. Continue reading ...
Alan J. Porter's LavaCon Conference 2012 presentation, "Five Ways to Make Executives Love Content Development", provided a set of tools for promoting the value and importance of various forms of content development, including technical communication and technical illustration. Technical communicators must understand what the actual purpose of their company is, which is not the same knowing as what the company produces or does. A company might make drill bits for mining equipment, for example, but its real purpose is to help miners mine minerals effectively. With this understanding, technical communicators can better focus their messages, and also understand the importance of content development to the company's real purpose. Continue reading ...
Adam Polansky, recognized as a founding pioneer in the field of information architecture (IA), is an unusual mix of eclectic tactician and IA visionary. Before he entered the IT world, Adam had variously been a member of the military, an illustrator for an advertising agency, and a retail manager, among other roles. Lois Patterson sat down with Adam Polansky at LavaCon to talk information architecture, empathy, user experience & goals for technical communications projects. Continue reading ...