Why are most technical writing blog written by men? Do you think it’s true? This week’s newsletter also has updates on Technical Authoring tools such as ComponentOne’s Editable Data Portals for SharePoint, Morae 3.2 (Techsmith’s best kept secret), and the beta version Microsoft Visio 2010. Learn how to fix Adobe Distiller bugs with Technical Communications Suite , how checklists can save your life, RJ’s favorite FrameMaker Shortcuts, Twitter for Professional Development, some collaboration thoughts, the case for DITA training, and Practical Asset Reuse.
How to Fix Distiller Problem with Technical Communications Suite 2
Adobe explains how to overcome a bug in Technical Communications Suite 2. The problem relates to Distiller or Acrobat Pro 9 Extended, which gets installed as part of TCS2, don’t launch and they don’t accept the serial number available with you. The workaround is here:
How Checklists Can Save Your Life
Dr Atul Gawande has discovered that complex systems work, mostly through people using checklists. Furthermore, no matter how expert you were, well-designed checklists could improve outcomes. He developed a 90 second checklist that reduced surgical deaths and complications in eight hospitals around the world by more than 30%. Ellis on Cherryleaf discusses how low-cost checklists work, why some make matters worse and why others make matters better.
My Top 10 Favorite Adobe FrameMaker Keyboard Shortcuts
RJ Jacquez, Senior Product Evangelist at Adobe, gives the lowdown on his fav Adobe FrameMaker shortcuts. Some you may know, others are new to me. “I have been using Adobe FrameMaker since it was introduced by Frame Technology and one thing I enjoy about it, is using keyboard shortcuts instead of the mouse whenever possible. “
http://blogs.adobe.com/rjacquez/
ComponentOne Release Editable Data Portals in SharePoint
Technical writers who use Microsoft SharePoint Server products will be interested in this. This release lets you point, click, and connect to SharePoint Server lists, Microsoft SQL Server databases, Oracle databases, and Microsoft Office Excel files as a data source to display data sets, chart data, and map locations. Without writing any code, you can connect, configure, and style data views using the On-Board Designers available with each Web Part.
Morae 3.2 Sdds New Killer Features
Techsmith’s best kept secret, Morae, now lets you write your own Recorder and Manager plug-ins. One example of how you might use Morae’s new open architecture is the mouse path plug-in that lets you draw lines over the video to show mouse movement. Ideal for software and usability testing.
http://www.techsmith.com/morae/
Top 10 Benefits of Visio 2010 Beta
Visio, the diagramming tool for technical writes, business analysts, and web designers, is now in Beta. Some of the features look promising, especially for those who create complex data-driven visuals and need to share diagrams on the Web in real-time. You can download the Beta from here.
http://www.ihearttechnicalwriting.com
Twitter as a Professional Development Tool
Ben Minson explains that while Twitter has different uses for different people. For him, it’s primarily a professional development tool. “I follow a number of technical writers. I also follow the #techcomm hashtag. I keep Twitter open while I work. When someone I follow posts a link on a subject that I’m interested in, or an interesting link is posted to the #techcomm tag, I copy the link to my tasks list in Gmail with a few words from the person’s tweet so that I remember what it’s about.’
http://www.gryphonmountain.net
Collaboration thoughts
Anne Gentle on how ‘intense collaboration efforts can be inspirational’. She gives the example of, Adam Hyde, the founder of FLOSS Manuals, who recently tried out the new collaborative authoring platform, an open source product called Booki. ‘Last week they held a book sprint at Transmediale festival (www.transmediale.de). He was quite nervous about it – not only were they trying out a new collaborative authoring tool, but he also had not led a book sprint for a book that was not an instruction manual.’
Why Most Technical Writing Bloggers Are Men
Gordon McLean noticed something rather odd. It seems that many of the technical communications blogs he follows are written by men. ‘Given that, for the bulk of my career, I was usually outnumbered in many a Documentation department, with on one occasion when I was one guy in a team of six, I find this gender balance quite odd. Is it just me? Am I being over-sensitive about this?’
The Case for DITA training
Larry Kunz writes that 48.3% of technical writers who took a recent survey on DITA reported that they found it hard to shift from traditional technical writing to the topic-oriented paradigm. Yet a large majority — slightly more than two-thirds — also reported that they’d received no training from external consultants. How did you learn DITA?
Practical Asset Reuse
Scott Able reminds us that Digital Assets, unlike Text Assets, contain no clues from which to derive context – the "is-ness" and "about-ness" of the asset Digital assets present special challenges when it comes to tagging, metadata and taxonomies. Unlike text assets, there are no clues from which to derive context – the “is-ness” and “about-ness” of the asset.
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