Image by Ivan Walsh What do you want to see in Microsoft Office 2010? Arpan Shan, who has access to the beta versions at Microsoft, shares his favorite 10 Office 2010 features. Some of these you may already know, but he highlights some nice ideas that seem to be coming through. In Word 2010, for […]
Image via Wikipedia Lorem Ipsum is dummy text that has its origins in the printing and typesetting industry. It has been the printing industry’s standard dummy text since the 1500s, when a printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It came back into popularity in the 1960s […]
Goethe once wrote to a friend, “If I had more time, I’d have sent you a shorter letter.” Here’s why.
Sarah O’Keefe (Scriptorium) discusses STC’s new dues structure: Dues are going up; Printed publications are no longer included in basic dues; No chapter or SIG membership are included in the basic dues. She adds that while reaction is largely negative, she finds value from her STC membership and gives some examples and reasons to join/stay […]
Image via Wikipedia The STC recently increased its annual subscription rates to over $200 prompting howls of protest for technical writers. In response to this, it has come out and defended its position by justifying the price increases. Here’s my take on the key points.
Do you need spend hours trying to make all your photos be the same size, format, with your company watermarks added in the corner? How can you convert 100 images to same file format, add a 1 pixel black border, and make them all the same size in less that 5 minutes? Here’s how.
Does writing a blog constitute work? Forbes reports that the New York State Department of Labor recently declared a laid-off attorney ineligible for unemployment benefits as she was bringing in $1.30 a day from blog ads.
Image via Wikipedia I’ve being working from home now for almost seven years. Some contracts are on-site so I go to the office, but in general, I work in my home office. Actually, for the past 7 months, this means working in my bedroom. More on this later. I’m married, with a little nipper, and […]
Here is the simplest way to take a screenshot of a region, desktop, an entire webpage and also how to include the hyperlinks if you want to save the webpage as a SWF or PDF. We’re going to use SnagIt as our preferred tool for taking screenshots.
Cindy Curry (STC President) points out that the recession left the STC with a “loss of about $400,000 USD in principal and interest from our investments, which have traditionally been used to provide support for activities that have as yet no revenue source, such as the Body of Knowledge and other key committee work.”
Gordon McLean asks: do you plan to review your plan? This is in relation to the Documentation Plan (aka Information Development Plan) that most technical writers prepare in advance of starting a major project. Granted, on smaller projects you can get away with this if you know the product, have the resources and the deliverables […]
Most screenshot software doesn’t let you take a screen capture of the Windows menu bar. Here’s a workaround.
When you click on a line in Microsoft Visio and enter some text, it is automatically inserted in the middle of the line. How about if you want to move it to the side? Here’s how to do it.
Ben Minson makes some interesting points about the role of the STC (Society for Technical Communication) and the value it offers to its members. As an ‘outsider’ looking in, I have to confess to finding the STC a rather odd organization. A longer post is probably in order to discuss this.
This is the first part in a series of lessons on how to create professional-looking screenshots. We’ll start with the basics and walk you through more advanced techniques, such as blending, merging and adding special effects to your screenshots.