ITauthor

Here's what I've been saying elsewhere.

My last 10 posts on Writer River

Syndicated from Writer River: Tech Comm Social News.

• The Writer’s Rough Guide to Everything Flare

  A useful tip for Madcap Flare users:

  Why you should not use the ‘print’ medium for printed manuals and other printed deliverables

• Gryphon Mountain Journals » Quick Reference Guide Presentation

  Quick Reference Guides – Short and Sweet Technical Documentation

• Room for Debate Blog – NYTimes.com

  Happy Birthday, Strunk and White!

  Elements of Style gets another rough ride.

• A Tech Writer’s World

  The Matter of Dark Text

  Dark text refers to the many layers of hidden meaning in any text segment. It ranges from the implied meaning that the author intended, or that the reader infers, to much deeper, more hidden meanings.

  Some nice examples in this post by Andrew Brooke.

• mike’s web log

  Spotted by Mike Pope.
  More instructions we probably didn’t need:
  

  

• MadCap Softwear – from Flare to Flair

  BREAKING NEWS: MadCap Software To Become MadCap Softwear

  Michael Hamilton, MadCap vice president, product management, said “From day one, Flare has been very competitive in the HAT world. There’s no reason to think we won’t do extremely well when it comes to actual hats.”

  (Thanks to Graham Campbell for spotting this great news story!)

• Tech Writer Voices: Managing Writers

  Managing Writers: Interview with Richard Hamilton (podcast)

  Tom Johnson and Richard Hamilton talk about issues that documentation managers commonly encounter. The tone and pace of this podcast makes it less like an interview and more like you’re just listening in on a really interesting conversation.

  I’d already ordered my copy of Richard’s book before listening to this podcast and, having heard the podcast, I’m now hoping the book will arrive soon.

• Kungfuwit: Autotarbat for Flare

  Lessons from shifting perspectives: Technical Writing to Code Development of a simple utility for Flare and Blaze.

• Amy Hoy – How Tech Writing Sucks

  How Tech Writing Sucks: The Five Sins

  1. Losing the reader
  2. Making the reader feel stupid
  3. Failing to stick
  4. Being a total bore
  5. Not providing much-needed context

  Amy Hoy’s witty article provides a useful boot up the backside for any of us who might have been getting a little complacent.

• Getting a Technical Writing Job

  Getting a Technical Writing Job, Even If You Have No Experience

  by Lyndsey Amott

My last 20 tweets

Syndicated from www.twitter.com/itauthor.

1. itauthor: @vinokoor Thanks. Glad you enjoyed the podcast. I must try doing another sometime soon.
   Tue, 31 Aug 2010 09:48:38 +0000
2. itauthor: Perspectives on a Career in Technical Writing from 16 Professionals http://bit.ly/cod3QE #techcomm #techwriting
   Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:42:44 +0000
3. itauthor: A gotcha to watch for if you embed Flash videos in your web pages: http://bit.ly/bfiLxz #techcomm #techwriting
   Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:25:39 +0000
4. itauthor: @mojoneill - thanks for the heads-up about the Camtasia 7 bug!
   Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:23:36 +0000
5. itauthor: RT @mojoneill: Camtasia 7 has been pretty solid for me. Just watch out for the wonky bug! ( http://bit.ly/cisN0a ) Still, a worthy update.
   Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:22:44 +0000
6. itauthor: I just blogged: "Help is just a search and a click away" - http://tinyurl.com/2d6fmsg #techcomm #techwriting
   Wed, 25 Aug 2010 22:22:05 +0000
7. itauthor: Wishing I had a copy of Camtasia 7. Sounds like they've added lots of great features: http://bit.ly/u3CDo #techwriting #techcomm
   Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:22:33 +0000
8. itauthor: I just blogged: "Deleting those pesky lines in Microsoft Word" - http://tinyurl.com/33wuf2h #techcomm #techwriting
   Mon, 23 Aug 2010 10:46:24 +0000
9. itauthor: Technical Writing: Instructions and the Rule of Seven http://bit.ly/dvW5TW #techwriting #techcomm
   Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:06:10 +0000
10. itauthor: Mark Metcalfe on tech writers learning to say yes: "'no' ends a conversation, 'yes' begins a collaboration" http://bit.ly/9Smf5B #techcomm
    Mon, 09 Aug 2010 19:49:57 +0000
11. itauthor: "... you're ignoring a sales tool & a revenue generator & you need to rethink your priorities." http://bit.ly/b3vAKs #techcomm #techwriting
    Mon, 09 Aug 2010 19:09:28 +0000
12. itauthor: "If your business hasn't been paying attention to your documentation ..." #techcomm #techwriting
    Mon, 09 Aug 2010 19:08:30 +0000
13. itauthor: Anyone know how to maximize Structure View in #Adobe #FrameMaker 9? It will only let me drag it so big and no more. #techcomm #techwriting
    Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:27:55 +0000
14. itauthor: I just blogged: "Perl basics for beginners (on Windows)" - http://tinyurl.com/2vvqkq2
    Sat, 07 Aug 2010 23:47:25 +0000
15. itauthor: I just blogged: "Gotchas with running a Perl script as a cron job" http://bit.ly/alksHv
    Tue, 03 Aug 2010 20:23:12 +0000
16. itauthor: Agile: You'll Know it When You See It, "Having slack time [for] late breaking ideas is not a luxury but a necessity" http://bit.ly/bkVRLS
    Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:11:53 +0000
17. itauthor: "The 25 Most Influential Technical Communicator Bloggers" http://bit.ly/cTIYz5 - Guess who sneaked in there at No.25? :-)
    Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:04:39 +0000
18. itauthor: I just blogged: "Madcap giveth and they taketh away" - http://tinyurl.com/3xkhe4o #techcomm #techwriting
    Thu, 29 Jul 2010 07:28:08 +0000
19. itauthor: I just blogged: "PHP: swapping round columns & rows in field/record data" - http://tinyurl.com/2dqsre4
    Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:09:47 +0000
20. itauthor: I just blogged: "Madcap fixes PushOK issue in Flare 6.1" - http://tinyurl.com/347n95v #techcomm #techwriting
    Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:30:27 +0000