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Duration: 15 min.

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In this podcast, Sarah O’Keefe talks about XSL, Flash, and live blogging. XSL (extensible stylesheet language) is a programming language that transforms XML content into a specific format, such as HTML. She explains what you can do with XSL, why it’s unique, and how the output is created.

Sarah also presented on Flash. Flash comes easier for people who are visual thinkers, she says. She recommends people learn Adobe Illustrator first, because many of the concepts transfer to Flash. Flash is basically Illustrator with a timeline — a collection of images that combine to form a motion. Flash can be good for animating conceptual topics you’re trying to clarify.

Sarah recently used Flash in a white paper she wrote titled “Friend of Foe: Web 2.0 in Technical Communication.” She embedded Flash videos in the PDF to illustrate concepts and engage readers (although some readers didn’t realize they were supposed to click the Play button).

Finally, Sarah talks about live blogging — the process of posting notes and writeups in almost real time from sessions you attend. Why live blog? She says it’s fun, keeps your attention, and helps you focus on the main point of the presentation.

She also relates some unexpected experiences of presenters who read her live blogs and confronted her about some of her observations.

Sara’s blog is at Palimpsest: http://scriptorium.com/palimpsest/. Her company is called Scriptorium.

Here are a few of Sarah’s latest posts from Doc Train:

• A Quarky new approach?
• In.Vision Xpress Author for Microsoft Word
• Document Engineering in User Experience Design
• Social Media 101 / Now Everyone’s a Technical Writer