A career in technical writing is a sedentary, almost motionless desk job. The greater endurance you have to sit still and keep your hands on the keyboard or mouse pad, the more productive you'll be. I am starting to miss working with my hands, and walking around. During the past few weeks, the "Mr-Fix-It" section in my brain kicked in. A while ago, I had the idea of fixing everything that is broken with my house. To list what I've been do...
100 Rejected Summit Proposals The call for STC Summit proposals is now open. Below are 100 Summit proposals that were rejected in the past. They may be helpful as you prepare your own submission. 100 Mistakes I Made During My First Hour as a Technical Writer Technical Writer Versus Technical Communicator Versus Technical Who Are We? Who ARE We? Robohelp Versus Flare: The Final Showdown, This Time the Matter Will Be Settled Physically Pr...
Findability / organizing content 1.0 New Series: Organizing Content [Organizing Content 1] 1.2 Introducing Project Swordfish [Organizing Content 2] 1.3 Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold [Organizing Content 3] ...
Findability / organizing content 1.0 New Series: Organizing Content [Organizing Content 1] 1.2 Introducing Project Swordfish [Organizing Content 2] 1.3 Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold [Organizing Content 3] ...
In working with clients on WordPress projects, I routinely run across people who forget their WordPress username and password. Fortunately, if you still remember the FTP username and password, just upload this "emergency.php" script from Yoast to your root directory, go to http://yoursite.com/emergency.php, and voila, you can change your WordPress username and password. You may need to download the wp-config.php file to grab the database ...
Findability / organizing content 1.0 New Series: Organizing Content [Organizing Content 1] 1.2 Introducing Project Swordfish [Organizing Content 2] 1.3 Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold [Organizing Content 3] ...
Yesterday a couple of people asked me how to embed videos into WordPress posts. Rather than copying the entire embed code that youtube provides, you can actually just insert the link to the video into your post. WordPress will then pull the video in. This is a feature called auto-embed.
This week, after Mindtouch released its top 25 elite blogger list, most of the tech comm blogosphere was taking bows and saying congratulations and writing posts that began I'm-so-honored and wow-what-can-I-say. These posts started to make me feel a little ill, because I suppose I enjoy reading more about suffering than success, but that's beside my point here. Reflecting on my rank, I felt an irony about it all. Apparently the ability to...
Last month I gave a webinar on WordPress to the STC CIC SIG, which is the Independent Contracting and Consulting Special Interest Group of the Society for Technical Communication. I recorded the webinar and am allowed now to make it available for free on my site. The recording plays my voice only, and the whole webinar lasts about 75 minutes. You can view the recording in two sizes. If you want small dimensions (about 1000 pixels in width...
Findability / organizing content 1.0 New Series: Organizing Content [Organizing Content 1] 1.2 Introducing Project Swordfish [Organizing Content 2] 1.3 Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold [Organizing Content 3] ...
Sarah O'Keefe's guest post -- The Role of the Gatekeeper is Changing -- on Peg Mulligan's blog is interesting. Sarah writes, The Internet is removing the traditional gatekeepers for content. This may seem obvious, but its implications in my life have been profound. I majored in English and then earned an MFA in creative writing. After graduating, I gathered up my best essays and sent them off to literary journals for publication. After mo...
Findability / organizing content 1.0 New Series: Organizing Content [Organizing Content 1] 1.2 Introducing Project Swordfish [Organizing Content 2] 1.3 Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold [Organizing Content 3] ...
Today's WordPress tip is on integrating Constant Contact (an email marketing service) with WordPress.
How to break into technical writing is one of the most common questions readers ask. (If you wrote a book entirely on this subject, I'm sure you'd sell regular copies.) Recently a journalist interviewed me and others (Jack Molisani, Mike Hughes, and Andrea Ames) on this topic. He published his article, called Use Your IT Experience to Move into Technical Writing, in DICE. I have only a small quote at the end. In one of my responses about ...
Wordcamp is a conference dedicated to topics on WordPress. This year WordCamp Utah will be held Saturday, August 28 at the University of Utah. The conference costs $20 and includes lunch. Wordcamp is a conference dedicated to all topics related to WordPress Here are details from Joseph Scott, the organizer: WordCamp Utah 2010 will be held August 28th at University of Utah, in the Skaggs Biology Building. This is a great opportunity to spe...
