2007 archives

  1. "The great new tool for writing a book today is a blog ..."

  2. My Blog and Podcast Site Are Now Merged into One -- Steps on How I Did It

  3. Jeter Interviews Mike Hamilton at Former Blue Sky Software Office in La Jolla, Calif.

  4. "Could you please tell me what the job of a technical writer is like?"

  5. Adventures with the New Technical Communication Suite from Adobe (mostly RoboHelp 7 and Captivate)

  6. The Hardest Part About Blogging: Coming Up With Something Interesting to Say

  7. Why People Think Help Is Useless, and How To Change This Thought

  8. Myths of Innovation: Brilliant Ideas Come From Constant Reflection, Not Random Chance

  9. Interesting Technique for Discovering Software Changes and Building Rapport with developers

  10. Reading this post made me want to be a workaholic

  11. A Good Response to "No One Reads the Help Anyway"

  12. Goodbye Podpress, it's time for a new mp3 player

  13. Technical Communication Suite from Adobe -- Interview with RJ Jacquez

  14. 99% of people who buy iPods don't realize several simple things ...

  15. Show Me Demos and Captivate -- Interview with Kevin Siegel

  16. Sample Integration of Captivate Screen Demos in RoboHelp Hotspots

  17. Free Copies of SnagIt 7 and Camtasia 3

  18. Musicophillia -- The Brain's Unexplainable Affinity for Music

  19. Thoughts on Adobe's New Technical Communication Suite

  20. Embracing the New Vernacular Instead of Pursuing the Holy Grail of Single Sourcing

  21. Special DMN Communications Podcast with Tech Writer Voices (me): Are you Hurting Your Career By Not Blogging or Podcasting?

  22. Top 10 Worst Things SMEs Say or Do -- Interview with Brenda Huettner

  23. IT Author Podcast -- Two Podcasts on Flare, One on the Making of a Technical Writer, and a Dogcast on User Psychology

  24. Online Anonymous Rating Sites: Empowering Individual Voices

  25. Building Online Communities: Interview with Svi Ben-Elya about Elephant.org.il

  26. Is Podcasting Dead? Jason Van Orden Versus Read/Write Web

  27. MadCap Software Sponsors the Tech Writer Voices Podcast

  28. Brain Waves and the Stimulation of Motivation/Creativity

  29. Three Excellent Podcasts on Networking, Outsourcing, and DITA

  30. Tech Writer: "Someone who writes as opposed to someone who rides something"

  31. Innovation, Imagination, Creativity -- Google VP of Search Products Tells Story of Gmail

  32. "A self-forgetful, perfectly useless concentration"

  33. Reflections on Allison Reynold's Talk on Job Skills for the Workplace

  34. Getting Excited About the Upcoming STC Summit in Pennsylvania

  35. Answering Tough Questions About Wikis -- Interview with Anne Gentle

  36. The Rockley Group Blog Is Here! I have a couple of DITA questions

  37. My TechCraft Article: Should You Sit Near SMEs?

  38. Implementing WordPress 2.3's New Tagging Feature

  39. Counterpoints to "7 Blogging Beginner Mistakes"

  40. LunarPages Sponsors the Tech Writer Voices Podcast

  41. Usability Research Behind Microsoft's Ergonomic Keyboard

  42. New WordPress Plugin Enables One-Click Installation of Plugins and Themes

  43. News Posts versus Thought Posts

  44. Five Skills Every Technical Writer Needs

  45. My STC Intercom article: "Top 5 Podcasts for Technical Communicators"

  46. Why you shouldn't be afraid of offending others and racking up a few penalties

  47. Location is everything when it comes to getting information from SMEs — Carcast

  48. A blog worth adding to your feeds -- and reasons why

  49. My Shared Items from Google Reader

  50. Virtual Ways of Communicating — Char James-Tanny

  51. A Quick Way to Unsubscribe from Feeds in Google Reader

  52. Cool Example of AJAX in a Blog -- Increases Usability

  53. Extracting information from SMEs

  54. Three new resources to check out

  55. My online absence isn't a permanent vacation

  56. Thoughts on the Accumulation of Stuff [Junk]

  57. Closing One Chapter, Opening a New One

  58. Rethinking the Importance of Screenshots, Diagrams, and Other Visuals

  59. Tom is moving to Utah

  60. Gigzig: Shows Where You Were 5 Years Ago and Where You're Headed 5 Years From Now

  61. A Perfect Model for Online Tutorials -- MS Visio Shapes Course

  62. Survey for New USF Tech. Comm. Program -- Would These Courses Create Highly Qualified Tech Writers?

  63. Best Tech Writing Tip Ever: Watch a User Try to Follow Your Instructions

  64. Grasshoppers that Look Like Aliens

  65. Small and Simple Things -- The Best Kind of Goals

  66. Rethinking the Term "Users"

  67. Three Simple Mistakes Non-Technical Writers Make

  68. Thoughts on the Rapidly Changing Pace of Technology

  69. Tips for Avoiding a Sedentary Lifestyle in the Workplace

  70. Four-Wheeling in the Wasatch Front

  71. Resolving Browser Display Discrepancies Between IE and Firefox

  72. If I Had Ten Days to Live ...

  73. The Paradox of White Space: Some Research and Examples of White Space in Web Design

  74. Making Special, Hidden Categories Separate From Your Home Page and Feed

  75. Evening Fishing at the North Pier

  76. Counterargument to the Importance of Categories in Blogs

  77. Switching from Desktop to Online Tools

  78. Accessibility for Blogs? New Audio Feature: Listen to Posts

  79. Nicely Designed WordPress Blog — Simple, Lots of White Space

  80. Converting Your WordPress Blog into a CMS (Content Management System)

  81. David Pogue's Review of the iPhone -- Engaging Videocast Worth Watching

  82. Economic Prosperity Tied to Openness and Tolerance, says Richard Florida; Also, Thoughts on Inclusive, Distributed Leadership

  83. Search Engine Optimization for Your Blog: Three Easy Techniques, and also Drawbacks to SEO

  84. Wikis in Documentation: Ann Gentle Asks, Can Wikis Stand Alone, or Must They Be Supplements?

  85. Information Architecture: Organizing Chaos, Metadata, Taxonomy vs. Folksonomy, and the Dublin Core

  86. Lucy Smiles for the Camera -- Funny Photo

  87. Context-Sensitive Help -- An Easy Method Using Javascript

  88. POPURLS -- Consolidated News Aggregation From Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, Tailrank, Newsvine, and 20 Other Sites

  89. Special Father's Day Post: Description of My Dad

  90. Google Reader's Shared Items Feature -- Allows You to Easily Share Selected Posts from Your Feeds

  91. PostSecret -- a Postcard Confession Site, Fathers Theme

  92. Survey Results of My Blog's Readership and My Accompanying Analysis

  93. TechCrunch Founder Interview on iinnovate -- Arrington Talks About How Blogging Is a Treadmill

  94. Intro to Information Architecture -- Reflections on the Different Roles We Can Play

  95. My Podcast Picks

  96. Installing Mediawiki Is Much Easier Than The Instructions Suggest -- My Quick 10 Step Tutorial for Installing Mediawiki

  97. Madcap Flare Spotlight -- "Six Persistent Flare Problems" Post by Paul Pehrson

  98. A New Approach: Tech Comm News

  99. Google Master Plan Video -- Speculations on the Hidden Purposes Behind Google's Information Collection

  100. Everything Is Miscellaneous -- The Problem with Classifying Information

  101. Writing Style to Keep in Mind for Blog Posts -- Be Clearer Than Usual, State Main Point Up Front

  102. Punishing by Rewards -- Motivational Techniques That Don't Work

  103. Leadership Lesson: After Building Some Trust, Make Direct Invitations

  104. How Information Travels in the Blogosphere -- a funny anecdote

  105. How to Record Conference Calls -- Answering Reader's Question

  106. Lip Dub Video Clip Captures Essence of the Web -- Spontaneity, Authenticity, Participation, Fun

  107. Vista Help Emphasizes Concepts in Effort to Create Power Users

  108. Who are you? A one-question survey to identify my readers

  109. How Scoble Reads 622 RSS Feeds -- Thoughts and Reactions

  110. Installing Multiple Versions of WordPress on the Same Account, But Masking Them to Appear as Different Domains

  111. Vista and Office 2007: Presentation by David McNamee from Microsoft

  112. Google Maps Offers Mind-Blowing Street View -- It's Like Walking Around Virtually in a City

  113. Alan Houser Starts a Blog -- Check Out the Group Wellesley Wire

  114. The Return of the Newsletter — How to Keep the Newsletter Concept Without the Work

  115. How to Break into Technical Writing

  116. The Death of Associations -- Declining STC Statistics Prompt Innovation, Realigning of Value

  117. Usability Tip from Ricecooker Critiques Podcast -- Print the Documentation on the Product

  118. Former HP CEO Talks About Corporate America and Why Constant Innovation Drives Success

  119. WordPress 2.2 -- Here's Why It's Worth the Upgrade

  120. Be Careful When Upgrading to WordPress 2.2 If You Have the WP-Cache Plugin — Adventures in Backing Up and Restoring WordPress Databases

  121. My Podcasting Method for Face-to-Face Interviews

  122. Podcasting at the STC Conference: Reasons, Methods, and Reflections

  123. STC Conference: Geoff Sauer on tc.eserver.org, the Largest Tech Comm Index Online

  124. STC Conference: Rob Houser on Creating Nontraditional E-Learning

  125. STC Conference: Scott Abel on Web 2.0

  126. STC Conference: Ann Rockley on the Rockley Group Blog and a New CMS Report

  127. STC Conference: Chris Thompson on Searching for a Content Management System

  128. STC Conference: Caroline Jarrett on User Interface Design

  129. STC Conference: Whitney Quesenbery on the Five E's of Usability

  130. STC Conference: Harry Miller on Multimedia Documentation

  131. STC Conference: Stephanie Bryant on Videoblogging

  132. STC Conference: Mike Brazill on Writing for Developers

  133. STC Conference: John Daigle on RoboHelp 7

  134. STC Conference: Debbie Kennedy on Modular Writing and Reusability

  135. STC Conference: Joan Lasselle on Adopting Content Management

  136. STC Conference: Cindy Skawinski on Activity Diagrams (Uniform Modeling Language Artifacts)

  137. STC Conference: Adrienne Escoe on Recruiting

  138. STC Conference: Teresa Lipus, Snake River chapter, Southern Idaho and Eastern Oregon

  139. STC Conference: Deanne Levander, Twin Cities, Minnesota Chapter, and John Garison, Vermont

  140. STC Conference: Laurel Bowen, Oakridge Tennessee Chapter

  141. STC Conference: Brad Simmons, Ames, Iowa

  142. STC Conference: Michael Gernes, Central Iowa STC Community

  143. Leadership Day: Jackie Damrau, Dallas, Texas, and Rachel Houghton, Willamette Valley, Oregon

  144. Leadership Day: Jeanette Rogers, Seattle, Instructional Design & Learning SIG

  145. Leadership Day: Lorrie Corbett, Philadelphia Metro Chapter

  146. Leadership Day: Hillary Hart, Austin Chapter

  147. Leadership Day: Todd Race, Toronto chapter, Canadian Issues Group

  148. Leadership Day: Dan Dornbrook, Chicago Chapter

  149. Leadership Day: Melanie G. Flanders, China; Beau Cain, Director 8

  150. Leadership Day: Paul Sinasohn, Berkeley Chapter, California

  151. Leadership Day: Holly Harkness, Al Hood, and Howard Speck — Atlanta Chapter

  152. Leadership Day: Rhevati Sampath and Wendy Tung, Berkeley Chapter, California

  153. Leadership Day: Kelly Schrank & Lou Martindale — Mid-South Chapter in Memphis and Suncoast Chapter in Tampa

  154. Leadership Day: Sue Kloster, Willamette Valley Chapter, Oregon

  155. Three Things to Avoid When Doing Face-to-Face Podcast Interviews

  156. Blog Carnivals and my 'Makes-Me-Smile Monday' Post

  157. On My Way to the STC conference in Minneapolis

  158. Graduating Kindergartener Asks Difficult Interview Questions

  159. Creating Help in the Web 2.0 Age — Presentation by Neil Perlin

  160. STC Atlanta Launches Podcast — Michelle Schoen Is Atlanta's Resident Podcaster

  161. Wikis in Action — The Top 57 Wikis by Rank

  162. Special Announcements: Add your blog to techwriterblogs.com wiki, and also support Tech Writer Voices

  163. Presentation on Writing and Web 2.0 by Keith Hoffman — Given at the University of Wisconsin

  164. Wikis Are Coming: An In-Depth Exploration of Using Wikis in Documentation — Interview with Katriel Reichman (Israel)

  165. Setting Up a Wiki in a Few Minutes — Installing Dokuwiki

  166. Help Support Tech Writer Voices — Consider this Our Spring Membership Campaign

  167. Calling All Tech Writing Bloggers: List Your Blog in the New Tech Writing Blog Directory Wiki

  168. Neil Perlin Enters Blogosphere and Gives Away Free Flare Stylesheets

  169. Google 411 -- Free Information Listings via Phone

  170. Perfect Explanation of RSS -- Engaging Video Tutorial

  171. A Few Conversations at Doc Train — User Personas, Data Conversion, and Simplified Technical English

  172. My First Carcast: Driving Home from Vancouver After the Doc Train Conference

  173. Free Conference Call Recording/Podcasting Service at FreeConferencing.LiveOffice.com

  174. Managing Virtual Teams: Getting the Most from Wikis, Blogs, and Other Collaborative Tools — Interview with the authors

  175. How Blogs Dominate Google — One Highly-Linked-To Blog Can Rule the World

  176. Jott—a Free Voicemail to Transcribed Text Memo Service

  177. Podcast Downloads Report -- About 8,500 downloads so far

  178. Interview with George Hayhoe, editor of Technical Communication Journal, on Technical Writing in China and Korea

  179. Podcast Site Redesign -- I'm Now Using the Leia Theme

  180. If you missed my presentation, here it is online (delivered through WordPress)

  181. Where I'm Going, My Aspirations -- Everything Seems to Align with Web 2.0

  182. More Topics

  183. Basic Tutorial

  184. WordPress as a CMS

  185. Different Uses of WordPress

  186. Why Blog?

  187. Twenty Ways to Make Your Blog More Usable: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at WordPress

  188. Blog Usability Checklist

  189. Glamorous Careers Turn Out to Be Boring--This American Life Podcast

  190. WordPress Plugins: Take Your Blog's Functionality To a New Level

  191. Going to Vancouver on Tuesday for Doc Train Conference!

  192. New Theme Viewer: 39 WordPress Themes I Like

  193. WordPress Themes Crash Course: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started with Themes

  194. Unraveling the Geologic Stratum of the Blogosphere: Why We Blog

  195. RockYou—Create Dynamic Slideshows with Music for Your Site

  196. On Writing Better: Tips from a South by Southwest Panel

  197. Twenty Usability Tips for Your Blog — Condensed from Dozens of Bloggers' Experiences

  198. Defining Experiences: Five STC Candidates Share Influential Stories from the Tech Comm Field

  199. Making Help More Human, and other discussions

  200. Former MySpace Exec. Explains How Experience Can Be an Impediment to Success

  201. A Case for Corporate Transparency: How Channel 9 Changed Microsoft from the Darth Vader of Tech to Downright Visionary

  202. STC Candidates: Submit a Story about a Defining Moment in Your Career

  203. Answering Reader's Question: Can you give me a little information about the blogging section of your Web site?

  204. Susan Burton Provides an Inside, In-Depth Look at STC's Most Pressing Issues

  205. Google CEO's Advice for People Entering a Technology Career: Stay Engaged, Keep Learning and Trying Things

  206. How to Subscribe to RSS Feeds with Internet Explorer 7

  207. Single Sourcing Wiki Tools for the Enterprise — Traction TeamPage5?

  208. MySQL CEO Says, "It is dangerous to hire someobody who has too much experience."

  209. WordPress vs. Movable Type: The Advantages of Open Source and What It Means for Technical Writers

  210. Special STC Elections Podcast: Interview with Nicky Bleiel, Candidate for Director

  211. Broken Days and Perfect Days

  212. Yahoo Pipes and the Mashed Up World of Aggregated, Filtered, Blended Information

  213. Three New Features for this Blog: a Post Index, Inbound Links Display, and Public Web Stats

  214. Finding Work You Love Vs. Loving the Work You Find

  215. Florida Competition Winner Explains Principle of Success: Brevity

  216. Corporate Blogging: Five Rules for Success in the Blogosophere

  217. Answering Reader's Questions: How To Keep Up with Work/Family Balance, and Which Tools to Use

  218. WritersUA Publishes 2007 Salary Survey; 73k Is Average

  219. Sierra Says Help Needs to Be Human, Conversational, and Geared Towards Panicky Users

  220. Special STC Election podcast: Call for Participants

  221. Dan Rather Podcast from South by Southwest: "Journalism needs a spine transplant; it has lost its guts"

  222. Is Technical Writing Boring? Tech Writers as Information Architects

  223. TECHWR-L and Technical Editing SIG Implement Drupal and WordPress

  224. The Evolutionary Strategy of Web 2.0 — It's Like Having 100 Personal Researchers Working For You

  225. Embedding an Audio Player into Your Site Without WordPress

  226. Nine Lessons for Would-be Bloggers -- Great Advice from Josh Porter on Overcoming Blogging Hangups

  227. Microformats and the Semantic Web

  228. Second Life: A 3-D Space for Virtual Meetups and Instruction?

  229. Wikinomics: Combining Wikis with Economics; the More You Share, the More You Win

  230. Librivox: Open Source Audio Books; You Contribute Your Own Readings

  231. Online Communities, Member Maps, Virtual Chats, Sparkpeople, Intercom, and More

  232. Plagiarism and Cannibalism Both Natural and Necessary, say Writers and Musicians

  233. Creating Passionate Users Explains How to Make the Best User Manual Ever

  234. Starting Your Own Blog: Tips for Non-profits

  235. Free Podcasts at Open Culture: Informational Podcasts on Almost Everything

  236. Looking at the Past; Exploring Directions for the Future

  237. Number One Issue for Technical Writers Today: Keeping Pace with Rapidly Evolving Technology

  238. Chapter Chat Results: It Went Well, But Only 4 Participated

  239. OPML Files — What Feeds Are You Following?

  240. Design good websites by following principles of technical writing style

  241. Examples of companies integrating podcasts into their mix of technical communication deliverables?

  242. 37 Signals, To Do Lists — Printable To Do Lists To Get Organized

  243. My First Virtual Administrative Meeting

  244. "I don't have time to listen to podcasts..."

  245. Review of Word 2007, Tool vs. Industry Experience, the Slow Movement, E-mail Tips, and More

  246. Grammar Girl Podcast — Some Thoughts on Grammar as a Topic for a Podcast

  247. Spinvox: The Next Killer App. for Cell Phones

  248. Integrating Google Adsense into this Blog

  249. Never Listen to Voicemail via Cell Phone Again — Callwave.com & Spinvox Deliver Voicemail to Email for Free

  250. Suncoast Member Map Finished

  251. Guy Kawasaki's Impossible Burden: After Blog and E-mail, There's No Time to Write the Book

  252. Matt Mullenweg Explains Genius of Akismet and Appeal of Fast Development Cycles

  253. Eric Schwartzman Talks About Integrating Podcasts into the Marketing Mix

  254. Virtual Meetings? Chat Feature

  255. Blogging for Your Future Employer

  256. Are Newsletters Dead?

  257. WordPress Easter Egg Defies Logic by Removing Styles

  258. Boagworld Shares Advice on Podcasting

  259. Ze Frank's Show — STC Speaker in Minneapolis Conference

  260. Doug Davis on the Job Side of Technical Writing — Location, Industry Experience, and Salary

  261. Two more surveys — Innovations and WritersUSA

  262. Podcast Revenue Idea: Provide 20 second Job Listing Spots in Place of Ads

  263. Reflections on the First Cohost Podcast

  264. First Cohost Podcast — A Natural Conversation about Technical Writing

  265. Is technical writing boring?

  266. DMN Comm. Podcast Gives Thumbs Down on RoboHelp; But More Interesting Is Shift in Style

  267. 10 Ways to Make Your Blog More Appealing

  268. Take Clyde's Blogging Survey

  269. Tech Writer Voices Switching to Co-Host Style

  270. Writing Blog Posts by E-mail

  271. Making a Chapter Member Map Mashup with Google Maps

  272. 10 Reasons Not to Upgrade to Robohelp 6

  273. Podcasting Reader's Comments — The Pilotless Drone

  274. Video on SharePoint 2007 Wiki, Blog, and RSS Functionality from Microsoft's Channel 9

  275. Getting Started with WordPress — Video Tutorial on Installation

  276. RoboHelp to Wiki Conversion Tool

  277. Installing WordPress -- a Quick Video Tutorial

  278. Discussion about RoboHelp 6 — Interview with Rick Stone

  279. Using Wikis as Project Documentation Tools

  280. Blogs that Lose Direction and Go from Blog to Blah?

  281. Survey Gizmo: The best tool/thing I have used/done

  282. Are We Moving Toward GooOS, the Google Operating System?

  283. User Paradox with Not Reading User Manuals

  284. Using Ajax Shelf to Help Users Find Pages on Suncoast Site

  285. 10 pet peeves of technical writing

  286. Tips from the Frederator: Pursue Life's Passion Online, and Blog Often, Short, and with Pics

  287. Adobe Enters Blogosphere

  288. Adobe Seminar -- Nice Connection and Demo, But Questions Seemed Filtered

  289. Dealing with the Documentation Aspects of Bad Software -- My Response to the Latest DMN Communications Podcast

  290. Wordpress 2.1 Review

  291. Allure of New Media Requires Strict Bedtime Control or Else Sleep Deprivation Will Set In

  292. The Curse of Knowledge -- The More You Know, the Worse You Become At Communicating That Knowledge

  293. How to Create a Site Where Users Can Actually Find Information — Interview with Thom Haller

  294. Latest Podcast Is Posted on Tech Writer Voices

  295. WordPress 2.1 Released -- This is a major release

  296. Survey on Blogging -- Darren Barefoot

  297. Applying Web 2.0 to Podcasting

  298. Trying to Create Tech Writer Voices Logo

  299. Technorati Blogosphere Report -- 1.3 million new posts per day, so what are people writing about?

  300. Reading Blogs versus Reading Traditional Print Media

  301. RoboHelp 6 Not Compatible with Word 2007

  302. Create RSS Feeds From Any Site With Ponyfish

  303. Ten Tips for Problem Solving and Troubleshooting

  304. WordPress = Bliss: The Joy of Customization

  305. RoboHelp 6 launched — List of New Features

  306. Web Developer Firefox Extension Makes CSS Editing Easy

  307. Ten Lessons Learned as a Technical Communicator — Interview with Rahul Prabhakar

  308. Patience Thresholds for Technology

  309. Listening to Podcasts Without Dedicating Any Time for Them

  310. Why Software Sucks, by David Platt

  311. Read a Book by E-mail, a Little Each Day with Daily Lit

  312. Recording your chapter presentations

  313. Dynamic Help in Visual Studio .NET

  314. Podcasting article in STC Intercom magazine

  315. Inexpensive Screencast Software: Blueberry Flashback Express Recorder

  316. Talkr service converts text-only blogs into podcasts

  317. Google Talk

  318. Mike Hamilton Gives Flare Demo to the Suncoast Chapter

  319. WIFM and Blogging

  320. The Concept of Trackbacks

  321. Year in Review -- "You" Chosen as Most Important Person

  322. The Convergence of Web 2.0 with Help Documentation — Tom Johnson

  323. Help 2.0: The Convergence of Help with Web 2.0

  324. Rating Feature Now Available

  325. WordPress Shopping Carts

  326. Understanding Principles of Usability, Part 2 — Karen Bachmann

  327. New Look and New Approach to Blog/Podcast

About Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson

I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my API documentation course if you're looking for more info about documenting APIs. Or see my posts on AI and AI course section for more on the latest in AI and tech comm.

If you're a technical writer and want to keep on top of the latest trends in the tech comm, be sure to subscribe to email updates below. You can also learn more about me or contact me. Finally, note that the opinions I express on my blog are my own points of view, not that of my employer.