In a recent email to me, Jake from California (not his real name or location) writes, I've spent most of today exploring the world of technical writing, and I find that you're very central and visible. I've read, listened to, and watched a good deal of content you've produced, plus viewed snippets of threads on the STC listserv where you either weighed in or were referenced. If I can prevail on you for just a few minutes of your time, I'd...
Listen here: In his controversial post, The Myth of Single Sourcing, Michael Hiatt explains: Single-source publishing is a zombie idea that revives itself periodically and refuses to stay dead. Its zombie supporters chant its purported benefits as a “write once, publish to many” promise and ploddingly follow it as their ultimate goal for mechanized authoring and machine translation. As an object-oriented writing methodol...
How to get a job in technical writing 1.0 Introduction to getting a job in technical writing (TW Job) 1.1 Learn the basics of technical writing (TW Job) 1.2 Get real experience doing technical writing (TW Job) 1.3 ...
How to get a job in technical writing 1.0 Introduction to getting a job in technical writing (TW Job) 1.1 Learn the basics of technical writing (TW Job) 1.2 Get real experience doing technical writing (TW Job) 1.3 → Learn some ...
WordPress 2.9 was released. Here's a video explaining the new features. http://wordpress.org/development/2009/12/wordpress-2-9/
How to get a job in technical writing 1.0 Introduction to getting a job in technical writing (TW Job) 1.1 Learn the basics of technical writing (TW Job) 1.2 → Get real experience doing technical writing (TW Job) 1.3 Learn some tools (TW...
Not having grown up in Utah, when it snows, my first instinct isn't to start shoveling my driveway. So when it snowed last week, I let the snow pile up in the driveway and assumed it would eventually melt. But it didn't melt. Several days later, it still didn't melt. And then it snowed again. In the course of a week, we had driven over the driveway snow more than 30 times with two cars, impacting it down. The ice hardened with a strong cr...
How to get a job in technical writing 1.0 Introduction to getting a job in technical writing (TW Job) 1.1 → Learn the basics of technical writing (TW Job) 1.2 Get real experience doing technical writing (TW Job) 1.3 Learn some tools (TW...
In a previous post, Adding the Human Element in Screencasts, I argued that adding a human element in a screencast (by human element, I mean someone you can actually see talking) increases the appeal of the video significantly. So I tested this out by adding a picture-in-picture (PIP) effect for two WordPress screencasts. (By the way, the WordPress screencasts I create are mainly to test out some screencasting methods. But I hope they're a...
If you're interested in the PowerPoint for my screencasting webinar, here it is below. Powerpoint for Screencasting webinar (click the image to download the file) I always smile a little when people ask for the PowerPoint, because it just consists of pictures. I resist detailed bullets points on each slide because it locks you into a certain order that may be at odds with your presentation's flow. Also, when you give people text to read w...
This weekend my wife and I had dinner with some of her blogger friends. As I was getting to know the family, one of the children (age 12) showed me some of the stop-motion videos he'd put on youtube. He also had a string of video tutorials he made for Starcraft as well, which he created using Camtasia Studio. The videos aren't the work of a young film genius -- they're simple little screencasts on how to do certain things in video games. ...
When you transfer WordPress from one web host to another, you have to go through quite a few steps, especially if your current web host owns the domain name. Transferring the domain name is the biggest hassle, because it requires a handful of special codes and verifications, but just understanding what's involved in a site transfer can be somewhat overwhelming. I just helped a person with Yahoo web hosting move to Bluehost, but there are ...
I spent much of last week with my head inside a Mediawiki skin (when I probably should have been working on another project). I'm not entirely sure what it is, but I sometimes get fixated by technical problems I can't seem to solve. I first customized the FraternalRelief Mediawiki skin to match my organization's home page. My customization wasn't too bad, but I saw a few errors, and when I queried a forum, they told me FraternalRelief was...
How do you go from 5 authors to 47, all collaborating on the same documentation? This is the issue Anne Gentle wrestles with in her post Collaborative Authoring -- Tools and Costs. She explores everything from Author-it Live to Drupal, Mediawiki, Alfresco, and SharePoint, including cost breakdowns for each tool. Anne also cites research from Forrester about the rising trend of collaborative authoring: 37% of organizations surveyed in Forr...
Brooks Andrus has a good post and video about including the human element in screencasts. Brooks writes: Screen video alone is not enough. You need to humanize your content by getting in front of the camera and engaging your audience. And no, I'm not talking about long-winded monologues either. Several 5-7 second talking-head elements can go a long way toward winning over and maintaining the interest of your audience. Let people see your ...
