DITA Topics Tutorial (a Captivate demo)
In What Got You Here Won't Get You There, the authors explain that the same behaviors that lead to our success are paradoxically the same that can hold us back. This paradox leads to a predicament when it comes to opportunity. We live in a sea of opportunity, especially with technical communication. We can serve in our local STC chapter, serve on a SIG, write articles for newsletters, submit presentations for conferences, start our own tr...
WordPress theme that functions like a slideshow Check out the "Slidepress" theme -- works like a PowerPoint but looks much cooler and runs on WordPress. For your next presentation, consider using this.
Web Design WordPress function list If you work with WordPress, this reference is a dream. These are all the template tags WordPress uses to call information from your database.
DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) is an XML standard in technical communication For a blog about the latest trends in technical communication, I've been conspicuously silent about DITA, the XML standard for technical documentation that is rapidly becoming the norm in the industry. Tonight I realized that I need to examine more closely where I stand on DITA. Several events prompted this. At my work we have a small authoring gro...
Assigning unique styles to each category level in WordPress requires you to insert the following classes in your stylesheet: Top level: .cat-item a { } Second level: .cat-item ul li a { } Third level: .cat-item ul ul li a { } Styling Categories in WordPress I created a five-minute video showing how the addition of these category classes to your WordPress stylesheet will change the style of each category level. Watch the video I also upl...
Below the Line: Podcasters report their top 3 podcasting tips - part 1
Coding Horror: The Two Types of Browser Zoom. For help authors producing browser-based formats, the issues in this post may impact the usability of your help. How will Zoom impact your design?
Great Books by Writers Who Aren't Dead Yet My friend Josh just started this site. He's an English professor at BYU Idaho. It's an online book club involving discussion of excellent literary authors still alive.
When you blog, you increase your visibility tenfold. And with increased visibility, you're more frequently invited to speak at events. This year I have a handful of presentations I'm giving at various chapters and events. I decided to add an Upcoming Presentations button on my navigation bar to list them. If you'd like me to speak at your chapter, conference, or other event, let me know. Here's my 2009 schedule so far: February 19. Blogg...
Utah mountains Working in technology, I spend a good amount of my time troubleshooting. When things go wrong, I've learned a few tips and techniques: Compare line by line against a working model List all the components and how they work together Challenge every assumption Reboot or reinstall Google the error messages you see Site-search key sites Come back to it later Contact an expert Post the question in a forum Send the problem across...
WordPress TV launched this week (go to http://WordPress.tv to view it). The concept of WordPress TV is similar to Adobe TV -- it's a multimedia site loaded with a ton of video tutorials and other video content, only WordPress TV is more user generated. Here's a video introducing WordPress TV: On WordPress TV, the quality of the videos varies, since many of them are recorded at Wordcamps around the world. Additionally, you can recommend v...
Listen here: Screencasting Presentation Summary In this podcast, Collin Turner presents on "Screencasting -- Workflow and Presentation" to the Intermountain STC chapter in Utah. Here's the presentation description: Screencasting (when applied properly) is a valuable tool whose popularity is gaining traction. Most available software is accessible and easy to use. You can make or break a screencast before you ever capture ...
Twittering Tips for Beginners - Pogue's Posts Blog - NYTimes.com. Best part: I found one rule, though, that answered a long-standing question I had about Twitter: “Don't tweet about what you're doing right now.” Which is weird, since that's precisely how the typing box at Twitter.com is labeled: “What are you doing?” David Pogue is one of the speakers at the upcoming STC Summit.
Listen here: Download in iPod format Jim from Iowa writes: I was doing some career research involving technical writing and stumbled upon your website. I had a question about that sort of thing, and you seem like a good person to ask. To be frank, I have two main interests--writing and technology. I love to read and write, but I also love engineering, working with computers, etc. So, I guess at this point, one would s...
