WordPress, the most widely used open-source blogging software, gives you complete control over the design and display of your content. In addition to writing blog posts, WordPress allows you to create pages, add categories, customize your site design, define how posts appear, and more. This two-hour course is designed for people unfamiliar with WordPress and interested in starting their own blogs, or for people ready for more control than...
I attended an STC chapter meeting tonight, and while the presenter had some excellent information, only 6 people showed up -- the presenter, the program manager, a new guy, two regulars, and me. I thought this was okay because we were recording the event anyway, but I'm sorry to report that I botched the recording. The mic jack wasn't snug in its socket, so you can't hear anything. I walked away tonight convinced that the STC model is br...
I updated the date and time for the WordPress course. Instead of this Saturday, I've moved it to next Wednesday evening. Here are the updated details: Date: Wednesday, April 30 Time: 7:30 p.m. CST Location: Web Cost: $99 Course Size: Limited to 15 participants I hope this can better accommodate all of you who emailed me to say that you have previous engagements this Saturday. If not, I'm sure I'll do some more training in the future. For ...
Blaze is a new Framemaker alternative that Madcap Software has just released into beta. With Blaze, you can create printed documentation and publish it to Word, Framemaker, PDF, XPS, and an XHTML book (but not webhelp). When I first heard of Blaze, my immediate question was — Doesn't Flare already publish to Word and FrameMaker? If so, why would I need Blaze? The short answer is, you don't need Blaze if you already have Flare. But if for ...
Listen here: DITA is a topic I've wanted to do a podcast on for a long time. When I heard a local technical writer express her enthusiasm about how she was using DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) at her company, I knew I found the right person. In this podcast, Marlene Martineau of New Dawn Technologies explains why they adopted DITA, how they adopted it, the benefits they're experiencing, and the reasons why...
I'm giving a training course on WordPress this Wednesday. If you've been thinking about getting a blog or switching from Blogger to WordPress, this course will help you get up and running with WordPress in a quick, efficient way. The short details are below. Date: Wednesday, April 30 Time: 7:30 - 9:30 p.m. CST Location: Web Cost: $99 Course Size: Limited to 15 participants For the full course description, see WordPress for Beginners Cours...
Even though I'm an advocate of blogging and think it's critical to tech comm, I've always been assigned technical documentation projects for internally used, confidential, or classified software. Documenting products promoted on the web has never been an option for me. However, I'm convinced that even internal software, which never sees the light of WWW, still needs a blog as much or more than products sold online. Even so, numerous corpo...
The Read/Write web has a fascinating post about the amount of time people spend in Web 2.0 activities. Here's a graph from their post that sums it up. In short, content creators, such as those who publish blogs and podcasts, spend 5-10 hrs a week. To be a community directory, you can spend 10-20 hrs. I distinctly remember a question Thom Haller asked me after my presentation last year at Doc Train West. He threw up his hands and said, "...
Find a way to have fun with what you're writing. If you don't, not only will it be a miserable experience, the product will lack the energy, playfulness, and good feeling it needs to be successful. Change your point of view, experiment, try something different -- until the routine becomes an exploration, and the monotonous becomes your musing. If that doesn't work, try reading a few lolcats to lighten things up.
I'm trying to gather as many examples as possible about how companies are engaging in web 2.0 activities. Do you know any companies that are using blogs, wikis, social networks, forums, podcasts/videocasts, or interactive online help? If so, let me know by either adding a comment below or by contacting me. (It doesn't have to be restricted to tech comm examples.) In May I'm giving a virtual presentation to STC-Phoenix and I hope to use so...
Listen here: In this podcast, I talk with Scott Abel about social networking, in particular The Content Wrangler community he started at TheContentWrangler.ning.com. Scott talks about this new social network specifically for technical communicators. But he also explains the value of social networks for your help deliverables. Social networks can help users connect with one another and also help technical communicators be...
The following is a guest post by Ben Minson, one of my technical writing colleagues. Ben's blog, which also focuses on technical communication, is called Gryphon Mountain Journals. Check it out. (You can subscribe to his RSS feed here.) My wife recently bought a book for me entitled Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World's Top Bloggers. Blogging has been around for about ten years now, but one blogger said in this book that he t...
Tonight I attended a WordCamp Utah planning meeting at Applebees with a group of blogging enthusiasts. Joseph Scott, one of the WordPress developers employed by Automattic, organized the event and is taking charge of the upcoming Wordcamp, which looks like it will be in September to avoid competition with other conferences (Blog World, Open Source, and New Media Expo). Wordcamp Dallas a Success By the way, Charles Stricklin of the WordPr...
Attention podcasters and podcaster wannabes, we're having a podcast meetup at Doc Train West. If you're heading to this conference in Vancouver, stay tuned to more details about this meetup. It'll probably be during one of the evenings of the conference (which takes place May 6-9). The podcaster meetup will involve an informal exchange, possibly at a restaurant or lounge somewhere, where podcasters introduce themselves to each other, shar...
Kalyani from Saudi Arabia writes, My name is Kalyani. I am 37 yrs old and live in Saudi Arabia. I have finished my Diploma in Electronics (4 year course). I was working at Hewlett Packard in India before moving to Saudi. In this country, women have very few opportunities to work i.e., only in the schools or hospitals. I chose to work in the school as an English and Computer Science teacher. Now I have moved into the administration. After ...
