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A Review of the Balsamiq Mockups wireframing application

This is a review for Balsamiq Mockups. This is a reasonably-priced application for creating wireframes that is easy to learn and use suitable for smaller projects. Creating interactive prototypes out of Balsamiq wireframes is now possible with the release of another application called Napkee. This review talks talks about: Balsamiq Mockup specifications; Balsamiq’s distinct visual character and how it work both in favor and against Balsamiq being adopted by users; Pros and cons of the application; and a conclusion with a recommendation on who should use and what to use Balsamiq Mockups for.

Review of Screen Capture Tools

This article describes the process of capturing screens and reviews some of the leading capture tools available. It is revised annually to take account of new releases, and was last updated in February 2009.

TUAW Faceoff: Screencasting

Screencasting -- the not-so-ancient art of recording the computer screen for the entertainment and enrichment of others -- has evolved into quite a Hydra of options. How do the myriad gladiators in this arena stack up? I've tried everything I could find that could record a little movement on the screen, and selected 8 contenders for the matchup.

Gartner Avoids OSS Content Management Systems

I received a copy of the Gartner report on the status of the web content management system market. I am always skeptical of such reports because they are geared towards those that work in a corporate environment. The reports are also made in a manner that allows the reporting company to remove itself from any responsibility if their information on the market climate is incorrect. Gartner did not disappoint me. But they do much to disappoint those that are putting a lot of energy and effort in to the OSS Web content management market.

Cladonia Exchanger XML Editor 3.2

Having spent some time working with Cladonia's Exchanger XML Editor, I can attest to the claim that this is a good, solid, well-featured and extensible XML editor. However, the software is not suitable for authoring documents. It is designed for working with XML data in many forms, but it is not designed for textual content. Let me explain.

XMLmind XML Editor v3.0

XMLmind is a great introductory tool for technical writers entering the world of structured authoring and DocBook. It successfully hides the esoterics of XML markup from the author, so that the focus can be on the words, rather than the code. At no cost (yes, absolutely free) for the Standard edition, and USD220 for a single user licence for the Professional Edition, XMLmind offers excellent value. The software is available for Linux, Windows and Mac. There are two main problems with XMLmind XML Editor: it does not currently support DITA schemas, and it does not incorporate a (Notepad-like) text editor in case you do need to patch up your code.

MadCap Flare and the RoboHelp Saga

This article is a review of presentations that Mike Hamilton gave at the Berkeley and East Bay STC chapters in December 2006. Hamilton also gave a presentation about MadCap Flare at the San Francisco chapter in August 2006.

Build Your Own Standards Compliant Website Using Dreamweaver 8

Rachel Andrew’s book is quite unconventional. Why? It takes Adobe’s Dreamweaver, the most-popular WYSIWYG web page IDE, and takes it on a long, hard-coding drive to create standards-compliant websites. Suffice to say, this book is intended for an intermediate to advanced-skilled audience.

Review of Cladonia Exchanger XML Editor

This article is a review of the Exchanger XML Editor version 3.2 from the Cladonia company. Being such a broad field, the XML Editor category is necessarily far-reaching, and can cover both database management systems and authoring tools. For this reason, this review narrows the scope by looking at the suitability of Exchanger for use by technical communicators and Help authors to create and edit manuals, user guides and Help systems. Much of the focus of this article is therefore on the software's suitability for DocBook or DITA authoring, and its appropriateness for users without coding skills.

Review of Screen Capture Tools

Describes the important attributes of a capture tool and examines and compares the features of five popular products.

Degunking Microsoft Office

Degunking Microsoft Office, by Christina Palaia and Wayne Palaia, addresses the problem of anything that slows down the computer, interferes with your operations, crashes applications, or loses data, and presents some ways of avoiding it.

WebWorks versus RoboHelp: a Comparison by One FrameUser

I would say that the two products are more or less equal in the template creation category, with RH having some advantages. On the other hand, WWP is much more usable, customizable, and faster in the generation/compilation department. Given that template creation is done very seldom, and generation/compilation is done frequently, its advantages in this area make WWP the better product.

AcosHelp: Context Sensitive Online Help with PDF Files

PRC AcosHelp is the World's first 'single source' Windows online help system that allows you to use Adobe Acrobat PDF files for context sensitive online help. AcosHelp is very useful for Document Management systems, where the documents are stored as PDF-files.

A Review of Free, Online Accessibility Tools

This article reviews eight, free, online web accessibility tools and examines the general characteristics of accessibility tools. The review provides a comparison between tools, and offers suggestions as to which tool would be appropriate for each of the following audiences: web designers, web developers and web evaluators.

DENIM, del Lápiz a la Web

El diseño de sitios web suele empezar con bosquejos hechos con papel y lápiz. Denim convierte directamente los diagramas que salen de una tableta gráfica o del dibujo con el ratón en prototipos de sitios web funcionales.

BAM! (Business Activity Monitoring)

BAM es el acrónimo de Business Activity Monitoring (Monitorización de la Actividad de Negocio), un campo emergente que promete incrementar la competitividad y la toma rápida de decisiones bien informadas, en la que la visualización de información tendrá un rol importante.

Grafos

Los grafos son la representación natural de las redes, en las que estamos cada vez más incluidos. Exploramos qué son los grafos, para qué sirven y algunas reglas para dibujarlos bien.

PowerPoint, ¿Anatema o Bendición?

La mayoría de las presentaciones usan PowerPoint en su vertiente más fácil, muchas transparencias llenas de listas de puntos. Muchos ponentes, encima, se limitan a recitarlas. Pero con PowerPoint es posible también salirse del camino trillado y hacer presentaciones que consiguen su objetivo: comunicar claramente un mensaje.

Visualización de Redes Sociales

Las redes sociales son las responsables de muchas de las estructuras de poder e influencia en nuestro mundo. No siempre es fácil reconocer su estructura y comportamiento. La visualización y el análisis de redes sociales pueden contribuir notablemente a conocerlas.

A Review of RoboHelp Office 2002

This is the first in a series of articles that builds into a personal review of RoboHelp Office 2002. This first article introduces the new release and discusses Topic Templates, Headers and Footers, and the new MS Word Import capability.

Teaching Yourself Adobe GoLive 4.0

Reviews Adobe GoLive 4.0 Classroom in a Book, and Adobe GoLive 4.0 for Macintosh and Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide.