http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Software A listing of the most recently indexed works about Articles and Software in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Software http://tc.eserver.org/35843.html http://tc.eserver.org/35843.html Technical communicators tend to get caught up in tools and techniques and formats. But, as Scott Abel said, It’s not about tech writing. It’s about content. http://tc.eserver.org/35839.html http://tc.eserver.org/35839.html Using any of the standard authoring tools — Flare, RoboHelp, Author-It, Doc-to-Help — leaves you with the ridiculous model of a single author working from a single vantage point from a single organization trying to pull together an ocean of information. Because that model is untenable and unscalable, HATs will fade in favor of collaborative web-based authoring technologies. http://tc.eserver.org/35741.html http://tc.eserver.org/35741.html I am working on a number of website projects right now. My mission is to banish ‘lorem ipsum’ by working text into page designs before development starts. I wanted to find a tool that would let me create page mockups quickly and try out different combinations of copy and layout. Eventually, I settled on Balsamiq Mockups, which is an awesome tool. The rest of this article describes the different alternatives I considered and concludes with a detailed review of Balsamiq. http://tc.eserver.org/35699.html http://tc.eserver.org/35699.html WordPress is fairly simple to set up as a CMS ‘out of the box’, but where it needs a lot of customization is for setting up ‘smart’ navigation and being able to serve up pages or posts in multiple languages. http://tc.eserver.org/35700.html http://tc.eserver.org/35700.html Over the years I have spent many hours testing content and trying various different Learning Management Systems, and have even done some LMS (like) design work with Articulate Online. Over that time period I have had the opportunity to learn a lot about what does work well, and what doesn’t work well in a lot of systems, so based on my knowledge on the subject, here is my list 10 things to consider before choosing in an LMS. http://tc.eserver.org/35706.html http://tc.eserver.org/35706.html For a database administrator, DBM (database management) tools make tasks related to maintaining relational databases efficient and fast. Prior to the popularity of these tools, most DBA’s had to use the command line to create, edit, and delete databases. In this article, we present to you the top five most popular/most voted for database management tools. http://tc.eserver.org/35708.html http://tc.eserver.org/35708.html Tech docs can take a bunch of different forms ranging from high-level overviews, to step-by-step walkthroughs, to auto-generated API documentation. Unfortunately, no single format works for all users; there’s huge differences in the way that people learn, so a well-documented project needs to provide many different forms of documentation. http://tc.eserver.org/35635.html http://tc.eserver.org/35635.html Integrating user assistance into the software interface is one of the best ways to increase the usability of your software application and thus make your customers more satisfied and successful. However, embedded help has the reputation of being difficult to develop and execute. Let’s take a look at a solution that makes it possible to quickly include an embedded, dynamic help pane in a software interface. http://tc.eserver.org/35649.html http://tc.eserver.org/35649.html For the last 6 months, I have been using Microsoft Expression Blend as my primary design tool. Blend, shown in Figure 1, is quickly becoming a powerful product. Its new Sketchflow module had me at hello. http://tc.eserver.org/35567.html http://tc.eserver.org/35567.html An organization we at Reflab work with recently re-evaluated Plone against Sharepoint 2007; their main requirements are related to document management, where Sharepoint is for sure quite strong. What’s interesting is that they made the comparison also considering the different platforms and browsers their organization uses. Here are the results of their analysis and tests, they where so kind to share them with us, I checked them and translated them. I hope you’ll find them useful. http://tc.eserver.org/35582.html http://tc.eserver.org/35582.html I'm not a fan of PowerPoint. I've sat through too many deadly dull presentations by people who didn't know how to make a presentation interesting. So it saddens me to find out that universities have been infected by the PowerPoint virus. At least the students will be prepared for the real world when they graduate. http://tc.eserver.org/35539.html http://tc.eserver.org/35539.html New FrameMaker documents have default Master Pages. Single-sided documents have one, called "Right," and double-sided documents have two, called "Left" and "Right." We use these pages to place the objects we want to repeat on all the Body Pages, things like our running heads, page numbers and repeating graphics. But what do you do when you need a different look for a Body Page, on a repeating basis? For example, no page number on the opening page of each chapter? You set up a custom master page. Here's how. http://tc.eserver.org/35513.html http://tc.eserver.org/35513.html I don’t intend to give a complete project list. I just chose some projects that might be interesting enough to people from localization industry based on two criteria: 1. The features are useful for language service providers (LSP). 2. The development status is Stable or Mature. In other words, it is ready for real production use from the view of development cycle. http://tc.eserver.org/35457.html http://tc.eserver.org/35457.html Most people who have designed websites or apps in Photoshop will, at one point or another, have had issues trying to match colors in images to colors generated by HTML, CSS or code. This article aims to solve those problems once and for all. http://tc.eserver.org/35414.html http://tc.eserver.org/35414.html An engineer at a company once called me and asked me how much it would cost to edit a Service Manual that he had written for a medical device. I asked him to send it to me so that I could give him a quote. When I received it I saw to my amazement and horror that he had written a 200 page manual (including many graphics) in Excel. When I asked him why he didn't use Word, he replied 'I'm an engineer I know how to use Excel, not Word.' http://tc.eserver.org/35420.html http://tc.eserver.org/35420.html I never like opening up a FrameMaker document and getting the dreaded unavailable fonts dialog box. Sadly, with multiple authors who contribute documents to me from around the world, it's just a fact of life that I see the dialog box frequently. http://tc.eserver.org/35391.html http://tc.eserver.org/35391.html One of the most interesting features of Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger, the newest version of Apple's operating system, is VoiceOver, a built-in screen reader. Up until now, people needing a screen reader have been more or less forced to use Windows because of the lack of decent screen reader software for the Mac, but now it's built right into the Mac OS. http://tc.eserver.org/35370.html http://tc.eserver.org/35370.html I needed to make some macros available to all Word documents I opened. I wouldn’t need the macros for every document, but I would need them for many documents. The documents I was working on used different templates, so adding the macro to each template was not an option. http://tc.eserver.org/35339.html http://tc.eserver.org/35339.html Help authoring tools (HATs) are specialized editors and converters to create online technical documentation. Today, many help authoring tools also provide features for single source publishing, which means that you can generate several output formats and versions from one shared text source. While most tools manage to produce different online formats like browser-based help and compiled help very well, only few tools can also produce printed user manuals (or PDF) of professional quality. Big differences also exist between the tools when it comes to translating your projects into foreign languages. http://tc.eserver.org/35340.html http://tc.eserver.org/35340.html Checklist of key criteria for selecting a tool to take screen captures (screenshots / screen dumps). Screen captures are used within all forms of software documentation, such as user manuals, online help files, interactive demos and tutorials, but also for web sites and brochures. http://tc.eserver.org/35341.html http://tc.eserver.org/35341.html Checklist of key criteria for selecting a tool to create interactive software demos (so-called screencasts). Software demos are not only used on web sites but increasingly also as standalone tutorials or embedded within online help files and other sorts of software documentation. http://tc.eserver.org/35344.html http://tc.eserver.org/35344.html Checkliste der wichtigsten Kriterien für die Auswahl eines Tools zum Erstellen von Software-Dokumentation (Handbücher, Online-Hilfen) - sog. Help Authoring Tools, kurz HAT. Viele Help Authoring Tools können Benutzerhandbücher und Online-Hilfen aus einer gemeinsamen Textquelle heraus generieren (sog. Single Source Publishing). http://tc.eserver.org/35348.html http://tc.eserver.org/35348.html Marktüberblick über empfehlenswerte Tools zum Erstellen von Software-Demos (engl. Screencasts). Software-Demos werden nicht nur für Marketing-Zwecke auf Webseiten verwendet, sondern häufig auch als Ergänzung zur Technischen Dokumentation von Software: z.B. als eigenständiges Tutorial oder auch als integrativer Bestandteil einer Online-Hilfe oder sonstiger Software-Dokumentation. http://tc.eserver.org/35350.html http://tc.eserver.org/35350.html Before looking at tools, please look at the DMCP Captioning Key to get familiar with captioning standards. http://tc.eserver.org/35295.html http://tc.eserver.org/35295.html You've probably heard that everything in Linux is a file, so start on the right path with a solid grounding in file and directory management -- finding, listing, moving, copying, and archiving. You can use this material in this article to study for the LPI® 101 exam for Linux system administrator certification, or just to learn for fun. http://tc.eserver.org/35220.html http://tc.eserver.org/35220.html For companies that are struggling in the current times because of the economic slowdown, an option that might not compromise on product quality is to switch to open-source software. In this article, I will talk about open-source publishing tools for the writing community. http://tc.eserver.org/35206.html http://tc.eserver.org/35206.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/35149.html http://tc.eserver.org/35149.html Working with InDesign is interesting. On the one hand, it’s not really a tool built for technical writers. It’s intended for people laying out magazines, brochures, other heavily designed print matter. As such, some things can be confusing. Cross references, figure references, a table of contents — get ready to search the help to figure these out. On the other hand, the power of the InDesign is somewhat captivating. You’re only limited by your own ignorance. http://tc.eserver.org/35119.html http://tc.eserver.org/35119.html A basic introduction to the new functions in Microsoft Excel 2007, which changed the user interface significantly from its earlier (2003) version. http://tc.eserver.org/35054.html http://tc.eserver.org/35054.html On top of the usual frustrations with poor, incomplete, and incorrect implementation of standards and typically buggy and poorly-supported programs, add my frustration with trying to integrate these tools with other similarly joyful tools and you can see that my job is a recipe for bitterness and pain. http://tc.eserver.org/35059.html http://tc.eserver.org/35059.html The two most well-known XSLT processors are probably the Apache project's Xalan (available in both a Java and C++ version) and the Java-based Saxon, which was written by XSLT 2.0 specification editor Michael Kay. If those are the only two XSLT processors you currently use, it's worth checking out Daniel Veillard's libxslt. http://tc.eserver.org/35035.html http://tc.eserver.org/35035.html There's only one thing you can generalize: open source is a specific kind of license. And discussions about which license is better are rather academic. What you'd want to decide on is what your software should do, if and how you want to customize it, and how easy it is to get support when you need it. That means doing your homework, and finding out the real story: you'll certainly want to know what's behind the facade. And that's something that applies to software under any license. http://tc.eserver.org/35031.html http://tc.eserver.org/35031.html Microsoft markets SharePoint as an omnibus information-management platform, but like all software, it has meaningful strengths and weaknesses. People frequently label SharePoint a collaboration product, when in fact, it excels at some types of collaboration but virtually ignores other. SharePoint is useful for some Web Content Management scenarios, but poor at (many) others. http://tc.eserver.org/34982.html http://tc.eserver.org/34982.html Don't like the font that Word uses for a default in your new documents? You can pick a different font, but the way you make the selection is not as straightforward as you might expect. (This tip works with Microsoft Word 2000, Word 2002, Word 2003, and Word 2007.) http://tc.eserver.org/34912.html http://tc.eserver.org/34912.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/34864.html http://tc.eserver.org/34864.html I am well aware of the irritating, hair-tearing frustration Word gives you when it won’t do what you want it to. Here’s a series of mini-articles showing you how to ‘get a grip’ on the program and make it do what you want, not what it ‘thinks’ you want. http://tc.eserver.org/34758.html http://tc.eserver.org/34758.html PowerPoint is not a neutral tool — it is actively hostile to thoughtful decision-making. It has fundamentally changed our culture by altering the expectations of who makes decisions, what decisions they make and how they make them. While this may seem to be a sweeping generalization, I think a brief examination of the impact of PowerPoint will support this statement. http://tc.eserver.org/34735.html http://tc.eserver.org/34735.html There’s simply no way to learn InDesign (or any other major application) all at once. If you’re a frustrated newcomer to InDesign, or even if you’ve been using it for some time and want to expand your knowledge, here’s a suggestion: Set aside about 15-20 minutes every day to learn the basics of one feature. It doesn’t really matter what that feature is. http://tc.eserver.org/34710.html http://tc.eserver.org/34710.html The authoring tool does matter. Writers are focusing on the wrong set of issues (leading, kerning, print formatting), none of which is actually relevant for the output. http://tc.eserver.org/34659.html http://tc.eserver.org/34659.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/34632.html http://tc.eserver.org/34632.html This article is designed to help users who are new to NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) - external link learn the basic controls for testing web content, and to serve as a reference for the occasional NVDA user. NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) is a free and open source screen reader for the Microsoft Windows operating system. It supports over 20 languages and can run on any computer entirely from a USB drive with no installation. http://tc.eserver.org/34633.html http://tc.eserver.org/34633.html WebAIM conducted a survey of preferences of screen reader users. With over 1100 responses, this survey provides great insight into the demographics and preferences of screen reader users. http://tc.eserver.org/34433.html http://tc.eserver.org/34433.html If we say that it was mainly because of the Windows operating system that a computer could become a personal computer it would not be an exaggeration. The revolution is still on. Windows is far beyond what a common man presently knows and uses. http://tc.eserver.org/34374.html http://tc.eserver.org/34374.html As an experienced Plone front end developer, people are often surprised when I often decide not to use Plone, in favour of something like Drupal or Wordpress. I thought it would be useful to explain why and how I make this decision. I know some of these points won’t be popular in the Plone community, but they are based on experience, and think this blog post will be useful to people deciding whether to use it or not. http://tc.eserver.org/34351.html http://tc.eserver.org/34351.html When companies decide whether or not to adopt a CMS or continue using a HAT, there are many factors to consider. Perlin outlines elements of both CMSs and HATs that could help you determine which is best for your organization. http://tc.eserver.org/34357.html http://tc.eserver.org/34357.html Master Pages, a new concept introduced in Adobe RoboHelp 8, intends to provide flexibility in controlling the layout of topics, where in an author may separate the actual content from the layout of the output and may do it from a single place. In Adobe RoboHelp 8, a user may use Master Page as a Layout and Styling canvas where one may put basic HTML elements to be used for Layout purposes. http://tc.eserver.org/34337.html http://tc.eserver.org/34337.html Given how hard it is for students (and their programs) to afford the expensive tools in our profession, I thought it might help to pass along these alternatives to commercial products. I think anyone breaking into the field (or a new type of tool) would do very well to train up on these open source tools and create portfolio pieces with them. http://tc.eserver.org/34327.html http://tc.eserver.org/34327.html Increasingly, virtual teamwork means UX professionals must get things done in an environment devoid of the physical presence of colleagues and lacking the relative ease of on-site collaboration. Effectively completing UX tasks while at a distance from our clients, stakeholders, and team members can be challenging, from both technical and process perspectives. How can we, as UX professionals, enable the close collaboration with others we need and manage the process of creating engaging digital experiences when we’re so far apart from each other physically? http://tc.eserver.org/34330.html http://tc.eserver.org/34330.html I decided to simplify the DITA publishing process for myself by building a Windows interface to Ant. Ant was developed to allow programmers to write a simple build file in an XML format, and then process that XML file with the Ant build software. http://tc.eserver.org/34331.html http://tc.eserver.org/34331.html This procedure is used to modify the DITA Open Toolkit build files to allow an external map file reference and alias strings to be added to the HTML Help Project file before building, as part of the transformation to Microsoft HTML Help (CHM) format. http://tc.eserver.org/34315.html http://tc.eserver.org/34315.html Twitter isn’t just a cute way for keeping in instant touch with friends on mobile phones anymore. It has ramped up quickly to be the search engine of choice for some with its human driven results. Applications galore allow you to find friends all over the world with similar interests and keep up with them in real time. Businesses can form instant direct relationships with their customer bases simply by signing up and using the service regularly, and according to the models Twitter is trying out, they will soon be able to advertise to the Twitter community as well. It has grown into a behemoth that is hard to get your hands around, which is why we’ve put this article together for you. We’ve compiled an alphabetized glossary here for you so that you can just scan down the list and find the term that you are looking for, as well as a list of popular Twitter applications and instructions for incorporating Twitter into your website and blogs. http://tc.eserver.org/34288.html http://tc.eserver.org/34288.html While law firm IT spending frequently flattens out in tough economic times, that doesn't mean you or your colleagues have to restrict yourselves to using the same technology. A host of free Web applications are surprisingly effective in helping law firms from solo practitioners to large firm in-house PR and marketing staff, stay on top of the game. The trick is knowing which tools out there are worth your time. Here are the applications that made our top-24 list. http://tc.eserver.org/34284.html http://tc.eserver.org/34284.html Once you've built the business case for purchasing a CMS, this guide can serve as a 'field guide' for the evaluation, implementation and deployment process. It begins by analyzing the anatomy of a CMS project, going through the decide and buy, implement and integrate, manage and maintain and upgrade and enhance phases. As part of the first phase, this guide provides a very useful sample of a Request for Proposal (RFP) to help you evaluate content management vendors. The guide also underlines the importance of viewing content management as a process, not a product, and suggests working with a content management vendor who will become a core part of your Web site management team. http://tc.eserver.org/34260.html http://tc.eserver.org/34260.html With FrameMaker 9 comes a new way to work with files on a CMS (Content Management Server) that supports HTTP/WebDAV protocol. WebDAV is a kind of extension over HTTP which allows user to write files on Web along with usual viewing. Multiple users can collaboratively edit and manage files hosted on the Web server. Since many of today’s CMS servers provide users with a WebDAV route to access and edit files, FrameMaker 9 can automate the collaborative tasks by providing direct ways to view and make changes to files on CMS systems. http://tc.eserver.org/34255.html http://tc.eserver.org/34255.html Twitteurs are in a hyperventilating snit over the ridicule being heaped on their plaything by, among others, the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Doonesbury’s Garry Trudeau. I’m a longtime Twitteur, semi-evangelical and pretty well engaged with it on a daily basis. By this point it is as integrated in my being as lymph. But I think the ridicule is a delightful, even important development. http://tc.eserver.org/34231.html http://tc.eserver.org/34231.html YSlow assigns letter grades (A thru F) for a page in each of 13 categories of best-practice. I decided to run YSlow against the home pages of 35 well-known web content management and/or enterprise content management vendors, then calculate a Grade Point Average. The scores are posted below. http://tc.eserver.org/34213.html http://tc.eserver.org/34213.html Learn the basics of the UNIX shell and discover how you can use the command line to combine the finite set of UNIX utilities into innumerable data transforms. http://tc.eserver.org/34176.html http://tc.eserver.org/34176.html You might think corruption is mainly an issue in places like sub-Saharan Africa or Myanmar, but unfortunately I’ve been exposed to several cases of this inside the online industry. http://tc.eserver.org/34104.html http://tc.eserver.org/34104.html In this report, we take a look at four different open source Content Management Systems—WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and Plone—and rate them on a variety of criteria, including system flexibility, features, ease of use and the availability of support. We chose these systems because they’re the most popular four in the nonprofit sector today, according to our analysis (see Appendix C for more details on our market analysis). We also dig a little deeper into what open source is all about, and how a CMS can help streamline processes. We even take a look at some vendor-provided systems, along with a few other open source ones, in case you don’t find what you’re looking for among the four original choices. http://tc.eserver.org/34042.html http://tc.eserver.org/34042.html Choosing a content management system can be tricky. Without a clearly defined set of requirements, you will be seduced by fancy functionality that you will never use. What then should you look for in a CMS? http://tc.eserver.org/34024.html http://tc.eserver.org/34024.html Although I love using the proprietary software that I’ve mentioned in the first sentence, I enjoy using open source software as well since some of them are actually better than the paid software in some respects. http://tc.eserver.org/33905.html http://tc.eserver.org/33905.html Advances in word processing technology now enable people to author simple documents in an interface they are familiar with. They no longer need to know a lot about markup, the schema in use, or be distracted by other concerns than writing what they want to write. This simpler interface, built upon a Microsoft "Smart Doc" solution provides support for authors who are focused on the content they are writing rather than the markup that describes it. At the same time, the author is producing valid XML that can be routed for review and approval, used for multi-channel delivery, or reused by other authors in the enterprise. Several scenarios of how such an authoring/management system could be used to solve business challenges are described. http://tc.eserver.org/33893.html http://tc.eserver.org/33893.html Sample code often provides the quickest, clearest way to learn how an SDK works. If you have software engineering experience, then you should already know many principles for writing good code. However, what you may not realize is that some of the good practices that you learned for writing good production code do not apply to writing good sample code. Some techniques, such as comments and clear variable names, apply to both production code and sample code. However, there are good reasons to use hard-coded values in sample code, which should be avoided in production code, and there are good reasons to avoid object-oriented designs when writing sample code. http://tc.eserver.org/33870.html http://tc.eserver.org/33870.html Part of the appeal of Google's suite of web-based productivity applications is the integration between them -- Gmail can send events to Google Calendar, Calendar sends reminders and note to Gmail and so on. Lately Google has extended that integration to make working with Google Docs a little bit easier. http://tc.eserver.org/33761.html http://tc.eserver.org/33761.html XML editors have traditionally been modeled after the first SGML editor written in 1985, a long time before creating, managing, and distributing structured information was well understood. Now, nearly 20 years later, there are more choices for users interested in creating structured information. Specifically, this presentation discusses alternatives that include Web-based distributed collaborative XML document creation, "tag-free" tools, non-formatting structured editors, and even using common office tools in creating your XML documents. http://tc.eserver.org/33725.html http://tc.eserver.org/33725.html I've been working on the Python Module of the Week series since March of 2007. During the course of the project, my article style and tool chain have both evolved. I now have a fairly smooth production process in place, so the mechanics of producing a new post don't get in the way of the actual research and writing. Most of the tools are open source, so I thought I would describe the process I go through and how the tools work together. http://tc.eserver.org/33696.html http://tc.eserver.org/33696.html There’s a lot of tool fetishism in the documentation world. We all succumb to it in one way or another — I used to think it was FrameMaker or DocBook, or nothing. Ah, the folly of youth. But that attitude severely limits you as a professional. For a consultant or freelancer, it’s only a few steps away from suicide. http://tc.eserver.org/33615.html http://tc.eserver.org/33615.html Field codes provide a way to customize your Word document manually. That sounds like hard work, but the field codes also give you an inside look at some of the ways that you can customize a page number or a table of contents. (Really—those are fields.) http://tc.eserver.org/33619.html http://tc.eserver.org/33619.html To Word, comments, the body of your document, footers, etc. are basically the same. And this is good because if a feature works in one story, there's a very good chance it works in all stories. This is why you can track changes in not only the body of your document (i.e., "main story"), but also in headers, footers, endnotes, text boxes, etc. Put simply, this common story architecture enables as much Word goodness in as many places in Word as possible. http://tc.eserver.org/33608.html http://tc.eserver.org/33608.html I've been using RoboHelp for nearly a decade now. I started off with an older Word-based version to create WinHelp, and now I work with the HTML version to create WebHelp for locally installed and server-based products. Here are a few RoboHelp tips that I've found useful in my day-to-day help authoring responsibilities. http://tc.eserver.org/33610.html http://tc.eserver.org/33610.html Building Blocks are reusable chunks of a Word document. They can contain any thing a Word document can contain, including pictures, shapes, fields, and even other building blocks. http://tc.eserver.org/33611.html http://tc.eserver.org/33611.html Table of contents and the Document Map are designed to work best with documents that use styles. Styles not only apply a look and feel to a document, but also provide semantic structure. For example, applying a Heading 2 style to some content that exists under a Heading 1 style implies hierarchy within a document. http://tc.eserver.org/33549.html http://tc.eserver.org/33549.html CMS software selection with Plone and Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS) as finalists seems to have become a pretty common case. This is true especially for “intranet/extranet” projects in which the primary focus is on web publishing and collaboration features. I’ve been asked several times to work on comparing the two and I’d like to share some of this experience. Also note that this can’t be a “vendor neutral” comparison because of my involvement in Plone; but I’ll do my best to highlight differences and strenghths of the two solutions. http://tc.eserver.org/33478.html http://tc.eserver.org/33478.html Over the past twenty years, the field of user experience has been fortunate. Software and hardware product organizations increasingly have adopted user-centered design methods such as contextual user research, usability testing, and iterative interaction design. In large part, this has occurred because the market has demanded it. More than ever, good interaction design and high usability are part of the price of entry to markets. http://tc.eserver.org/33421.html http://tc.eserver.org/33421.html Debates about Microsoft Word vs. Adobe Framemaker appear with regular frequency on the tech-writing mailing lists I am subscribed to. Everyone agrees Frame is an awesome publishing tool. Yet, everyone keeps cribbing about it. So, why does a bright bunch of people who are masters at figuring out stuff, otherwise known as tech-writers, only hesitatingly agree Frame is “kind of great”? I think it’s mostly because Frame is so difficult to use. http://tc.eserver.org/33260.html http://tc.eserver.org/33260.html It is quite possible, in fact could be preferable, to manage content and distributed authorship without the use of a content management system (CMS). Regardless, it’s very important to have a process in place before you choose a CMS. http://tc.eserver.org/33281.html http://tc.eserver.org/33281.html Most organizations don’t need content management software. Unless you have a very busy website with lots and lots of content being published, the return on investment is not there. The majority of those who do require such software need a very simple, streamlined solution. http://tc.eserver.org/33283.html http://tc.eserver.org/33283.html This whole category of software desperately needs to be redesigned with writers, editors, designers, and site owners in mind. Here are my recommendations to the folks writing open source content management systems. http://tc.eserver.org/33216.html http://tc.eserver.org/33216.html The worldwide ecosystem of interested parties involved in website and web application development has become enormous. Accordingly, there are few unifying themes among the various parties other than the mutual goal of having a “good” website as the final product. However the definition of what is good is entirely subjective. Many other requirements such as the ability to leverage existing resources and a desire to integrate the new project with existing enterprise applications contend for attention in the decision process. To get a clear idea of how we might increase the buzz and attention for Plone and Zope, let's profile some of the interested parties. http://tc.eserver.org/33219.html http://tc.eserver.org/33219.html Is today's OpenOffice good enough for the enterprise? For most jobs—word processing, presentations or spreadsheets—the answer is yes. Compatibility with Microsoft Office isn't a problem unless sophisticated macros are involved. Interoperability, the greatest hurdle to conquer on the way to adoption, is almost a nonissue. OpenOffice even offers features missing in Microsoft Office, like PDF or Flash data exports. http://tc.eserver.org/32874.html http://tc.eserver.org/32874.html Dreamweaver allows developers to be prompted when inserting certain web elements that may need accessibility attributes added to them. Unfortunately, these options are disabled in the preferences by default.ImportantBy default, the accessibility options are disabled in Dreamweaver MX. Once selected, Dreamweaver will display a prompt for accessibility features when each of the identified elements are inserted into a document. http://tc.eserver.org/32875.html http://tc.eserver.org/32875.html When designing with FrontPage, some basic accessibility features must be added manually. Despite some of these shortcomings, it is definitely possible to create accessible web pages in FrontPage, often without leaving the WYSIWYG environment. http://tc.eserver.org/32789.html http://tc.eserver.org/32789.html A partial history of why Outlook has so, so many viruses communicated using it, and how people at Microsoft thought to try and stop it. A study of why minor patches can't repair major architecture issues. http://tc.eserver.org/32791.html http://tc.eserver.org/32791.html Information Rights Management (IRM), a new feature in Microsoft® Office 2003, can help prevent sensitive information from being distributed to or read by people who do not have permission to access the content. In Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003, users can create and send e-mail messages with restricted permission to help prevent messages from being forwarded, printed, or copied and pasted. Microsoft Office 2003 documents, workbooks, and presentations that are attached to messages with restricted permission are automatically restricted as well. http://tc.eserver.org/32792.html http://tc.eserver.org/32792.html Introduces readers to the major DITA tools for editing, content and translation management, and publishing. http://tc.eserver.org/32641.html http://tc.eserver.org/32641.html Photoshop. Fireworks. If you’re a serious web designer (and not using the GIMP) you’re going to be using one or the other. But which is best? http://tc.eserver.org/32652.html http://tc.eserver.org/32652.html Django is an open-source Web framework, written in Python, that allows you to easily and rapidly develop interactive, data-centric web applications. It came into being when two Web developers—Adrian Holovaty and Simon Willison—in Kansas, after moving their newspaper’s website from PHP to Python, found themselves repeatedly solving similar problems. They decided to extract the common functionality and released the resulting framework in 2005. http://tc.eserver.org/32631.html http://tc.eserver.org/32631.html First and foremost, Microsoft Word is a solid piece of software, and the 2007 version is untouchable at present. It pretty much sets the standard. It's also in no way evil in and of itself. That said, it's unfortunately not free, so here are some alternatives that are. http://tc.eserver.org/32600.html http://tc.eserver.org/32600.html Is Open Source better? It's not a black and white question; the answer will depend on your needs and circumstances. Still, there are some very good things to be said for supporting Open Source and Open Standards. Here's a list of the top reasons why we prefer Open Standards and Open Source development. http://tc.eserver.org/32602.html http://tc.eserver.org/32602.html There's recently been a lot of discussion and considerable interest in content management systems. Buyers are starting to ask for these solutions from vendors with greater regularity and the buyers are clearly better informed than in the past. Still the issue that comes up again and again is, how do you know which content management system (CMS) is right for you? http://tc.eserver.org/32605.html http://tc.eserver.org/32605.html The CMS market really took wing with the liftoff of the LAMP stack and the growth of a supportive development community. Suddenly it seemed everyone was producing LAMP-based CMSes under Open Source licenses. http://tc.eserver.org/32575.html http://tc.eserver.org/32575.html Sometimes a simple idea can make a big difference in your work. One recent improvement to major design applications is the addition of glyph palettes. This handy feature will help you find and use the exact character you’re looking for – even if your font has thousands to choose from! http://tc.eserver.org/32579.html http://tc.eserver.org/32579.html The survey shows that three systems have come to dominate the present market: WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal. Indeed, the numbers indicate that these three systems have opened up a large lead on the rest of the pack and have emerged as the dominant brands in the market. http://tc.eserver.org/32580.html http://tc.eserver.org/32580.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/32581.html http://tc.eserver.org/32581.html Many Open Source content management systems written in PHP want to be recognized by the business industry as being "enterprise" ready. This is not only a mark of prestige and status but places them in a position where large companies are ready to invest in the software as a platform for their projects. Drupal is now trying making its move to be enterprise ready but has a long way to go. http://tc.eserver.org/32591.html http://tc.eserver.org/32591.html In this column, I’ll explore the user experience of malicious software, or malware. My position is that, like many qualitative attributes, malware is in the eye of the beholder. And, I’ll suggest a method that product or service developers can use to assess the risk that their users, the media, or the market at large might perceive their offerings as malware. http://tc.eserver.org/32440.html http://tc.eserver.org/32440.html I find choosing a CMS incredibly difficult, and evaluating them is very time consuming and often frustrating. There are hundreds of options, one worse than the other. To date I have never come across a CMS that doesn’t have serious flaws. Even if a CMS looks good at a glance, once you start digging deeper you will always encounter problems with usability, accessibility, and front-end code. http://tc.eserver.org/32380.html http://tc.eserver.org/32380.html PowerPoint is standard… …but bad. Why? http://tc.eserver.org/32372.html http://tc.eserver.org/32372.html Content Management System software is available commercially from several vendors, as well as from many free or open source software (FOSS) communities. The quality of the open source versions, especially the market leaders mentioned in this article, is very good, and using open source has the additional benefit of an collaborative community of programmers working on improvements and bug fixes, often able to respond faster than their commercial rivals. Of course, cost is the advantage many IT managers are interested in when considering open source alternatives, as most of these packages are available free or for a small donation of time or money.In either case, using a CMS solution, whether commerical or FOSS, saves money in development time and also provides stronger security through the technical support of the software vendor or the collaborative programming community. http://tc.eserver.org/32373.html http://tc.eserver.org/32373.html Content Management System (CMS) software tools give even the smallest business the chance to have a first-rate, interactive web presence. Packed with powerful features, and easily extended with add-on modules, CMS tools reduce web site development time and costs while providing interactivity, distributed responsibility, security, convenience and significant cost savings. http://tc.eserver.org/32298.html http://tc.eserver.org/32298.html This is the era of social networking, collective intelligence, participation, collaborative creation, and borderless distribution. Every day we are bombarded with more publicity about collaborative environments, news feeds, blogs, wikis, podcasting, webcasting, folksonomies, social bookmarking, social citations, collaborative filtering, recommender systems, media sharing, massive multiplayer online games, virtual worlds, and mash-ups. This sort of anarchic environment appeals to the digital natives, but which of these so-called `Web 2.0' technologies are going to have a real business impact? This paper addresses the impact that issues such as quality control, security, privacy and bandwidth may have on the implementation of social networking in hide-bound, large organizations. http://tc.eserver.org/32256.html http://tc.eserver.org/32256.html With an inundation of tools for technical communicators to choose from, what are the best ones for specific tasks? And what should be the focus of technical communication—content, design, style? http://tc.eserver.org/32204.html http://tc.eserver.org/32204.html Whether software documentation is designed for a company’s internal users or for a variety of end customers, one thing is for certain: Documentation that is well written, well structured, easily accessible, and thoroughly compliments the software it supports can play a significant role in a product’s overall success. And it doesn’t matter if the documentation stands alone or it is integrated with the product. As long as it is properly planned, developed, and configured, success is eminent. http://tc.eserver.org/32146.html http://tc.eserver.org/32146.html Some writers truly hate Adobe Acrobat and any tool that can do the job better is worth a shot, particularly if it’s open source and easily navigated. Flossmanuals.net introduces FLOSS which does a lot of the single desktop Acrobat Pro’s job - collaboratively and open source. http://tc.eserver.org/32088.html http://tc.eserver.org/32088.html I've long been an advocate that teaching technical communication without teaching tools is like teaching art students about painting without talking about brushes. http://tc.eserver.org/32079.html http://tc.eserver.org/32079.html In SharePoint, we are likely to think of developers as people who work to customise SharePoint, but there are a lot of developers out there who are simply end users of SharePoint. How do they like the system? http://tc.eserver.org/32081.html http://tc.eserver.org/32081.html Joomla is more complex than WordPress but it has more power. Because it’s a real content management system—unlike WordPress which is a blog with content management capabilities—you don’t have to customise it to make it look like one. Other people have also created templates you can use. http://tc.eserver.org/32082.html http://tc.eserver.org/32082.html I know that some users of high-end CMS’s may dispute this definition, as a high-end CMS does a lot more. But what is a content management system really? It is content, stored in some kind of database, accessed via a front end. That is exactly what WordPress is. http://tc.eserver.org/32011.html http://tc.eserver.org/32011.html Although tools seem to play a significant role in technical authoring, some people disagree. Embrace tool learning. Recognize that the 'best tool' is relative. Expose knowledge gaps. http://tc.eserver.org/31968.html http://tc.eserver.org/31968.html This guide to dealing with the trials and tribulations of Master documents is virtually guaranteed to save whatever fragments of sanity you may have left as you deal with Master documents. http://tc.eserver.org/31951.html http://tc.eserver.org/31951.html There’s no question that developers need version control when working on an app. But what about designers? In this article Chris Nagele, founder of Beanstalk, talks about the benefits and basics of Subversion for designers. http://tc.eserver.org/31940.html http://tc.eserver.org/31940.html Technical writers create documents in various formats like electronic publishing, print, online help, etc. The various tools used to produce technical documents are described below. http://tc.eserver.org/31753.html http://tc.eserver.org/31753.html What distinguishes the underlying strategies of Adobe InDesign from QuarkXPress is the absence or presence of a content management system (CMS). And each company asserts that it’s following the less-traveled road. The problem is they’re both taking roads most traveled because of their respective stances towards integrated content management systems, and I’ll show you how after looking at their respective strategies. http://tc.eserver.org/31727.html http://tc.eserver.org/31727.html Customer support costs account for as much as 60 percent of a high-tech company’s total costs. Documentation is the first line of support for most customers, and customers usually use documentation to find the answer to a problem they’re having. The inevitable result of poor or nonexistent documentation is that more people try calling the customer support lines for help. http://tc.eserver.org/31491.html http://tc.eserver.org/31491.html One of the things I like about WordPress is its versatility. WordPress isn’t just blogging software. With the right theme, you can build a website that doesn’t resemble a blog at all. Essentially, writers who become familiar with WordPress become empowered as web designers as well. http://tc.eserver.org/31473.html http://tc.eserver.org/31473.html New conferencing and collaboration solutions are being announced at the pace of one or more tools per week. New versions and upgrades are promoted even more frequently, and in this avalanche of "this is the best, don't look anywhere else" claims, it is hard to distinguish the good from the average. How should you select your web conferencing tool? Which companies are more reliable and how do you find out? How can you be sure you will not be disappointed? These are tough questions to answer, as there are a million vendors out there and an army of supposed experts all claiming to have the best solution while offering different ones. http://tc.eserver.org/31353.html http://tc.eserver.org/31353.html Explores the benefits of using Language QA Software to optimize documentation for organizations and companies. http://tc.eserver.org/31359.html http://tc.eserver.org/31359.html For those who dream about gaining high-speed, efficient, and bug-free performance from their PCs, Archee discusses the option of Linux, the world's most developed computer operating system—and it's free. http://tc.eserver.org/31273.html http://tc.eserver.org/31273.html Content migrations are often the dirty little secret that folks in the CMS world like to avoid. It’s hard, it’s messy and very few organizations do it well. Truth be told, the content migration can often be the hardest part of implementing a new CMS. http://tc.eserver.org/31187.html http://tc.eserver.org/31187.html Defining a site is one of the more complicated procedures in Dreamweaver, so do not attempt this process unless you have some time, patience, and knowledge of how to transfer files to your server space. http://tc.eserver.org/31188.html http://tc.eserver.org/31188.html This tutorial is based on the PC version of Microsoft PowerPoint 2003, but the principles explained here should be similar for older versions of the program and for Macs. http://tc.eserver.org/31199.html http://tc.eserver.org/31199.html TechSmith's Morae is a powerful tool that is useful for any usability study. Its simplicity, efficiency, cost effectiveness and portability has redefined the data collection process and allows researchers to focus on the user experience rather than the data collection tools. This article discusses some of the features of this tool and proposes some enhancements to make it even more powerful to usability practitioners. http://tc.eserver.org/31189.html http://tc.eserver.org/31189.html This tutorial is based on the PC version of Microsoft Word 2003, but the principles explained here should be similar for older versions of the program and for Macs. http://tc.eserver.org/31172.html http://tc.eserver.org/31172.html 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 corporate restrictions, standards, and culture will present seemingly insurmountable barriers to blogs. http://tc.eserver.org/31159.html http://tc.eserver.org/31159.html Thanks to my Google News Alert service, I recently discovered some on-demand XML Editors supporing DITA. While Salesforce democratized software on-demand in the CRM market, I am still perplexed on the future of on-demand pure play software. So let's see first what makes on-demand software, also known as Saas (Software as a Service), so attractive nowadays. I see five compelling reasons. http://tc.eserver.org/31165.html http://tc.eserver.org/31165.html Technical documentation is a prime beneficiary of XML technology, with standards such as DocBook and DITA. However, while XML revolutionized the way technical documentation is written, it did nothing to help documentation teams improve the collaboration process with the SMEs and other invested parties. In some cases, things got worse, with another layer of complexity added between the documentation team and the documentation stakeholders. Where is the missing link? http://tc.eserver.org/31166.html http://tc.eserver.org/31166.html Sharing XML documents during the writing and review process is a missing link in the XML publication chain. While Office or PDF applications help, they also add another extra-layer of complexity and lose the 'XML awareness' of our initial document. That's where LiveTechDocs comes into play. http://tc.eserver.org/31164.html http://tc.eserver.org/31164.html Looking through my Programs folder, I see many programs I use to work with XML documentation. Which one is my favorite? Well, that depends on the size of my project, the size of my budget, and the file I am working on.