#28027
Best Practice Flare: High Definition PDF
Having introduced the concept of high definition PDF's output straight from Flare's source files with minimal post-production, we can now start to dig into the technologies that are used to produce it.
Tech Write Tips (2006). Articles>Documentation>Software>Madcap Flare
#23772
The Best Word Processor for Mac OS X 
I would like input on the best WP for X, the best for the buck. I don't need a whole office package, just WP.
MacWorld (2003). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Macintosh
#20493
The field of technical communication is in many ways inscribed by technology. As a result, technical communication programs not only must provide students with a foundation in the theory and practice of the field, but also must give students some level of proficiency in the technology tools they will need to put that knowledge into service in the workplace.
Brumberger, Eva R. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Software
#23465
The Blind Leading the Enlightened
Having read, with interest, the recent articles about the virtues (or otherwise) of Microsoft Word as a tool for producing technical documents we feel the real issue is not how to create technical documents using Microsoft Word, but rather what tool best suits the task. We suggest that the selection of the most appropriate tool be instigated by those enlightened people -- the Technical Publications people -- and not the business managers with little knowledge of the specialist needs of Technical Publications.
Munro, Christine. TC-FORUM (1998). Articles>Word Processing>Software
#27131
Blogs and One-Step CMSes are the Future of Web 2.0
Last year before I discovered Drupal and a host of other Content management systems I was building websites from scratch. I spent hours in PHP and Active Server Pages coding and designing. I was quite happy doing so. But then I came upon a flaw in the business plan of the company where I worked. It seemed we were doing the same thing over and over again only with slight differences in the end result. These differences were the reason I was busy all the time but could never catch up to the work load. What we needed was a finished product that allowed us to produce addons to satisfy the individual needs of each client.
Hiveminds (2006). Articles>Content Management>Software
#28893
A Breadth-First Survey of Eye Tracking Applications 
Eye tracking applications are surveyed in a breadth-first manner, reporting on work from the following domains: Neuroscience, Psychology, Industrial Engineering and Human Factors, Marketing/Advertising, and Computer Science. Following a review of traditionally diagnostic uses, emphasis is placed on interactive applications, differentiating between selective and gaze-contingent approaches.
Duchowski, Andrew T. Lunds Universitet (2002). Articles>Software>Usability>Eye Tracking
#26113
Breaking the Word Processor Curve
When you first switch to Writer, this claim that Writer beats Word may seem hard to swallow. And no wonder; you're too busy learning the new menus to get beyond the fact that everything's only half-familiar. And if you're an unsophisticated user who has yet to learn (to steal the title of Robin Williams' book) that the PC is not a typewriter, you might never notice. However, if you're an advanced user for whom style, structured text and long documents are all part of word processing, then the claim soon becomes self-evident.
Byfield, Bruce. Linux Journal (2003). Articles>Word Processing>Software>OpenOffice
#20477
Bridging the Gap Between Design and Editorial
With both Adobe InDesign® CS and Adobe InCopy® CS in your publishing workflow, writers and editors can compose stories in InCopy at the same time designers are laying out the pages using InDesign—without overwriting each other’s work.
Adobe (2003). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign
#28247
Review: 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.
Regnard. Standard Web Standards (2006). Articles>Reviews>Software>Dreamweaver
#28196
A triple-barreled question facing many enterprises today is whether to use an application-building tool or 'framework' to build a content management system (CMS); to buy one of the many out-of-the-box finished products in use by major Web sites; or to simply rent a CMS from an application service provider (ASP) and avoid the headache of running an application server in the enterprise's data center.
Doyle, Bob. EContent (2004). Articles>Content Management>Software
#14168
Buyer's Guide to Content-Management Tools
As your sites become more critical and complex, you need tools to automate management--and you need them now. Enter the new generation of Web site content-management products--a seasoned batch of tools and systems ready to help you meet the challenges of the brave new Web world. There's a wide range of products out there, and while they overlap somewhat in functionality, the phrase Web site content management means different things to different people. For some, content management is really asset management--that is, a system to keep track of media assets, such as graphic elements, text and video. More commonly, however, Web site content management refers to a set of integrated tools that helps manage some portion of the whole range of site development and deployment tasks. Although no single product can do everything, many offer deployment/publishing, versioning and rollback, site design and page authoring tools, link checking, access control, change routing and notification, and site-visualization tools among their features.
Hoffman, Richard. Network Computing (2000). Articles>Content Management>Software
#27452
Calculating the True Price of Software
Therefore, the major difference in worldview between open source advocates and proprietary software license advocates is explainable as a differing opinion on the correct value of the volatility of maintenance and upgrade pricing. People who believe that the pricing on maintenance is stable and unlikely to change see greater intrinsic value in the software. People who fear that the pricing is subject to large fluctuations see no intrinsic value in the up-front license; stripped of the options, the license value approaches $0.
Lefkowitz, Robert. O'Reilly and Associates (2005). Articles>Technology>Software>Open Source
#18491
CAT Tools: A View from the Translation Company's Perspective
We've all heard a lot about Computer Aided Translation (CAT) tools over the last few years. We've also heard some of the war stories as well. But let's take a look from a different angle ' from the perspective of today's middle-market translation and localization service companies (TCs for short). We CAT tool providers spend a lot of time talking about the benefits to the translator, perhaps at the risk of missing some of those that are particularly important to a TC. Re-using previously translated materials (or leveraging as we like to call it) can be a very important factor in reducing the cost and increasing the consistency of translation. But it turns out that there are a number of other features in today's tools that are particularly helpful for TCs. I'm going to describe them in terms of two of the tools we are involved with, although others have some of these features as well.
Briggs, Brian M. SDL International. Articles>Language>Localization>Software
#29459
Categories of Free and Non-Free Software
A glossary of various categories of software that are often mentioned in discussions of free software.
Free Software Foundation (2005). Articles>Software>Open Source
#25041
Checklist for Justifying Free Software
In a few years viewing source code within the major components of software infrastructure will probably be a routine way of doing business. In the meantime it seems that the only reason managers want free software is because it is free (as in free of costs). That's not a good reason in itself: in the long run there are compelling reasons that robust, mission critical infrastructure software should be made free software.
Spence, Malcolm D. Free Software Magazine (2005). Articles>Software>Open Source
#28006
More and more people are working with texts and documents in XML format. With the increasing popularity of XML, the number of XML editors is also increasing and it can be difficult to choose the editor that best suits a particular user or task. The aim of this Information Paper is to provide an introduction to different features XML editors can have and the extent to which these features are implemented in various editors. It also presents the result of an evaluation exercise where different user groups tried a number of the editors.
van den Broek, Thijs. AHDS (2004). Articles>Information Design>Software>XML
#29976
Review: 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.
Self, Tony. HyperWrite (2006). Articles>Reviews>Software>XML
#29936
Cleaning up PDF Documents in Acrobat
If you are posting your PDF document to a web site, you'll generally want to upload a clean copy that will streamline the viewing experience for your site visitors. This tip outlines a quick way to remove unnecessary annotations, widgets, JavaScript, links, bookmarks and attachments, along with optimizing your documents for fast web viewing.
Shea, Dan. PlanetPDF (2007). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat
#27214
Cleaning Up Text Pasted from the Web
The ease of copying and pasting text from Web sites and email greatly simplifies many tasks in Word, but problems often arise in making the pasted text conform to the style of the document into which it is pasted. One of the most common chores is getting rid of excess line breaks, which cause the text to wrap short of the right margin. There are several ways to work around this problem.
Barnhill, Suzanne and Dave Rado. Word MVP Site, The (2005). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Microsoft Word
#26317
Cleaning Your Web Pages with HTML Tidy
A detailed article on using the HTML Tidy utility to clear up problems in an HTML file.
Nesbitt, Scott. InformIT (2004). Articles>Web Design>HTML>Software
#21808
If you're stuck in the rut of the default settings that Microsoft applies to its software, you're missing out: Here's a guide to customizing Windows systems to strip away annoying 'features' and enhance usability.
Garfinkel, Simson L. Technology Review (2004). Articles>Software>Operating Systems>Microsoft Windows
#18365
Chances are you have watched your best intentions evaporate under pressure, to find yourself tweaking PowerPoint slides in the desperate hours or minutes before your presentation, scrambling to make time for a quick rehearsal and hoping against hope that you'll be able to pull off a miracle. Indeed, if good intentions paid dividends, plenty of presenters would have tidy sums to add to their retirement nest eggs. Procrastination being the force of nature it is, however, no matter how much lead time presenters give themselves and no matter how many resources are at their disposal, more often than not, the presentation-development process devolves from noble ambitions to utter chaos.
Zielinski, Dave. Presentations (2002). Articles>Presentations>Software>Microsoft PowerPoint
#19539
Clustering and Dependencies in Free/Open Source Software Development: Methodology and Tools 
This paper addresses the problem of measurement of non-monetary economic activity, specifically in the area of free/open source software [1] communities. It describes the problems associated with research on these communities in the absence of measurable monetary transactions, and suggests possible alternatives. A class of techniques using software source code as factual documentation of economic activity is described and a methodology for the extraction, interpretation and analysis of empirical data from software source code is detailed, with the outline of algorithms for identifying collaborative authorship and determining the identity of coherent economic actors in developer communities. Finally, conclusions are drawn from the application of these techniques to a base of software.
Aiyer Ghosh, Rishab. First Monday (2003). Articles>Software>Open Source>Community
#27130
Comparing Apples and Oranges to CMS Software
As ridiculous as that may sound many are getting away with doing it. There are many comparisons of open source CMS software that are popping up that are total garbage. The reviewers are comparing CMS systems that are in 5 to 8 different categories and have 4 different sets of requirements. No wonder they are confused and can't make a choice.
Hiveminds (2006). Articles>Content Management>Software
#30997
Comparing Open Source CMSes: Joomla, Drupal and Plone
Open source content management systems can make creating and managing your website a lot easier - and there's no licensing fee involved. But which should you use? We look carefully at Joomla, Drupal, and Plone to compare their strengths and weaknesses.
Bonfield, Brett and Laura Quinn. IdealWare (2007). Articles>Content Management>Software
