#32256
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?
Doyle, Deborah Lewis Baxley. Intercom (2008). Articles>TC>Software
#32298
Social Software: Fun and Games, or Business Tools? 
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.
Warr, Wendy A. Journal of Information Science (2008). Articles>Software>Business Communication>Social Networking
#32372
Introduction to Web Content Management Systems: Part Two
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.
Kephart, Tom. New Tech Heroes (2008). Articles>Content Management>Software
#32373
Introduction to Web Content Management Systems: Part One
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.
Kephart, Tom. New Tech Heroes (2008). Articles>Content Management>Software>Open Source
#32380
PowerPoint is standard… …but bad. Why?
Swartz, Aaron. Aaron Swartz Weblog (2007). Articles>Presentations>Software>Microsoft PowerPoint
#32440
Looking for Open Source CMS and Portal Software Options
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.
Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2008). Articles>Content Management>Software>Open Source
#32575
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!
Strizver, Ilene. Upper and lowercase Magazine (2007). Articles>Typography>Fonts>Software
#32579
Open Source Content Management System Market Share 
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.
Shreves, Ric. Water and Stone (2008). Articles>Content Management>Software
#32580
Review: 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.
Hiveminds (2008). Articles>Reviews>Content Management>Software
#32581
Five Reasons Why the Drupal CMS is Not Ready for the Enterprise
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.
McDade, Carl. Hiveminds (2008). Articles>Content Management>Software>Drupal
#32591
Malware: Whether on the Desktop or the Web, It’s a Perception Thing
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.
Sherman, Paul J. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Software>Security
#32600
Eight Arguments for Open Source
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.
Shreves, Ric. Water and Stone (2004). Articles>Software>Open Source>Business Case
#32602
How to Select a Content Management System
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?
Shreves, Ric. Water and Stone (2003). Articles>Content Management>Software
#32605
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.
Shreves, Ric. Water and Stone (2006). Articles>Content Management>Software>Open Source
#32631
Microsoft Word: An Unnecessary Evil?
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.
MattBarton.net (2008). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Open Source
#32641
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?
Smith, Nathan. Digital Web Magazine (2008). Articles>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop
#32652
Introduction to Django: Helping Perfectionists With Deadlines
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.
Ellis, Dan. Digital Web Magazine (2008). Articles>Web Design>Software>Open Source
#32789
The History of Attachment Security in Outlook, Part 1
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.
Lemson, K.C. KC on Exchange and Outlook (2008). Articles>Software>Email>Security
#32791
Configuring Information Rights Management for Messaging in Outlook 2003
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.
#32792
Introduces readers to the major DITA tools for editing, content and translation management, and publishing.
#32874
How to Make Accessible Web Content Using Dreamweaver
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.
WebAIM (2007). Articles>Web Design>Software>Dreamweaver
#32875
How to Make Accessible Web Content Using FrontPage
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.
WebAIM (2007). Articles>Web Design>Software>FrontPage
#33216
Improving Plone and Zope Market Acceptance
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.
Burgoyne, Robert. Plone.org (2006). Articles>Content Management>Software>Plone
#33219
It's Possible to Ditch Microsoft Office
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.
Ciurana, Eugene. ComputerWorld (2004). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Open Source
#33260
Content Manangement Without A System
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.
Robinson, D. Keith. Asterisk (2004). Articles>Content Management>Software
