#27467
Review: 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.
Delwood, Robert. STC Houston (2006). Articles>Reviews>Software>Microsoft Word
#18954
Déjà Vu?—Translation Memories and Localization Tools 
Translation memory systems and software localization tools are designed to increase translation productivity by automating the linguistic transfer from source to target text. Unlike machine translation systems (see chapter 10), they do not process a source text as a whole but work instead on segments. This chapter will explain the basic concepts behind these language technologies. We will show the operating procedures of two of the market-leading products, the translation memory system Translator’s Workbench by Trados, and the localization tool Catalyst by Corel.
Universitat Rovira i Virgili. Articles>Language>Localization>Software
#25813
Demystifying Software Globalization
Representing a growing segment of the translation industry, software globalization (G11N) remains shrouded in mystery to many. What is Globalization? G11N ensures availability of a software product in languages besides the language of origin, traditionally US English. It is driven by huge revenue opportunities outside the Anglophone world for software companies and translators alike. This presentation will introduce both the basic concept of globalization and how it involves the translator, in particular. In this paper we will describe the process from early design and coding to release in the global marketplace.
McKethan, Kenneth A. (Sandy), Jr. and Graciela White. Translation Journal (2005). Articles>Language>Localization>Software
#21617
Review: 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.
Dursteler, Juan Carlos. InfoVis (2003). (Spanish) Articles>Reviews>Software>Web Design
#31150
Der Weg zum absoluten PDF-Standard in der Technischen Dokumentation
Kein Wunder müssen Technischen Redakteure die ganze Zeit Druckdaten aufbereiten, wenn jede Druckerei ein anderes Datenformat verlangt. Eine Lösung musste her. Ein Standard. Und so ist auch PDF/X-3 ein Thema in der Technischen Dokumentation.
TECOM (2003). (German) Articles>Documentation>Software>Adobe Acrobat
#23263
Designing Better HTML Authoring Tools
A collection of proposed new tools and features for adding structure to the Web.
Hoffman, Michael. Hypertext Navigation. Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Software
#20481
Designing Text to Flow Around Objects
Wrapping text around objects—from basic shapes or frames to images with clipping paths—can give any publication a unique look and feel. In this tutorial, you’ll learn several ways to work with text wrap in Adobe InDesign® to achieve the look you want.
#24676
Whatever the subject of lists I follow, two basic questions usually come up about every three months. Usually the person posting the question has to make a decision between: Pagemaker or Quark (and often FrameMaker), or Macintosh or PC.
Haugen, Diane. Document Design (2001). Articles>Document Design>Software
#22774
How can I tell if JBIG2 compression was used on my PDF file?
Rosenthol, Leonard. PDFzone (2004). Articles>Information Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat
#30371
Style checkers are software programs designed as writing tools. Despite their popularity in both academic and industrial settings, the effectiveness and advisability of using the technology is still unproven. A main issue is the ability of users to determine whether the program's suggestions are useful and to ignore inappropriate advice. Freshmen composition students, beginning technical writing students, and advanced technical writing students were asked to mark all suggestions made by RightWriter 4.0 as 'useful,' 'wrong,' or 'ignored.' Results show that all students ignored approximately 50% of the suggestions; however, freshman writers perceived a larger percentage of the suggestions that they ignored to be wrong rather than just not useful.
Moosally, Michelle J. and Roland D. Nerd. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Research>Education>Software
#22780
Can somebody explain what the process of distilling is -- in simple terms?
#31159
DocBook and DITA Editors: Is Their Future Online?
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.
Talbot, Fabrice. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Information Design>Software>DITA
#24990
FrameMaker is the industry standard for writing book-length documents. It is a powerful program capable of creating books of well over a thousand pages. The learning curve for the program is significant. FrameMaker is a much different animal than Microsoft Word and other word processors.
Hewitt, John. Writer's Resource Center (2004). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker
#24988
Document Hack (A Technical Writer's Journal): The Acrobat and the Illustrator
Using Acrobat, you can make minor edits to a PDF file, but Acrobat documents are very sensitive. Typing a single character can throw several lines off, destroy tables and cause all sort of other troubles. Alternately, it can be relatively uneventful and painless. You will not know until you type in that character.
Hewitt, John. Writer's Resource Center (2004). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat
#20306
A Document Management Case Study: QLD Dept of Housing 
How a new spin on document management software helped revolutionise customer service at the Queensland Department of Housing.
Hambly, Natalie. Cherryleaf (2003). Articles>Documentation>Software>Government
#21025
Documenting Entertainment Software: The Mixed Challenge of Simplicity and Sophistication
The challenges of documenting entertainment software are in many ways the challenges of all technical communicators. We strive to make the interface intuitive and the documentation interesting and easy-to-read. Although the nature of the world of entertainment may suggest that our task is simple, the breadth of our audience and the depth of our goals makes it more sophisticated than it looks. We must be as imaginative as our users, recognize the emerging dimensions of multimedia, and create with the constraints of low retail costs, small teams, and fast-paced deadlines.
Guthrie, Lynn Frances. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>Software
#27574
Does a Good User Interface Obviate the Need for Documentation?
This question was raised on a programmer's group recently and I was intrigued. The programmer's point was that with many web applications these days there is no print documentation distributed to end users, and even if it existed, many users won't read it although this makes me wonder who's buying all those how-to books I see in the bookstore. The programmer suggested that applications should be designed without documentation and wondered about the impact that would have on design.
Sprezzatura Systems (2002). Articles>Documentation>User Interface>Software
#27213
The Draw Layer: A Metaphysical Space (And How to Bring It Back Down to Earth)
Word's draw layer is a metaphysical space where floating objects reside. It really isn't a layer, since floating objects can be sent behind the text layer or brought out in front of it. Either way, they continue to reside in the draw layer.
Rado, Dave and Bill Coan. Word MVP Site, The (2005). Articles>Graphic Design>Software>Microsoft Word
#28488
Whether you're creating a personal page for your family, a school or classroom web site, or one for your small business, Dreamweaver is a powerful tool that will help get the job done. Each Dreamweaver tutorial features text and screen shots, and some include narrated multimedia tutorials in Flash.
Anderson, Ben. Guides and Tutorials (2007). Articles>Web Design>Software>Dreamweaver
#21310
So, you’ve read the article, 'HTML Wireframes and Prototypes: All Gain and No Pain' and now want you want to make an HTML wireframe or prototype. This an easy and pain-free process, using Macromedia Dreamweaver 4.0. Follow this step-by-step guide and you'll be up and prototyping in a jiffy.
Stanford, Julie. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Web Design>Software>Dreamweaver
#31187
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.
Cramer, Dan. Ereunao (2007). Articles>Web Design>Software>Dreamweaver
#27156
Poor Database Design of Drupal Equals Low Performance
Drupal's database design is stupid! it sucks! it is crap! To things clearer I am talking about design errors. Yes, they do exist. Some say that design errors are the basic cause of bugs in a system. They are right. Rather than go through a bunch of queries or rather hundreds of queries, I will just say that the database design has no relational qualities that would optimize and speed up the system what so ever. This a glaring whole in the knowledge of the Development team so if you are a joiner and want to contribute to the project then think about helping them out with the database design first.
Drupal (2007). Articles>Content Management>Software>Drupal
#27127
Drupal Has Terrible Access Control
After a week of fighting with it I have come to the conclusion that Drupal access control modules are all inadequate and are based on some weak database design. Taxonomy access and node access are flawed from the start. This type of access control where the assets are assigning their own internal security is not scalable and suffers from very high database overhead.
Hiveminds (2005). Articles>Content Management>Software>Drupal
#14671
E-mail and Tattoos: A Primer on Netiquette
Rogers and Perri discuss the hazards of e-mail and present five tips for using it properly in a professional environment.
Rogers, David J. and Monica C. Perri. Intercom (2000). Articles>Technology>Software>Email
#30814
Editing Guidelines for Software Documentation
Software documentation can be difficult to review, so it helps to have some editing guidelines to keep you focused. Let's face it; software documentation isn't exactly exciting reading material. But you should be able to complete the job in a productive manner if you keep your coffee cup full and follow the editing guidelines below.
HelpScribe (2008). Articles>Documentation>Editing>Software
