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Alistair Christie
The Writer’s Rough Guide to Everything Flare
A useful tip for Madcap Flare users:
Why you should not use the ‘print’ medium for printed manuals and other printed deliverables
Gryphon Mountain Journals » Quick Reference Guide Presentation
Quick Reference Guides – Short and Sweet Technical Documentation
Room for Debate Blog – NYTimes.com
Happy Birthday, Strunk and White!
Elements of Style gets another rough ride.
A Tech Writer’s World
The Matter of Dark Text
Dark text refers to the many layers of hidden meaning in any text segment. It ranges from the implied meaning that the author intended, or that the reader infers, to much deeper, more hidden meanings.
Some nice examples in this post by Andrew Brooke.
mike’s web log
Spotted by Mike Pope.
More instructions we probably didn’t need:
MadCap Softwear – from Flare to Flair
BREAKING NEWS: MadCap Software To Become MadCap Softwear
Michael Hamilton, MadCap vice president, product management, said “From day one, Flare has been very competitive in the HAT world. There’s no reason to think we won’t do extremely well when it comes to actual hats.”
(Thanks to Graham Campbell for spotting this great news story!)
Tech Writer Voices: Managing Writers
Managing Writers: Interview with Richard Hamilton (podcast)
Tom Johnson and Richard Hamilton talk about issues that documentation managers commonly encounter. The tone and pace of this podcast makes it less like an interview and more like you’re just listening in on a really interesting conversation.
I’d already ordered my copy of Richard’s book before listening to this [...]
Kungfuwit: Autotarbat for Flare
Lessons from shifting perspectives: Technical Writing to Code Development of a simple utility for Flare and Blaze.
Amy Hoy – How Tech Writing Sucks
How Tech Writing Sucks: The Five Sins
Losing the reader
Making the reader feel stupid
Failing to stick
Being a total bore
Not providing much-needed context
Amy Hoy’s witty article provides a useful boot up the backside for any of us who might have been getting a little complacent.
Getting a Technical Writing Job
Getting a Technical Writing Job, Even If You Have No Experience
by Lyndsey Amott
Intercom article about Writer River
Caught in the Current of Writer River
Folks like me who aren’t STC members might not have read Tom’s article on how Writer River was born.
Gryphon Mountain Journals: The Difference Between Grammar and Clarity
The Difference Between Grammar and Clarity
Ben Minson has written a good piece about grammar in Gryphon Mountain Journals.
an objective for technical communicators is to reach beyond the grammatical and achieve clarity
UAX (User Assistance Experience): Bless their hearts award #09-2
UAX (User Assistance Experience): Bless their hearts award #09-2
Everyone who writes online help should add a 6-monthly recurring reminder in Outlook (other calendaring software is available – and preferable!) to go and read this blog post!
Technically Speaking » A Jing Update
A Jing Update
TechSmith corporation has released an update to Jing, the free screen capture/video capture tool. I ranted in January about a code change in that release that really bugged me …
Technical writing – Wikiversity
Technical writing basics at Wikiversity
The World of a Freelancer
Rahul Prabhakar has written a really nicely crafted little article about the world of a freelancer.
My wife’s education is in commerce and French. She strongly detests computers. On any given day, she would rather sit at Starbucks with her favorite Paulo Coelho novel, instead of burning the midnight oil in front of a computer. This [...]
A Letter to the Consumer
A Letter to the Consumer
“Please don’t throw away the manual that came with your newly-purchased software …”
Twitter in Plain English
YouTube – Twitter in Plain English.
I just love the stuff CommonCraft do. It’s a great example of how to explain stuff effectively.
Press Release – Towson University Uses MadCap Flare to Teach Online Help Authoring Best Practices
Press Release – Towson University Uses MadCap Flare to Teach Online Help Authoring Best Practices.
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