Writer River

Twitter Postings: Iterative Design Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox

Gemma Bristow — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:28:43 +0000

Twitter Postings: Iterative Design Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox.

Four useful skills for the technical communicator

sreeraj — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 14:15:10 +0000

Scott on DMN commuincations writes about four essential skills technical communicators must have to excel in their profession.

All About Technical Writing — The Writing Show

Tom Johnson — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:02:48 +0000

This is an informative intro-to-technical writing podcast by Alistair Christie. Great for writers trying to determine whether technical writing is a field they should pursue. It’s always refreshing to hear Alistair’s perspective.

Every piece of content matters – an interview with Gerry McGovern | Information & Design

Tom Johnson — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:29:10 +0000

Listened to this podcast last night and this morning. Gerry McGovern talks about the importance of “care words” on a website. These words are the content people are looking for but aren’t using in the search engines. He says finding the right words to match what the customer is looking for can make a huge impact on how the customer interprets the relevance of the site. For those non-podcast listeners, Gaffney transcribes the podcast too.

John Gruber: A Mix of the Technical, the Artful, the Thoughtful, and the Absurd – Shawn Blanc

Gil Vinokoor — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:34:57 +0000

John Gruber: A Mix of the Technical, the Artful, the Thoughtful, and the Absurd – Shawn Blanc.

An in-depth interview with a technology writer that has made a full-time job out of his blog (John Gruber of Daring Fireball).

Apple blogger makes living from blog

Tom Johnson — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 05:41:49 +0000

When I read about guys like John Gruber, who make their living from their blog, it fills me with envy. I want to do that. Not sure if tech comm’s audience is large enough, but perhaps someday.

Time lapse video of Macworld cover art creation

Tom Johnson — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:02:05 +0000

Really fascinating video about how the cover of a Macworld magazine is created. makes you realize all that’s involved in this process. (Thanks to Daring Fireball for pointing me to the link.)

Palimpsest: Learn DITA and XML at your desk

Tom Johnson — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 03:38:40 +0000

Sarah O’Keefe at Palimpsest is offering several webinars on DITA and XML. I attended a webinar by Sarah before. It was clear, straightforward, and engaging. I definitely recommend her.

Porting documentation to wikis: problems and possibilities

Tom Johnson — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 03:10:24 +0000

Mary Connor talks about the latest tools for exporting documentation to wikis. She seems to prefer Webworks ePublisher for its ability to export to Confluence, a wiki that supports authoring for future releases.

3 Question you ask me a lot, about money

Tom Johnson — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:42:57 +0000

Penelope Trunk is my favorite blogger right now. Everything she writes is fascinating. It’s persuasive and eye-opening. Always makes me think.

Want to Feel Better About Yourself? Read a Book! – mediabistro.com: GalleyCat

Tom Johnson — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:41:19 +0000

According to a survey, reading books boosts your optimism more than anything else. Quite a bit more than “blogs,” the survey says.

How Help Can Be Structured to Look Like a Website | Gryphon Mountain Journals

Tom Johnson — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:38:07 +0000

I like Ben’s point here — that if users search the web for help more than they search an application’s help file for help, perhaps we should dress up our help to look more like the web. Lots of comments on this post.

Write When Inspired – Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report

Tom Johnson — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:56:33 +0000

I loved this essay on writing. I always hear advice from writers that you must write daily no matter what. Zeldman takes another perspective on this idea, and encourages you to “write when inspired; rest when tired.” Very eloquent prose throughout.

How Can Directory Assistance Be Free?

Tom Johnson — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 04:10:38 +0000

Ever wondered what the business model is behind Goog 411 (free directory service)? It’s “a test bed for a voice-driven search engine for mobile phones.”

Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business

Tom Johnson — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 03:30:34 +0000

Chris Anderson’s analysis about the economy of free (or “freeconomics”) is about the most fascinating thing I’ve read in a long time. Everything on the web is trending toward free — how are companies turning free into a business model? Anderson explores various reasons for the zero cost trends and lists several strategies companies are using to turn free into a profit.

Audio / Video – Audio – Series 2 Episode 4, iTunes Live Festival – The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry

Tom Johnson — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 05:45:44 +0000

It’s fascinating to listen to Stephen Fry. He’s an extremely eloquent British scholar, filmographer, literary critic, and who knows what else. Listening to Fry feels liberating and exhilarating at the same time. In this iTunes festival speech, he talks about the love of the art and music, and how, even if these lovers of art and music occasionally pirate content, the piracy should not earn them classification as thieves and criminals.

An Open-Source Look at the Cost of WordCamp Dallas – One Man’s Blog

Tom Johnson — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 05:23:32 +0000

I had no idea it cost so much to run a Wordcamp conference. Apparently Wordcamp Dallas cost about $20k. Wow, I thought it would have been a tenth of that. As much as I enjoy them, I don’t think I’ll ever get involved in planning and running a conference.

Welcome to STC’s Notebook!

Tom Johnson — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:26:43 +0000

The STC just converted News & Notes into a blog. Check it out.

Open Source Docs don’t have to suck

Janet Swisher — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 16:22:12 +0000

Open Source Docs don’t have to suck.

OSCon presentation by Addison Berry, documentation lead for Drupal. Favorite quote:

“Documentation is like sex. When it’s good, it’s very, very good, and when it’s bad, it’s better than nothing.”

Publish Your Shared Items from Google Reader

Tom Johnson — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:44:08 +0000

You don’t always have to use the Publish2 bookmarklet to publish links. You can have Publish2 automatically import links to your Shared Items in Google Reader. Publish2 will periodically look at your Google Reader page for newly shared items and import them into Publish2, where you can later add a brief comment and decide where to publish them.

Configure Publish2 to Import Google Reader Shared Items

Go to Publish2.com and log in.
Go to Settings > Google Reader.
In the Shared Items Page Public URL, add the URL to your Google Reader page. If you have trouble finding this, go to Google.com/reader. Within Google Reader, click Settings > Folders and Tags, and then next to Shared Items, click View Public Page.
You can leave the Tags field blank.
Next to Automatically Import Shared Items, select Yes.
Next to Import To, select My Link Journalism.
Next to Import to Newsgroup(s), do not select Technical Communication. If you do select the check box, your links will be published merely as links, without any comments. While this is all right, I prefer that you add a brief comment about the link. (However, a link with no comment is better than no link at all.)
Click Save.

Now when you mark items as shared in Google Reader (by clicking the Share link at the bottom of posts), Publish2 will automatically import the links. Once you log in to Publish2, you can publish the imported links by following the steps in the next section.

Publish Your Imported Links from Publish2

Log in to Publish2.com.
By default, the My Links page appears showing the links imported from Google Reader. If not, go to Links > My Links.
To the right of the link, click Edit It.
Complete the Publish2 form according to the table below, and then click Save.

Field	Description
Link Title	The post title (which is usually the article’s title). The bookmarklet pulls it in automatically.
Public Comments	Your comments about the article. This will appear in the post body.
Category	(Optional) This category only lets other Publish2 journalists know the category of your link. Usually select Technology.
Tags	(Optional) Free-form tags (separated by commas) that you think describe the article. The tags will be added to the post.
Send to Twitter	Allows you to post the link to Twitter. The [url] will be the link. Add whatever comments you want for the tweet (probably the same as your public comment, but shortened to fit Twitter's character limit).
Add to Newsgroups	When you're ready to publish the link on Writer River, select Technical Communication. Writer River -- and any other sites that pull in the technical communication newsgroup feed -- will automatically displays your link when you select this box.
Publication Name	(Optional) The name of the publication or blog that the article comes from.
The date of the publication.	(Optional) The date of the publication.
Add to:	Select My Links. This adds the link to your "My Links" section of Publish2, where you can go to log in, modify your comment, and then publish the link to the technical communication newsgroup and elsewhere.
Private Notes	(Optional) Notes for yourself, not made public.
Also add this link to	Select your blog, if you configured one. However, you can publish the link to your blog later by returning to Publish2 and going to Links > My Links and clicking the Edit It button to adjust your comment before publishing it to your blog. Note: In the field below your blog, copy the text from your comments that you want converted into a hyperlink. For example, if you wrote in your comment, “In this UX Matters article, Mike Hughes talks about the need to …” you might copy and insert the text “In this UX Matters article”. That phrase will then be the hyperlink that points to the article. If you don’t put any text in this field, there won’t be a link to your article.
Choose Categories	Choose the category for the post for your blog. If you have a special category for your links, such as an Asides category, choose that.

Here’s a screenshot showing a sample completed form.

Sample Publish2 form