Valuable links from #Lavacon Portland 2013

Here are some of the links referred to in the sessions I attended at the fantastic October 2013 Lavacon conference in Portland, Oregon.
I’ll update as days two and three finish up. Feel free to add yours in the comments!
http://blog.mailchimp.com/new-mailchimp-user-persona-research/

https://community.jivesoftware.com/community/documentation/blog/2013/10/21/why-technical-documentation-needs-jive?author=

http://xkcd.com/1133/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/04/29/content-knowledge-is-power/

http://pervasiveia.com/book

http://thecontentstrategybook.com/877/

http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/roi.asp

https://www.vasont.com/resources/prepare-content-for-cms.html

Photos from the Grand-Am Championship Finale at Lime Rock Park 2013

Farewell, Lime Rock.

I’ve been to Lime Rock for most of the ALMS races over the past 10 years (see last year’s photos), but I’ve never been to a Grand-Am race. So it was sadly fitting to attend the last-ever Grand-Am race at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, CT, especially because the combined ALMS-Grand-Am series won’t be returning to Lime Rock next year. Unlike the searing heat of the ALMS race on July 4th weekend, we were treated to a perfect fall day at the end of September. The fall foliage made a spectacular backdrop.

It’s quite a sad ending for many reasons: Lime Rock is the closest racing location with major racing series support in the New York City area; the ride to the track is absolutely stunning; the track itself is short and makes for great racing; and because it’s really wonderful to sit underneath a tree at the top of a hill watching cars race by. I will miss you, Lime Rock; I hope a major series returns again, because I’ll be there in a heartbeat.

All photos taken with a Nikon D7000 with Nikkor 50mm/f1.8 lens.

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A Tech Writer’s Thoughts on NYC Drupal Camp 2013

“Sprints include writing docs! We need more people like you in the community, come and network!” was Jon Pugh’s reply to my tweet, when I was wondering if coming to this year’s New York Drupal Camp was right for content people like me.

NYC Camp 2013 was my third Drupal Camp, and from a content professional’s perspective, the best out of the three.

What is Drupal?

Drupal is an open-source, Web-based Content Management System (CMS or WCMS). Its competitors include free tools WordPress and Joomla!, and proprietary systems Adobe CQ5 and Microsoft SharePoint, among others. Unlike WordPress, which was initially developed as a blogging platform, Drupal is more of a framework to create web sites, on which additional functionality, called modules, can be added. Most modules are created by developers in the Drupal community, though the most useful often make it into the base installation, known as “Drupal core”. Continue reading A Tech Writer’s Thoughts on NYC Drupal Camp 2013

More on Security and Google Tips from @benwoelk and @careersherpa #stcpmc13

At the excellent STC Mid-Atlantic conference sponsored by the Philadephia Metro chapter, security expert Ben Woelk suggested to the audience that they set up a Google alert for their name, so they know of any possible breaches or security issues. I did this awhile back, purely for security reasons (yeah, let’s go with that). Career Sherpa Hannah Morgan also noted at the conference that it’s important to search for yourself to see where and how you come up when prospective employers search for you. Afterward, I found that Google actually makes it easy for you to search for yourself on an ad-hoc basis. You can do this right now:

  1. Log in to your Google account at google.com/settings.
  2. Expand the Account section on the left, and select Me on the Web.
  3. Click Search Now.

On the same page, you can also have Google send you alerts when new information about your name or email address appears online.

Ben also spoke about the phishing emails that frequently look like they come from financial institutions or other businesses, whose goal is to get your account information and passwords. Many of these emails can look quite convincing.

I’ve found that an easy way to check if email is legitimate is simply to drag or move the email to your spam or junk mail folder. These folders turn hyperlinks into text, so you can see where exactly the email is coming from, and the sites to which they are linking. If the Web address doesn’t look obvious, such as bankofamerica.com, then don’t click on it.

Have additional security tips? Let us know in the comments.

Technical Writer, Content Strategist, Podcaster, and beer lover