Category Archives: Drupal

Adobe RoboHelp, CSS, Drupal, MadCap Flare, Podcast, Technical Writing, Tools

Content Content podcast episode 4 – Curse of knowledge with Tom Johnson

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In this episode, a truly great and fun conversation with prolific and influential technical writer Tom Johnson. Tom joins us from Silicon Valley to talk about his interesting path to technical communication, failed Career Day booths, being a leader in techcomm, content management systems, DITA, static site generators, and much more.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:08:29 — 94.1MB)

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Drupal, Technical Writing, Technology, Tools, Usability

A News Site for Content Professionals – Contentcontent.info

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Tooltips appear that contain the opening sentence and date published when you hover over a link.
Tooltips appear that contain the opening sentence and date published when you hover over a link.

I’m proud to announce a site I developed for content and communication professionals is live, called contentcontent.info. It’s a site that aggregates news from the most popular blogs and news sites for content professionals. You can currently get content and design news from 30 sites and counting. You can add your blog or your favorites today!

Continue reading A News Site for Content Professionals – Contentcontent.info →

Drupal, How-to, Presentation, technical writing examples, Technology, Tools

Creating a Drupal sandbox with VirtualBox and Drupal Quickstart (Presentation)

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I’m a fan enthusiast of Drupal. I’ve been part of the community for four years now, and the amazingly supportive community is what keeps me engaged, as I wrote after attending the Drupal NYCCamp earlier in 2013.

As I started a new personal project that I hope to launch soon, I wanted to use it as a learning experience not only for myself, but for the Drupal community. Though I’m active in the Northern New Jersey Drupal User Group, I’ve been largely a consumer of the group’s knowledge (other than sharing my knowledge of beer). I wanted to give back, especially as this year our host, the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, is moving a lot of their tech infrastructure to Drupal and their computer science students are showing an interest.

When I decided to create the site, instead of creating it on a web server with all of the typical installation and configuration issues (and expense), I started with a free, open-source software called VirtualBox, and the Drupal Quickstart project, both of which I could run locally on my Windows PC. From this, I created a short presentation that I shared with the NNJ Group.

What is Drupal?

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Drupal, Technical Writing, Technology, Tools

A Tech Writer’s Thoughts on NYC Drupal Camp 2013

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“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 →