Category Archives: Tools

A really fancy webform with Patrick Bosek – Content Content podcast

In this episode, Heretto CEO Patrick Bosek explains why pure techcomm is going away, why being a CEO is like being an eight year old with a lemonade stand, and more.

Patrick Bosek of Heretto
Patrick Bosek of Heretto

Note: This episode was recorded before Patrick’s company changed its name to Heretto.

Mentioned during this episode:

DITA Open Toolkit

GPT3

Scriptorium podcast

Snackable

@patrickbosek

@easydita

@heretto

Content and Coffee podcast

Content Components podcast

Same mess different tools with Liz Fraley – Content Content episode 19

Elizabeth Fraley runs Single-Sourcing Solutions in Sunnyvale, Ca. We geek out about the history of structured authoring, how her opinions have changed in 17 years of technical writing, and how many books a year are too many to read.

Mentioned in this episode:

Liz Fraley, Content Content episode 19 guest
Liz Fraley, Content Content episode 19 guest

Single Sourcing social media and public projects
TC Camp
TC Dojo
Liz’s books
Continue reading Same mess different tools with Liz Fraley – Content Content episode 19

What technical writers can learn from a WordPress plugin

I’m evaluating WordPress plugins for our STC chapter’s web site migration. I use WordPress for edmarsh.com, but the requirements for a personal blog as opposed to a full-on web site – particularly plugins – are quite different.

The Yoast SEO WordPress plugin's keyword tab shows writers how their content compares to other sites using the selected keyword
The Yoast SEO WordPress plugin’s keyword tab shows writers how their content compares to other sites using the selected keyword

A post recently appeared on Facebook, advertising the 57 best WordPress plugins. The list felt a bit too self-promotional, but there were some good selections, and I implemented a few. The very first plugin on the list, Yoast SEO, changed the way I feel about writing, particularly for the web.

Continue reading What technical writers can learn from a WordPress plugin

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

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.

Subscribe to the Content Content podcast in iTunes

Mentioned during the show: Continue reading Content Content podcast episode 4 – Curse of knowledge with Tom Johnson

Content Content Podcast – Time as a Tool – featuring Alan Houser – episode 2

Alan Houser, technical communication consultant and former Society for Technical Communication President, drops by on a very cold President’s Day holiday to talk about his experiences in STC leadership, web standard steering committees, structured authoring and DITA, Markdown, tools, podcasts, and more.

Mentioned during the show:

Content Content podcast, episode 1 featuring Sharon Burton

Alan Houser on Twitter

Alan’s business, Group Wellesley

Society for Technical Communication (STC)

2015 Mid-Atlantic Technical Communication Conference – March 28, 2015 – sponsored by the STC Philly Metro Chapter

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

OASIS

Sara Wachter-Boettcher

Sara’s book Content Everywhere

contentcontent.info

Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)

DITA 1.3 spec

Markdown language

Tom Johnson – I’d rather be writing

XML and the web: drifting farther apart?

5 by 5 podcast network

Back to Work podcast on 5 by 5

TWiT podcast network

This Week in Tech podcast

Triangulation podcast

Ed Marsh on Twitter

Introducing the Content Content podcast – Offices without tarantulas featuring Sharon Burton – episode 1

In our inaugural podcast, technical communication and customer experience consultant Sharon Burton tells us about California law, offices without tarantulas, documenting the obvious, the file name field, buying buckets of DITA at the DITA Store, and the renaissance of content.

Mentioned during the show:

SharonBurton.com

twitter.com/sharonburton

“It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.” – Dolly Parton

University of California Riverside

TechComm Speakers Bureau

contentcontent.info

edmarsh.com

twitter.com/edmarsh

Microsoft Office and the amazing shrinking help icon

I wanted to create an Outlook 2013 email rule to respond to emails sent to a specific account. The rule requires an email template. Not knowing how to create one, I looked for the help icon. And kept looking. I felt old. And as a tech writer, I almost, almost yearned for the days of Clippy.

Then, in the top-right corner, it appeared. Sort of. Now don’t get me started about the ALL CAPS MENUS in Office 2013 (and also Adobe’s Creative Suite), but it’s surprising how the help icon is almost an afterthought.
Continue reading Microsoft Office and the amazing shrinking help icon

A News Site for Content Professionals – Contentcontent.info

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

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

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?

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

Evernote – the Ultimate Conference Tool

I love Evernote, the popular, cross-platform note-taking application. I use it on all my devices (desktop, Android phone, and iPad) for many reasons:

Noz Urbina presents at Lavacon 2013
Organize your conference notes with notebooks and tags. Include photos directly into your session notes. Evernote automatically adds the date and location!

  • A to-do list note for every day of the week.
  • Shared shopping lists with my significant other, using the Premium version (I firmly believe in supporting products I use regularly. It’s well worth the $45 per year; that’s $3.75 a month, kids, less than two cups of Starbucks coffee).
  • Automatically saving things to a note in conjunction with If This Then That (IFTTT).

But there’s one more possibly overlooked use for Evernote that I find invaluable: conferences. I attended three conferences this year, including the Drupal NYCCamp and the huge Lavacon conference (see my Lavacon-related posts here and here), with nothing more than an iPad.

It used to be that you had to lug a laptop around — in addition to pen and paper — to take notes from each conference session, but no more! So what makes Evernote so useful at conferences? Continue reading Evernote – the Ultimate Conference Tool