We return from a hiatus with content strategist Rahel Bailie! She joins Ed Marsh to talk about an uneven history of content strategy, object-oriented content, how her career has led her across two continents, and the history of women in technical communication.
Her Content Strategy book with Noz Urbina remains one of Ed’s most highlighted (highlit?) reads. We discuss Content Operations (ContentOps or DocOps), introducing efficiency, and more. I hope you laugh as much as we did.
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: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).
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→
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/
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:
Expand the Account section on the left, and select Me on the Web.
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.
Clifton is about 10 miles west of New York City, and close to MetLife Stadium. We are fairly inland, so were spared the absolute devastation of the Jersey shore. We were out of power for four days, and lost some siding on our condo, but made the best of things. However, some weren’t so lucky.
1. The horizontally buttoned bottom shirt button. This button goes against established tradition by buttoning from top-to-bottom, instead of right-to-left (unless you’re a girl. Your backwards buttoning is just weird). This lowly button makes you think extra hard at 7 in the morning just to put on a shirt. There’s no possible benefit to this. Just stop.
Why no pockets?! Think of the children!
2. Lack of a shirt pocket. An egregious error. If you don’t carry a cell phone (that’s mobile for all one of you European readers) to work, most likely you carry some sort of ID. Where to put them? Both in the same pants pocket? With your keys? C’mon, clothing companies, it’s almost 2012. Know your audience.
Surely you also have clothing pet peeves. Also, Happy New Year.
So, when exactly did it become mandatory for everyone on the intarwebz internet to have a “social media strategy”? Thanks to the good folks at Google, we now have a chance to “reset” our strategy with Google+, the #ohjesusnotanotherone of social media. We have the Twitter, we have the Facebook, we have the Foursquare, we have LinkedIn and if you’re hip, Tumblr and Oovoo (which still makes me think of olive oil, and unfortunately, Rachael Ray) and Quora.
But now that I’m one of 1020x million fortunate early adopters, I get to “reset”. At first I thought OK, I already live a lot of my life in public, I’ll just extend that to Google+ and let everyone in.
It’s been a personal goal to turn on as many people as possible on to beer. As I mentioned in the Fordeville blog, my own journey to the beverage was not direct, so I sympathize.But allow me to try to convert you once again, dear beer-challenged reader.
A beer snob's dream beer; not for the faint of heart. Photo by Arclight Images (www.arclightimages.com)
“Oh, it’s too bitter”. Then you’re drinking the wrong beer.There are 23 general styles of beer, with infinite variations within each style. There are many more breweries than Anheuser Busch, Coors, and Miller, you know. (As an aside, the oft-favored Blue Moon is owned and brewed by Coors). If the beer’s too bitter, first try to find out the style- then avoid it. The hoppiest types – which are the most bitter – are IPAs and Pale ales. Try a malty style, like a Dunkelweizen, porter, or brown, which traditionally have very low hop flavor and aroma. Or, a classic Weihenstephan Weissbier.
“Dark beer scares me. It’s too much alcohol”. Then you’re drinking the wrong beer. Realize that “dark” doesn’t necessarily mean “high alcohol”. The perennial “dark beer” Guinness actually has less alcohol by volume than Budweiser. Try a Sierra Nevada Porter (they make more than just the green-labeled Pale Ale), or a sweet stout like Mackeson’s.
“Beer has too many calories”. Then you’re drinking the wrong beer. Drinking an MGD 64 or Bud Light is like eating iceberg lettuce – it gets you where you want to go, but doesn’t bring a lot of flavor to the table. Alcohol inherently has calories, regardless if it’s wine, beer, or gin. Just find the right one- high alcohol beers are generally heavier because of the higher quantities of malt. Again, a bottle of Guinness only has 126 calories, and in my opinion, is worth drinking one instead of two MGD 64s.
“I get bloated drinking beer”. Then you’re drinking the wrong beer. If you want bang for the buck, calories be damned, have a barleywine. Anything “Imperial” means more malt, more hops, and more booze. If you can handle a “regular” IPA with higher hops, try an Imperial IPA like Dogfish Head’s 90- or 120-Minute IPA.
It make take some time and effort to find just the right beer for you, but remember, it’s the journey, not the destination. When possible, drink locally and support your local breweries and brewpubs. And if you want a full-on beer education, meet me at the Copper Mine Pub.
This is one of those recipes that, with one simple substitution (vegetable instead of chicken stock) and one omission (bacon), is easily a vegan meal.
The upside to living with a gluten-free, dairy-free person is that we eat fresh and eat well. We also eat quite a few meatless meals, but still enjoy a full omnivore diet. And really, aren’t most things better with bacon?
A couple weeks ago, our CSA farm share supplied us with some really nice leeks and potatoes, so we made soup.
Nearly-vegan Potato-leek soup served with gluten-free/dairy-free bread.
In searching for vegan soups, several folks added onion, which I found intriguing, but only one I came across included grated onion. Though there was no real explanation or reasoning behind it, I added the grated onion. I didn’t notice much of a difference, so you can probably just dice it to save yourself some time and cleanup.
Penzey’s caraway seeds. In my opinion, no potato soup should exclude caraway.
One sprig of fresh rosemary, or to taste
Trader Joe’s uncured bacon
Approx. 8oz of Mimicreme Vegan Cream (this one:)
This stuff is pretty good.
Approx 16 oz. Kitchen Basics unsalted chicken stock (replace with vegetable stock for vegan)
Fresh chives for garnish
Directions
If you’re using bacon, heat a dutch oven or similar vessel over medium-high heat, add a small amount of canola oil, and then cook the bacon. Reserve the bacon, and then remove most of the fat. Lower the heat to medium-low, and skip to step 3.
If not using bacon, in a dutch oven or similar vessel, heat about two tbsp. (again, i never measure) of canola oil over medium-low heat.
Add the leeks and allow to sweat for a bit. Your goal here is not to brown, but to release moisture.
After a few minutes, add the onion and allow to sweat.
Once the onions look translucent, add the potatoes.
Add the stock, rosemary, and caraway seeds.
Bring to a boil, then simmer on low until potatoes are cooked through.
Add cream and stir.
Use a stick blender to smooth out the soup.
Serve in warm bowls, garnish with bacon (optional), snipped chives, and a swirl of extra-virgin olive oil.
So I got the new Droid incredible. It has a WordPress app, on which i’m typing now. I’ve had a pocket pc for years and loved it, so I had no reason to buy a smartphone. However, my dell axim was showing its age, and the headphones jack is on its way out. This is pretty cool; integration is amazing. More to come as I get used to it all.
