Sorry! We Can’t Find That Page

September 30, 2005 Blog No Comments

Usability guru Jakob Nielsen’s June 24, 2001 Alertbox column offered up some common sense wisdom to those who design error mesages. He wrote: “Established wisdom holds that good error messages are polite, precise, and constructive. The Web brings a few new guidelines: Make error messages clearly visible, reduce the work required to fix the problem, and educate users along the way.” It seems the folks at Greenpeace were listening. They created a useful and informative error page that serves both the purpose of the site visitor (helps them find what Read the full article…

View Point: When Marketing Meets Content Management

September 25, 2005 Blog No Comments

By Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler When marketing meets content management, good things can happen. I’ve worked on web-based marketing projects with innovative marketing pros who understand the relationship between content management and marketing. It’s about relationships. They “get it” because it makes sense. Delivering the right information, to the right people, at the right time, in the right format is what marketing is all about. Sure, marketing is still about selling a brand, a message or making an attractive offer. But when marketing is married to content management, the Read the full article…

Crystal Ball: A DITA Wiki

September 20, 2005 Blog No Comments

There’s a rumor floating around the ether that says that Blast Radius is working on a wiki built on the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA). Whether the rumor will prove to be true remains to be seen, but the idea was introduced publically during XTech2005 by Paul Prescod, Group Program Manager, Blast Radius XMetaL. In The convergence of structure and chaos, Prescod wrote, “We believe that by combining rich XML (DITA) structure, collaborative DocumentSpaces and wikis, we can help organizations break down the barriers that prevent them from achieving cross-departmental Read the full article…

Blog Watch: Adobe FrameMaker and DITA

September 18, 2005 Blog No Comments

A post by Bill Trippe to the Gilbane Report blog outlines some of the new features—including support for the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)—in Adobe FrameMaker 7.2, the latest incarnation of the popular technical content authoring and publishng tool.

International Web Support Sites: How Does Yours Stack Up?

September 16, 2005 Blog No Comments

How does your web site rank among the top sites internationally? Would you like to find out? Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) and The Association of Support Professionals (ASP) are collaborating to produce the first Year’s Ten Best International Web Support Sites Awards Program. When you (or one of your customers) enter a web site into the competition, independent experts will provide detailed feedback on how well the site supports customers worldwide and what could be improved. And, if your site is selected as one of the Best International Web Read the full article…

Gilbane Conference Teams Up With CM Pros

September 15, 2005 Blog No Comments

The Gilbane Conference on Content Management Technologies, November 29 – December 1, 2005, is offering several added bonuses to attract attendees to the annual event held in Boston again this year. Those who purchase a Conference Plus package will receive a free one-year membership (or one-year renewal) to Content Management Professionals (CM Pros), a choice of an Apple iPod or Bose SoundDock, a one-year subscription to The Gilbane Report, and a pre-conference tutorial. View the complete conference program. The conference exhibition list is impressive. You can find just about every Read the full article…

Adobe FrameMaker 7.2 Released

September 12, 2005 Blog No Comments

Adobe Systems has released a much-anticipated upgrade to its FrameMaker software, an authoring and publishing tool used by technical writers, engineers, and others to create long, complex documents, often output to multiple formats (XML, HTML, PDF). FrameMaker 7.2 There has been speculation about Adobe’s plans for FrameMaker for months, especially on several technical writing listservs. Fortunately, the guessing game is over. You can find out what’s included in FrameMaker 7.2 by visiting the product website. And, you can learn what other surprises Adobe has up its sleeves by attending the Read the full article…

Free XMetaL Trial Software

September 8, 2005 Blog No Comments

Thinking about adopting a new approach to creating content? If so, XML is likely in your future. The folks at BlastRadius have made a free 30-day trial versions of both XMetaL Author (XML editor) and XMetaL Developer available for download.