2006 CMS Idol: Lessons for Losers

April 27, 2006 Blog No Comments

It’s no surprise to me that Hot Banana won the 2006 CMS Idol competition at the Spring 2006 Gilbane Conference on Content Management. After all, successful marketers know how to both communicate their value proposition, and differentiate themselves from the competition, without boring their prospects to death nor making them feel dumb. Hot Banana’s Chris Adams delivered an excellent demonstration of the popular marketing content management system and the audience responded by awarding the company the top spot in the twice-annual contest.

Planning For DITA Success: How To Deploy DITA, Step-By-Step

April 25, 2006 Blog No Comments

The Rockley Group and XMetaL have jointly-produced a whitepaper, “Planning for DITA Success: How to Deploy DITA, Step-By-Step”. Get your free copy today.

A Technical Writing Suite From Adobe?

April 24, 2006 Blog 1 Comment

Look inside my FrameMaker crystal ball. Can you see what I see? It’s a bit foggy, but if you concentrate for just a minute, an amazing new product will come into focus. It’s a technical writers dream come true—an all-in-one suite of Adobe software—FrameMaker, Acrobat 3D, RoboHelp, and Captivate in the same box. A combination product similar to the tightly integrated and wildly popular Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, GoLive, and Acrobat) used by design professionals around the globe. Crazy, you say? Perhaps, but more likely to become a …

Spring 2006 Summit Attracts CM Pros From Around Globe

April 23, 2006 Blog No Comments

They came from numerous U.S. and Canadian cities and from as far away as Denmark, Australia, France—even Palestine and Kazakhstan—to attend the CM Professionals Spring 2006 Summit. The twice yearly gathering of professional content professionals now in progress in San Francisco attracted attendees from myriad industries and included representatives from companies such as: John Deere, USAA, Intel, All State Insurance, Information Mapping, Sirkovsky Aircraft, and Information Today.

Socialism At The Gilbane Conference … Or Embracing Containerization

April 19, 2006 Blog No Comments

By Diane Wieland, Precisely Write, Inc. First, I should say, I know nothing about the Gilbane Conference on Content Management. I think it�s once a year. I�m pretty sure it has a bunch of technical communication professionals all sharing ideas, and a guy name Frank Gilbane started it. But this story is not about that. It�s about something else.

Technical Writing Ranked One Of The “Best” Jobs In America

April 18, 2006 Blog No Comments

According to a recent Money Magazine and Salary.com report, “technical writer” is the 13th “best” job to hold in America, followed closely by “cirriculum developer” (18th) and “editor” (19th). The report aims to rate the top 50 careers using criteria that include: job availability and growth outlook, average pay, stress level, difficulty, flexibility, and creativity.

16-Year-Old Creates Content Management System

April 17, 2006 Blog No Comments

According to a recent article in JavaScriptSearch, a new content management system called Eribium, constructed using Ruby on Rails and popular JavaScript libraries, is now available. “The show-stealer,” says the magazine, “is the fact that a 16-year-old with little programming experience was able to use Ruby on Rails and create a working CMS in a relatively short time.” Read the article. Download Eribium.

Improving Content Management System Usability With AJAX

April 13, 2006 Blog No Comments

Thanks to James Robertson for pointing out AJAX and Your CMS by Jonathan Downes and Joe Walker, published in the April 3rd edition of CMS Watch. For the uninitiated, AJAX stands for Aschynchronous Javascript and XML, a development approach for creating interactive web applications that feel more responsive to the end user. AJAX has been shown to increase the interactivity, speed, and usability of a web application. The article includes a link to an excellent primer on the technology—Introduction to AJAX—as well as examples, screen shots, and links to useful …

Structured Blogging Plus DITA – Authoring Online Help Without A HAT

April 10, 2006 Blog 1 Comment

I’ve been thinking about the many ways that Structured Blogging might be employed to help technical writers and other content creators do what they do better, faster, and cheaper. Structured Blogging is a new concept in the technical communication and content management fields. And, it often doesn’t make much sense until you take some time to explore the concepts and ponder the possibilities, something I’ve been doing for the past several months.

SafariU Shakes Up Academic Book Publishing

April 6, 2006 Blog No Comments

SafariU makes life much easier for computer science and information technology educators. Its web-based custom publishing platform enables higher education instructors to create, publish—even share—customized computer science and information technology texts and related course materials. It decreases both the amount of effort it takes to compile and prepare class learning materials and the cost of those materials per student. And, it makes it possible to provide students with access to both online information resources as well as a printed text book (perfect binding, hardback, or spiral).