tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8080296941778035102011-11-27T16:14:26.951-08:00Copy and technical writing, design, & marketing ideas by Ugur Akinci, PhDwriter111noreply@blogger.comBlogger1911100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-41047532545328902892009-06-30T19:22:00.000-07:002009-06-30T19:22:01.483-07:00

This blog has moved to...http://www.technicalcommunicationcenter.com

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-36039488311212773122009-05-31T19:21:00.000-07:002009-05-31T19:21:00.525-07:00

This blog has moved to...http://www.technicalcommunicationcenter.com

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-60581486521264679512009-04-30T19:21:00.000-07:002009-04-30T19:21:00.762-07:00

This blog has moved to...http://www.technicalcommunicationcenter.com

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-80304714543571892632009-03-28T19:21:00.000-07:002009-03-28T19:21:00.166-07:00

This blog has moved to...http://www.technicalcommunicationcenter.com

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-77455089804215825542009-02-28T19:20:00.000-08:002009-02-28T19:20:00.419-08:00

This blog has moved to...http://www.technicalcommunicationcenter.com

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-34026485160410828072009-01-31T19:18:00.000-08:002009-01-31T19:19:57.276-08:00

This blog has moved to...http://www.technicalcommunicationcenter.com

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-10629605235358278802009-01-09T18:40:00.000-08:002009-01-09T18:45:20.650-08:00

Some online marketers knowingly separate the letters of "spam trigger words" like CASH, SECRET, FREE, etc. in their marketing emails.Here are 2 examples:Some also spell "free" as "f*ree", "cash" as "c*ash" etc.Pretty slick, eh?

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-53433311161085695702009-01-07T09:21:00.000-08:002009-01-07T09:27:06.268-08:00

Susan Wu is a Chinese technical writer living and working in Shanghai. She keeps a very informative blog that I follow with great interest.Here is what Susan has written lately about the "real situation" in China:"With the recent economic crisis and financial meltdown, the impact is worldwide, not just in the U.S. From what I’ve been hearing all around, many companies in China are laying off

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-2100367326265627352008-12-19T13:05:00.000-08:002008-12-19T13:05:00.515-08:00

Sometimes some gadgets are built so complex that it's hopeless. Take my microwave for example, with 20 buttons and a number pad.All I need is TWO buttons and a number pad to enter the amount of minutes and seconds I need to heat up my food.Here is what the manufacturer gave me:And here is what I really would love to have:

writer111noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-29186129941312950302008-12-18T12:41:00.000-08:002008-12-18T12:41:01.186-08:00

There are a number of digital cameras marketed this year according to their “effective megapixels.”So what the heck is an “Effective Megapixel”?If you think it’s a marketing gimmick, it is, but not in the negative sense that one would expect.Actually it’s a positive thing for which all digital camera manufacturers and marketers should be congratulated.An “effective megapixel” is the actual number

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-63210994703719975382008-12-17T09:18:00.000-08:002008-12-17T09:18:00.603-08:00

OpenOffice offers such a wealth of indexing options.Select Insert > Indexes and Tables from the main menu to display the sub-menu.Select Indexes and Tables once again to display the main screen where you decide what goes into your TOC or Index, and how the finished product should look:By using this screen, you can create a regular Table of Contents, Alphabetical Index, Illustration Index, Index

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-8616828665826334982008-12-16T13:35:00.000-08:002008-12-16T14:04:48.933-08:00

I like Howie Mandel a lot. I think he's a very hard-working and interesting guy (like he never touches anybody for fear of catching germs).So when I saw this HM commercial on TV for Buy.Com I enjoyed the clip because Howie is such a sweet character.And a day later, when I was shopping around for a bottle of perfume for my wife, I decided to check out Buy.Com. That's how commercials supposed to

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-29880079438743046062008-12-14T09:08:00.000-08:002008-12-14T09:08:00.374-08:00

Did you realize how many toolbars OpenOffice Writer offers?It offers THREE separate toolbars for designing forms alone.Check it out (click for a larger view):P.S. OpenOffice is a FREE open-source application.

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-76465722597833736182008-12-13T17:01:00.000-08:002008-12-13T17:01:00.305-08:00

Some people have "Blog Farms" -- hundreds of Blogger blogs created for the specific purpose of milking AdSense dollars out of random visitors.Usually such blogs are forgotten parked in one remote corner of the Internet since it's not activately updated and cultivated.NEWS: Blogger has recently stepped up deleting such blogs after a grace period.What's happening is Blogger is inviting the owners

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-52914074790408109322008-12-12T18:52:00.000-08:002008-12-12T18:52:00.680-08:00

"Your time is limited; so don't waste it living someone else's life."~ Steve Jobs

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-3255215820035059742008-12-11T13:22:00.000-08:002008-12-11T13:22:00.796-08:00

I like this innovative way of presenting a TOC with the thumbnail sketches of the Chapter title pages. Good job, SitePoint!

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-51062213178981400302008-12-10T12:35:00.000-08:002008-12-10T12:39:46.393-08:00

The verb "consult" is overused in technical documentation.Why say "if you don't have a TV signal, consult with your TV company" instead of "if you don't have a TV signal, call your installer or the TV company"?We're not really "consulting." We're just giving them a call. That's all.It gets worse when we tell people to "consult" with inanimate objects!"If the parts don't fit, consult the parts

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-66170649425694567272008-12-09T11:06:00.000-08:002008-12-09T11:06:01.224-08:00

MySpace has a built in blog for every account. That represents a potential pool of 100 million readers.1) Click the Manage Blog link on your Home page to display your MySpace Blog page.2) Click the Post New Blog link under My Controls to open up a new post screen:You can follow your post with any link you like. This can be a link to any product or service you offer, or an article which both

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-88029910635998010092008-12-09T07:44:00.000-08:002008-12-09T07:47:35.498-08:00

I invite you to visit a new web site launched just today by my friend Al Porter.SportsNuts of America was developed for the purpose of providing avid sports fans the opportunity to tell the world about their love of sports - to tell everyone they know and don’t know “Hey, I’m a Sports Nut”. The clever caricature of a SportsNut includes a symbol of each of the major four team sports in America (

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-66943727894893027992008-12-08T16:10:00.000-08:002008-12-08T16:10:01.081-08:00

Front CoverInkscape is a free open-source vector drawing program, similar to Adobe Illustrator.I am aware that nothing can match the vast capabilities of the Illustrator. But for my own purposes Inkscape is doing just fine.I have for example created the following book covers for my new report on Article Marketing, executed totally in Inkscape.Click on the images to see a larger version.Back

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-53068988286109214542008-12-08T10:37:00.000-08:002008-12-08T10:40:22.382-08:00

1) New York Times web site recorded 1 BILLION page views in October 2008.2) Professional book group "facilitators" in New York City charge $250 to $300 a member annually for their services, which include making book recommendations to the group and facilitating the meetings.

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-62067550178646962242008-12-07T16:03:00.000-08:002008-12-07T16:31:27.273-08:00

Imagine you have 10 documents open on your NeoOffice. How would you recycle from one to the other?One way to do it of course is to click the Window menu and select the document you want. But this gets very tiresome if for example you've got two or three documents open and you need to toggle back and forth constantly among them.Here is a short cut:If you press COMMAND (Apple) + TILDE (~) your Mac

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-88892078394351247132008-12-07T14:46:00.000-08:002008-12-07T15:12:35.184-08:00

1) Select the image and right-click on it to display the pop-up menu:2) Select the Image Map to display the Image Map Editor:3) Select one of the 4 image map buttons on the menu bar: Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, Freeform Polygon. My favorite is Polygon and I'll select that one for this exercise.4) Draw the polygon you like around the image. The edges of the polygon will be marked with a

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-67898188839286073022008-12-06T15:56:00.000-08:002008-12-06T16:10:27.391-08:00

NeoOffice works pretty well on my MacBook. Actually I've finished a 30 page report on Article Marketing, complete with a full-color cover.At some point NeoOffice just froze up. I force-quit the application. When I restart it, it presents this beautiful recovery window and recovers every document that was not properly saved when I force-quit. Great functionality. MS Word has it too but NeoOffice

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-73299765670659327452008-11-24T08:52:00.000-08:002008-11-24T08:52:00.299-08:00

Here is a product that makes life a little bit easier for those of us who are trying to put together a product, service or educational tutorial without any fuss: PRO-FORM (Version 3) from the Rapid Intake company.I went through their excellent tutorial and liked what I saw. Here are the highlights:Four Quiz Question Types You can have four quiz question types. The following

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-32374507495386131942008-11-23T20:52:00.000-08:002008-11-23T20:52:01.047-08:00

OpenOffice (OO) is such a powerful office suite but it's a shame most people are not even aware of its power and functionalities, which all come for FREE!Here are some of the drawing features that are unleashed when you select File > New > Drawing from the main OO menu.General Drawing Window:Drop-Down List of Arrows:Drop-Down List of 3-D Effects (you can transform any shape into 3-D object):You

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-21125083600970465232008-11-22T11:19:00.000-08:002008-11-22T11:19:00.781-08:00

The myth: The Width of the Space Shuttle's Fuel Tank is based on a History that Extends Back to the Roman Chariots!Summary of the eRumor:This story is a "We've always done it that way" tale. It claims that the width of the Space Shuttle's fuel tank is only four-feet, eight-and-a-half inches and the NASA engineers could not make them any wider no matter how hard they tried! Why?Because the fuel

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-83849699652560466392008-11-21T13:17:00.000-08:002008-11-23T14:32:13.961-08:00

I'm blessed with many family members and friends that I love and care for.The downside is, I can't remember all their birthdays, especially when my extended family grows each year with the arrival of new beautiful babies.So here is what I do: I enter all those dates into Google Calendar by clicking the Create Event link which displays the following dialog-box page:In that screen I select and

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-65857705938339076662008-11-20T12:57:00.000-08:002008-11-20T13:04:42.097-08:00

THEMES tab in the Gmail Settings window.Goodbye to good'old lain-vanilla blue-and-white Gmail!Now you can select one of the 30 (and counting!) available skins for your Gmail page.(Screenshot courtesy of Nirmal)However, at this writing Themes are not available for every Gmail account. For example, I have it on one of my Gmail accounts but not on the other. If you cannot see the THEMES tab inside

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-78714345898344240802008-09-05T20:36:00.000-07:002008-09-05T20:36:00.953-07:00

There are so many different types of writing that it’s futile trying to list them all.Yet, there are some principles that hold true in almost every writing situation. I’m tempted to call them “Universal Rules” of good writing, in ANY language.Here are three such rules:Brevity. If you can express an idea in one word, do NOT use two words. Shorter is always better unless you’re writing a poem or

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-31116446862263193722008-09-04T20:02:00.000-07:002008-09-04T20:02:00.461-07:00

Imagine you have a piece of text that you’d like to quickly add to your documents no matter which document you are in, and regardless of what’s saved in your clipboard.One solution is to assign that text to a new toolbar button as Autotext.Here is how to do it:1) Select Tools > Autocorrect Options from the main menu to display the Autocorrect dialog box.2) Click and select the Autotext tab.3)

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-56479747875831314062008-09-03T20:34:00.000-07:002008-09-03T20:34:00.636-07:00

Which way should you go as a writer? Should you try to swing it out on your own or become an employee for a company?Here are the pros and cons for each option:FreelancingPROS:Freedom. You are your own person. You don’t need to listen to any boss figure. You “eat what you kill” and some people just love that kind of life.Variety. Freelancers work on a variety of assignments, depending on client

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-79366952373448935682008-09-02T20:01:00.000-07:002008-09-02T20:01:00.222-07:00

You can easily create dozens and hundreds of letters each addressed to a different person and each including customized references.For example, you can generate a series of letters that look like these:LETTER 1:“B. Smith, 123 Road, Boston, MA Zip1Dear Bob, It was great meeting you on July 23, 2005 in Cincinnati. I’d love to do business with your company Iron Works General, Inc. …”LETTER 2:“Coreen

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-2537662693169285452008-09-01T19:45:00.000-07:002008-09-01T19:45:00.395-07:00

Have you ever wondered why you cannot edit just the way you want to edit a selected numbered list item in MS Word?Were you ever frustrated by your inability to change the step numbers from, let's say, plain-black to bold-red and then to italic-green (without changing the body text) no matter what you tried?All that maddening difficulty is due to a "secret style principle" built into the very code

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-44308061881064582172008-08-31T19:44:00.000-07:002008-08-31T19:44:00.377-07:00

You can insert HTML links to your MS Word documents in a split second.1) Select the target word.2) Press CTRL and K keys to launch the Insert Hyperlink dialog box.3) You can link the word selected to an existing file or web page, a bookmark within the same document, an e-mail address, or to a new document. Click the appropriate button in the LINK TO navigation bar.To link the word selected to a

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-35576573185643558302008-08-30T19:42:00.000-07:002008-08-30T19:42:00.940-07:00

MS Word 2003 can store 24 items in its Clipboard and then paste all of them in the same order that you saved them (the last one saved pasted the last).Why is this such a great function? Because it allows you to gather study and research materials from all kinds of different sources and then compile them within the same Word document for your easy reference and/or re-writing.1) First of all, make

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-48422827664827868192008-08-29T19:41:00.000-07:002008-08-29T19:41:00.709-07:00

If you do not like the way a MS Word toolbar button looks, you can change its image very easily.1) Select Tools > Customize from the main menu to display the Customize dialog box.2) Select the button (the image of which you would like to change) by clicking on it directly on the toolbar. A black rectangle will display around the selected button.3) Click the Modify Selection button in the

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-63204029617975157112008-08-28T19:39:00.000-07:002008-08-28T19:39:00.275-07:00

I love Venn Diagrams because nothing comes to close to expressing the logical relationships between different sets of elements that well.With Microsoft Word 2003 you can create fantastic looking and colorful Venn Diagrams on the fly, with as many elements and colors as you need.It helps to launch your DRAW toolbar first before you do anything else.Then follow these steps:1) Click the 3-balls

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-11942876938234581212008-08-27T19:35:00.000-07:002008-08-27T19:35:00.353-07:00

Microsoft Word comes with a powerful dictionary and spell checker. It is very easy to add new words to MS’s default customary dictionary (file name: CUSTOM.DIC) as well.When MS comes across a word that is not in this default dictionary, the right-click pop-up menu asks whether you’d like to “Add to Dictionary”. Click that option and you are done. The new word is added to CUSTOM.DIC. Next time, MS

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-57903557549968290932008-08-26T19:34:00.000-07:002008-08-26T19:34:00.547-07:00

Imagine you have a long MS Word document containing all kinds of paragraph styles. What are you going to do if you'd like to indent all section headers SIMULTANEOUSLY by one tab to the right and then change their color to red?Obviously the Find-and-Replace functionality is of no help here. Yes, you can search for the paragraphs by their style but you need to type in a search word or phrase. And

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-79707905193949059082008-08-26T09:34:00.001-07:002008-08-26T09:50:25.223-07:00

A great majority of web sites out there are still using TABLES to present content, even if the content has nothing to do with tabulated data.Yet there are also a growing number of great web sites that contain zero tables. They are built by pure CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).Here are three of them: Blogger, Microsoft, and CNN.The screen shots below display the DIV tags used by these sites. As you

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-42102782095288668032008-08-26T09:05:00.000-07:002008-08-26T09:27:31.384-07:00

Do you know what kind of cookies the web site you're visiting is placing on your machine?Now you can easily see and (if you wish) remove those cookies thanks to Firefox 3.0's great cookie editor.1) When you visit a web site, click on the favicon displayed to the left of the URL:2) Firefox will display the following dialog box:3) Click the More Information button to display the following

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-6370372935171282832008-08-25T19:32:00.000-07:002008-08-25T19:32:01.003-07:00

MS Word has a very powerful functionality hidden under its hood.You can import text and images from any other document or web site into your current document without copying and pasting anything.You can import external content into the body section of your document, as well as into your headers and footers.NOTE: Whatever you import into headers and footers will be repeated automatically on every

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-20936885819847096372008-08-24T19:28:00.000-07:002008-08-24T19:28:01.562-07:00

Imagine you have a 200 page MS Word document with repeating text elements like an address, a name, or a date which repeated over and over throughout the document. And imagine, after finishing the document, or when it's time to update it, your boss tells you to change the name from "John" to "Bob." One way to do it of course is to use a global Find and Replace. But what if you'd like to replace

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-33232212404312990902008-08-23T19:30:00.000-07:002008-08-23T19:30:00.707-07:00

Did you know that MS Word records a lot of information about you, and even about your computer and the network you're working on, and then saves them with the text document you are creating?If you are using MS Word as your main word processor, you may be providing a lot more personal information to your readers than you intended to.Some of the information you inadvertently provide can be not only

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-44182910496890085262008-08-22T19:27:00.000-07:002008-08-22T19:27:00.434-07:00

By Shweta Katdare Introduction The most important skills for a technical writer are writing, editing, and design. However, these skills are not enough to make you a successful technical writer. You also need to learn how to use authoring tools. The most widely used publishing tools are: FrameMaker Microsoft Word FrameMaker FrameMaker is a desktop publishing and a help authoring application

writer111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-64863649450636601892008-08-21T19:26:00.000-07:002008-08-21T19:26:00.332-07:00

Imagine you’d like to have the sweet image of a finch accompanying every section header in your FrameMaker document that has something to do with “Birds.” For example, let's say you want the readers to see the image of a finch right before every header that reads something like “Birds of North America,” “Migration Routes of Birds,” etc. First of all, create the image and save it on your

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-218480380835264902008-08-20T19:25:00.000-07:002008-08-20T19:25:00.528-07:00

A FrameMaker template consists of a set of Master Pages. Select File > New > Document from the top menu. Select Portrait and create a new document. Select View > Master Pages to switch to the master page editing screen. The default FrameMaker document comes with a single master page named RIGHT (check the status bar at the bottom of your screen), complete with a default HEADER and a default

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-20792421184349015132008-08-19T19:23:00.000-07:002008-08-19T19:23:00.817-07:00

FrameMaker (FM) is such a wonderful software to write long and complicated books and documents. In my 20-plus years of experience as a writer, nothing comes close. FM has a very powerful built-in marker functionality with which you can mark not only your index words and cross-references, but your “pending stuff” as well. Let’s say you have these paragraphs in your document that you do not

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-18768711118517437492008-08-18T19:22:00.000-07:002008-08-18T19:22:00.481-07:00

You want to display different versions of the same text in a FrameMaker technical document. You'd like to toggle different versions on and off. There is one condition however: you do not want to use multiple copies of the same text block (with perhaps different paragraph tags assigned to them) for fear of messing up the formatting of your pages. How would you do it? It's simple, but you need

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-66450698168431673582008-08-18T11:03:00.000-07:002008-08-18T11:11:39.490-07:00

"You’re a real writer if you write every day. I’ve written two screenplays this year, but for three years earlier, I didn’t write any screenplays at all.""The weakest writing in America today is in the movies, the best writing is on TV, in series like The Sopranos. That’s because scripts for TV are about human beings and human behavior, not a journey to the center of the earth. Movies have become

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-46274937487544475992008-08-17T19:20:00.000-07:002008-08-17T19:20:00.355-07:00

FrameMaker has a very powerful cross referencing (linking) functionality. You can easily refer to another section or element in your book by a hyper-link that will be alive when you save your document as a PDF file. The linked cross references are updated automatically when you edit your document or book and select Edit > Update References. Here is how you can create FrameMaker cross

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-8333364733919986772008-08-16T19:18:00.000-07:002008-08-16T19:18:00.639-07:00

Sidebar icons are cool. They not only look great aesthetically but they also perform a great function by emphasizing the important points in the text and making sure that the reader does not miss them. I, for example, always use the image of an “exclamation mark inside a triangle” or a “lightning inside a triangle” to the left of any WARNING or CAUTION text. If a hardware user can get an

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-43636279842109310832008-08-15T19:17:00.000-07:002008-08-15T19:17:00.985-07:00

Those technical writers who have written manuals running hundreds and even thousands of pages know the difficulty of keeping various kinds of markers under control. But if you are an Adobe FrameMaker user, you are lucky because FM provides you with many ways to mark a document. Open your document and press Esc+S+M to display that life-saving Marker dialog box. (Or select Special > Marker from

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-19921159521944253752008-08-14T19:16:00.000-07:002008-08-14T19:16:00.683-07:00

If you have a document that will be printed hardcopy (or distributed as PDF) as well as used as a help file, the hyperlinked page number cross-references usually create a problem since page numbers do not make sense in a help file and should not be there. So what are you going to do? Create two different versions of the same document, one with and the other without page number references? Of

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-34417888704521851412008-08-14T13:39:00.001-07:002008-08-14T13:40:40.082-07:00

I heard this on NPR today as I was driving to work...Garrison Spik earned the dubious distinction of writing the Worst Opening Sentence in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest:"Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24-7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-68509578455354550672008-08-14T11:41:00.000-07:002008-08-14T11:41:00.693-07:00

I love Crate&Barrel catalogs. I think they are among the best written consumer product catalogs, anywhere.Here is an example:"Kik-Step Stools - Kick it and it rolls. Step on it and it locks. Clever spring-mounted retractable casters take this handy steel stool wherever you need it..."ACTION verbs in the IMPERATIVE mode -- kick it, step on it... it tells you exactly what you should be doing.

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-31063297559274078172008-08-13T19:13:00.000-07:002008-08-13T19:16:08.749-07:00

Renaming the FrameMaker Books Think twice before changing the name of a FrameMaker book file especially if the book includes TOC, index, List of Figures (LOF) and List of Tables (LOT) files. Because when you try to compile a new PDF book file, FrameMaker will try to locate the newly-named versions of the TOC, IX, LOT, and LOF files. When it can’t find them, it will refuse to create a PDF book.

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-73295907623236016142008-08-11T12:10:00.000-07:002008-08-11T12:30:31.020-07:00

1) Matt Furey is such an excellent writer and opportunity marketer. Whenever there's a momentous event, you can count on it, Matt will fire off a personal and well-written letter on the occasion and will not of course forget to plug in his products as well.This afternoon I found in my mail box his take on Michael Phelp's second gold medal and the phenomenal 4x100 race with the French. Online

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-49703298450733303532008-08-07T15:00:00.000-07:002008-08-07T15:02:32.339-07:00

"Boat Industry Takes on Water"~ Business Gazette, August 1, 2008"In Women's Soccer, U.S. Finds It Can't Kick the World Around Anymore"~ Wall Street Journal, August 7, 2008

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-4790017835628201212008-07-24T07:47:00.000-07:002008-07-24T07:52:53.591-07:00

There is something new from the ever-inventive Google Team: a KNOL!Blogs are great for quickly and easily getting your latest writing out to your readers, while knols are better for when you want to write an authoritative article on a single topic. The tone is more formal, and, while it's easy to update the content and keep it fresh, knols aren't designed for continuously posting new content or

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-35247253947701222682008-07-19T06:23:00.000-07:002008-07-19T06:37:08.691-07:00

"WHEN T. S. Eliot said that it is the journey, not the arrival, that matters, he surely was not thinking of a journey to Paris on a commercial airline, at a cost of $1,400, following a two-hour wait on the tarmac, in which cocktails on overseas flights are no longer free."http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/fashion/20bummer.htmlIt turns a well-known line by a famous poet on its head while

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-6020746596262822522008-07-16T11:15:00.001-07:002008-07-16T11:16:31.598-07:00

"Last fall, one of the largest subscription websites decided to make all of its content free and abandon the subscription model. That website was NYTimes.com. After opening up their website, they saw a traffic jump almost immediately of over 2.2 million unique visitors to the site. Following this news, Rupert Murdoch seriously considered leaving his more than one million subscribers behind

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-22922065069778289482008-07-14T17:14:00.001-07:002008-07-14T20:00:13.589-07:00

Don't you hate it when "black hat" artists grab your articles and reprint them by flattening all your live links and then, to add insult to injury, INSERT their own RANDOM affiliate word-links to the text?I have no idea why they do it because the result is a terrible stupid piece of text with an impossible URL.Here is an example how one of my articles was butchered in this fashion:http://

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-46431805064122206402008-06-17T13:48:00.000-07:002008-06-17T13:53:47.908-07:00

Icahn to Yahoo Board: Don’t Make Me Get Medieval on Your Assets by John Paczkowski in Digital Daily (Wall Street Journal)

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-68327359803853722182008-06-16T06:45:00.000-07:002008-06-16T06:45:00.361-07:00

I did not make this one up folks. This one is for real and is an excellent example of how NOT to design a squeeze page, especially one set up to sell a very expensive web-based service.The rule is -- the more information you ask from your prospective customers upfront, the lower will be your conversion rate.How many people do you think have signed up for this "Free software demo" by providing all

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-90173341233897732682008-06-15T07:14:00.000-07:002008-06-15T07:14:01.203-07:00

Can something be "scarce" but NOT "critically scarce"?From New York Times (June 7, 2008):"... housing was critically scarce along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina."?This is like saying "the house was painted green in color." Green is the color, and what's scarce is by definition "critically" so.It's enough and more proper to say something is painted green, period; or that the housing is

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-71969040272891310662008-06-14T06:01:00.000-07:002008-06-14T06:13:26.160-07:00

Even important publications like NYT or WSJ are not immune to generating weak prose, constructed with non-parallel clauses.Here is one from New York Times (June 7, 2008):"The hunger strike is meant to pressure federal officials, and comes as Congress is debating an expansion of the guest worker program..."There's nothing "wrong" with this sentence except a passive-voice clause is followed by an

writer111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-30858012713468588522008-06-13T07:16:00.000-07:002008-06-13T07:16:01.341-07:00

Now you can schedule your posts in advance if you are using Blogger.WordPress had that functionality for quite a while.I congratulate Blogger for the innovation for a good reason -- whenever I had WordPRess blogs they've been assaulted without mercy by comment spammers.With Blogger, knock on wood, that has never been an issue and I'm using Blogger since year 2000. I hope one day WordPress

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-19086127608924337232008-06-12T06:15:00.000-07:002008-06-12T06:15:04.157-07:00

EXAMPLE: Once the startup condition is attained, the user can launch the module. BETTER: After starting the system, the user can launch the module.

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-62533370014363178052008-06-11T05:21:00.000-07:002008-06-11T06:27:29.017-07:00

Some of the worst excesses of copy writing give the trade a bad name.Take the following lonely adjective I noticed printed on the label of a bottle of shampoo:"Energizing..."Now what the heck does that mean, really?Energizing WHAT? Does it mean I'll have more energy when I use that shampoo? Of course not.How much more energy we're talking about? Are we talking in terms of Calories?Etc. Etc.Total

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-15970477495223238352008-06-10T05:58:00.000-07:002008-06-10T09:23:47.612-07:00

(Click the image to enlarge it.)That's the first sentence that greets you when you visit the "Recent Drawings" page of MEGA MILLIONS LOTTERY.LEARN FROM HISTORY? If we could do that, that would mean the lottery drawings are NOT random!The whole point to a lottery is that all drawings are (supposed to be) RANDOM and INDEPENDENT from each other.For anything to have a HISTORY it has to have events

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-83327313202832632262008-06-03T20:30:00.001-07:002008-06-04T04:05:55.645-07:00

I've been at the STC (Society for Technical Communication) Technical Communication Summit and Annual Conference in Philly, PA since Sunday. A very exciting event for all technical communicators, with 1,250 in attendance from all across the USA, Europe, Japan, India, Korea, Israel, and a few other countries.STC has organized 3 solid days of presentations on half a dozen subject tracks. There were

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-72804402912896312942008-05-30T06:58:00.001-07:002008-05-30T07:06:44.275-07:00

I'll be at the STC Annual Conference next week, held in Philadelphia, PA. It's going to be an exciting conference and I'll file my impressions on a daily basis right here.One issue that I see surfacing these days is the very definition of a "technical writer" since we tech writers usually do a lot more than just "writing." We also design information and do a lot in terms of page layout, graphics

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-2283128641747807602008-05-29T09:45:00.001-07:002008-05-30T07:07:06.020-07:00

This is the sort of inspirational story that I love...Writer at 98 writes his first novel and starts a memoir: "My First One Hundred years". You gotta love a guy with a sense of humor like that! http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/28/DD2T10SJEI.DTL~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Osmond Molarsky has been writing all his life. He's written ad copy, radio documentaries, U.S.

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-84906225652496366142008-05-29T09:35:00.001-07:002008-05-30T07:06:20.686-07:00

Are you interested to change careers and become a well-paid and well-respected Technical Writer? "Technical Writing Weekend Boot Camp" classes are forming. Write your first software manual within 2 days.I'll be teaching these classes personally. I'm looking forward to share my 10-years Fortune 500 techncial writing experience with all my students.Class size limited to 15.Sign up with this info

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-72682080380125991882008-05-04T05:58:00.001-07:002008-05-04T06:04:25.838-07:00

In this day and age of mega-total-automation we tend to forget the human labor that goes into every word, every package of meaningful information.Here is a video title from CNN Fortune website.An accident that really happened because someone was too tired to type "An accident" correctly.The idea is not to nitpick on human frailties but to call attention to the continuing importance of quality

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-51421115549779546702008-05-01T05:57:00.000-07:002008-05-01T06:12:00.316-07:00

Some titles can be correct bur imbalanced if they are constructed in an unparallel fashion.Here is a good example: the subtitle of the splendid AFI CENTER in Silver Spring, Maryland.This is a great movie theater and a cultural center; one of the best I've seen anywhere.But look at its official subtitle:"Theater and Cultural Center" !?"[NOUN] + [ADJECTIVE] CENTER"There are two BETTER and more

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-54675285246382589022008-04-24T14:43:00.000-07:002008-04-24T14:56:31.270-07:00

I keep saying this for years and some people think I’m exaggerating: “Bad information and product design can main and even kill.” Here is an amazing recent example of how badly-designed products can cause needless injuries and pain, as it happened to movie star Dennis Quaid and his wife who almost lost their newborn baby when an abnormally high dose of Heparin (a blood coagulant) was given to

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-46235430856301006512008-04-24T07:24:00.000-07:002008-04-24T14:57:09.318-07:00

I always have my radio on when I drive.Here is a law office commercial I heard today, followed by the instruction to visit their web site:"Visit us today at Kimmel, Wellerstein, Zimmertwolds..." etc etc, one of those long typical law-partnership names (I made up this particular one).And then comes the kicker -- the anchor actually starts to SPELL OUT each and every letter in the DOMAIN NAME!!!"..

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-83882924206524893612008-04-22T10:38:00.000-07:002008-04-22T10:43:09.710-07:00

Perfect copy that I saw today on the side of a mobile document-shredding truck:"Cut identity theft!"The verb CUT here is both function and benefit.Function: this truck physically cuts (shreds) documents that carry information about your business secrets or identity.Benefit: it therefore cuts (diminishes) the possibility of a stranger reading your documents and stealing your identity.My score: 10

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-40859379627830065972008-04-20T20:22:00.000-07:002008-04-20T20:27:03.710-07:00

There are zillions of mail servers out there.If you are an email publication publisher, you have no idea who is using AOL, who is using EarthLink, or MSN, etc.How can you make sure that your mailing won't be chucked away as worthless spam?Here is a solution:This web site can generate whitelisting instructions for an amazing variety of mail servers.Just fill in the blanks and click the button and

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-38863726328755219782008-04-15T09:13:00.000-07:002008-04-17T14:18:19.557-07:00

I just saw this copy on the side of a supply truck that belonged to Hair Cuttery:"change your hair, change in your wallet"Ouccchhh!This could easily go into the textbooks as a perfect example of how to write BAD copy.It is an excellent example of UNPARALLEL STRUCTURE.If you start one clause with a VERB ("to change"), continue also with a verb in the second clause and do not shift to a NOUN ("

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-75310292971434897372008-03-07T09:06:00.000-08:002008-06-11T12:51:28.543-07:00

What an opener for a movie review:TITLE: '10,000 B.C.': Time Bomb, By Kurt Loder //handles SEO title problem if (GetCookieUtil("cCommunityAccess")=="true"){ document.getElementById('articleTitle').className="main-title wtbox"; } else { document.getElementById('articleTitle').className="main-title"; } SUB-TITLE: The Stone Age itself may have had better movies than this. if (GetCookieUtil("

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-75329353770537586282008-02-29T15:28:00.000-08:002008-02-29T15:48:20.785-08:00

Sometimes web designers get caught up in the illusion that they are building just a tiny little "local" web site, or that their employer is such a "well known" entity that "everybody" knows what their acronym stands for.Mega illusion.No matter how "local" your business is, if it's a public site, remember this: it takes the same amount of clicks ("one") to reach it from Mongolia as from

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-60211505211288030762008-02-18T05:45:00.000-08:002008-02-18T05:46:38.911-08:00

Cary Conover for The New York Times Neil Neches, on a No. 5 train, underneath the placard that has earned him plaudits for his proper use of the semicolon. function getSharePasskey() { return 'ex=1361077200&en=54ee031823a07902&ei=5124';} function getShareURL() { return encodeURIComponent('http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/nyregion/18semicolon.html'); } function getShareHeadline() {

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-7545142976672871312008-01-15T10:49:00.000-08:002008-01-15T10:50:22.490-08:00

Me, Myself and IBy COLLIN LEVYThe Wall Street JournalJanuary 14, 2008; Page A13After months of presidential primary debates, town-hall meetings and cable talkathons, I hate myself. And I mean that in the most old-fashioned way.For all the rhetorical flourish on display, many of the presidential candidates still don't have a grip on the King's English. That great American personal pronoun, the

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-84464269262270526762008-01-09T19:40:00.000-08:002008-01-09T20:07:34.019-08:00

Drawing a picture with words is a powerful copy writing technique.A good example is the The Kennedy Center promo piece I found in my mailbox the other day.Here is how the author describes the exclusive atmosphere of the Center for us and appealing to our sense of exclusivity and high-culture:"There is nothing else like the Kennedy Center in Washington! Think about that feeling you get when you

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-85295375947811927832008-01-07T10:40:00.000-08:002008-01-07T11:17:28.673-08:00

It's that time of the season when people might be still sending each other "New Year Cards."Some these ecards will point to ecard sites where you'll find a card from a friend waiting for you.Some others, however, are phishing messages. If you click the link, an executable program will start running on your machine and god knows what will happen next! At the very least, a spyware code will be

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-83928288888900013462008-01-05T21:21:00.000-08:002008-01-05T21:42:05.153-08:00

Doctors Without Borders direct mail package does so many things right that it's worth mentioning here.First off: they've got a great FREE OFFER that they announce right up front:"Your Free World Map Enclosed."How can you not open that envelope? Who does not like a free world map even if you've got a dozen already?Secondly, you turn the envelope, and there it is -- a trust-builder hard to match:"

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-59532668670973508822008-01-05T06:58:00.000-08:002008-01-05T21:10:28.592-08:00

Envelope blurbs are great vehicles to increase the response rate in direct mail.But here is the Number One Commandment of all envelope copy: Thou Shalt Not Confuse and Obfuscate.Here are two recent direct-mail envelopes that I found in my mailbox recently that raise more questions than they answer.1) The Kennedy CenterThe back of the solicitation envelope that the Center mailed has a beautiful

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-12657475707232605312007-08-22T14:26:00.001-07:002007-08-22T14:26:34.610-07:00

My regular readers know how much I like open source software and operating systems. I’ve just had the privilege of having a look at the Beta version of (Linux) Ubuntu’s latest 7.1 upgrade, for example, thanks to the way my wonderful son keeps on top of these things. And I must tell you – it’s even BETTER than Mac OS X! It’s just awesome as we’ll all have the chance to appreciate it for ourselves

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-32909807549830848702007-08-20T07:58:00.000-07:002007-08-20T08:00:41.192-07:00

I love OpenOffice because it’s a very powerful and FREE open source office application. Its lack of enterprise-level mail program (like Outlook) is its only shortcoming. Otherwise it’s (at least) as good as its Microsoft counterparts Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access. However you need to be careful if you have downloaded the Mac version of OpenOffice to your Macbook or any other Mac machine

writer111noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-38255089774013448742007-08-15T08:37:00.000-07:002007-08-15T08:38:25.082-07:00

Imagine you have the name of your company in cell A1 and the address in F1 but you would like to add the address to the company name and display them in a new cell, D1.This is how you can do it:Click and select cell D1.Click the fx link to the left of the Formula Bar to display the Insert Function dialog box.Select TEXT for category and then select the CONCATENATE function.Click OK to display the

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-55794668829663689702007-08-01T11:38:00.000-07:002007-08-01T11:49:41.573-07:00

The world of motion pictures has lost two giants within the last two days -- Ingmar Bergman, and Michelangelo Antonioni. I must admit that I could never take a shine to Bergman. His films left me cold, drained, without a drop of sunshine.So why did I love Antonioni that much? His classic trilogy (“L’Avventura” (1960), “La Notte” (1961) and “L’Eclisse” (1962)) was not exactly a display of "fun

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-26869908177055424972007-07-31T12:03:00.000-07:002007-07-31T12:05:10.537-07:00

By Brandt Dainow Google Analytics 2.0 changes everything, and according to the CEO of ThinkMetrics, the competition is dead. They just haven't stopped moving yet.Death by GoogleGoogle has killed the web analytics software industry with the release of the new version of Google Analytics. The new version was released just under two months ago and is simply a quantum leap above any other analytics

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-23404030021028765982007-07-30T08:06:00.001-07:002007-07-30T08:17:09.191-07:00

A “character arc,” that is, the changes a character goes through during the 2 hours of a movie, is one of the most tricky aspects of screenwriting. You miss it, and you have in your hands a flat piece of narrative, a chain of events without a human-emotional core. Such movies do not move us to laughter or tears.Nail it on the head, and the whole narrative comes alive like the juice hitting a

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-26287979531106300472007-07-29T19:15:00.000-07:002007-07-29T19:22:19.697-07:00

For all you work-from-home professionals, here are some multitasking tips from David Meyer, a professor of cognition and perception at the University of Michigan (brought to you by WIRED magazine):1) Double up on tasks that use different mental channels like writing a report and brainstorming for a company logo.2) Think carefully about the requirements of each task. If you are trying to close the

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-47696010762296017802007-07-22T07:39:00.001-07:002007-07-22T08:12:02.846-07:00

In this day and age of free YouTube downloads, webisodes, and mobisodes, "creatives" of Hollywood think they are shortchanged. They want a piece of the "backend." They want "residuals." That is, they want to get paid everytime, for example, you log on to ABC's web site and watch any episode of any show. Or else? WGA, The all-powerful Writers Guild of America, will go on strike on October 31. So

writer111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808029694177803510.post-47646492026555280122007-07-22T06:47:00.000-07:002007-07-22T06:53:59.955-07:00

Obfuscation, or making what is plain unclear and cover it with a veil of mystery, comes easy to some public speakers.The other day as I was driving in my car and listening to a program on the various hazards of spending a day at the beach, I heard one of the experts say:"I have to caution your listeners to be careful when they visit hundreds of thousands of swimming venues this summer..."SWIMMING

writer111noreply@blogger.com0