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Part of my philosophy as a writer has been to learn about and try different writing disciplines. I took classes in college for poetry, fiction, nonfiction, journalism, and tech writing. How did that help me as a writer? My first love was short fiction writing. Still love it. Fiction writing gives me the ability to understand things from a target audience (or character’s) POV. Looking at content, whether fiction/nonfiction, from different angles helps me communicate more effectively. Fiction skills–plot, characterization, POV, structure–are basic to any type of writing. Characterization applies into how you talk about content to your target audience…
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A few years ago, I mostly stopped freelancing. I took a permanent job with benefits. Most jobs come with a stipulation in the contract that makes freelancing a bit more difficult. Employers want to make sure that you aren’t documenting stuff for a competitor, so it’s understandable but one more loop to jump through. What does that mean for this site? I’m going to shift my content towards technical writing in general and share experiences I’ve had as a technical writer, technical editor, and as a project manager. Face it, every tech writer ends up doing doc project management so…
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I have work apps installed on my Pixel Slate tablet. I was asked to create a guide for our users who have tablets. Getting the screen shared to my Mac was tricky. Here’s my solution. Google offers remote desktop support for machines using Google Chrome browser. With both devices on the same wifi network, go to remotedesktop.google.com/support Select Remote Support and install the Chrome extension on both tablet and desktop or laptop. After the extension is installed, use the Share This screen option. For more complete instructions, see https://techwiser.com/share-screen-chromebook/
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Part of the challenge and the frustration of freelancing full time is finding new clients. The majority of my clients are from word-of-mouth referrals from previous clients, other writers, and people I’ve met through alternative networks. First tip: Make sure you have a good network of other writers, editors, and graphic designers. These contacts can be a primary source of new jobs. Having a list of other freelancers you can pass along clients to when your own docket is full is a good thing. Down the road, that writer you sent a client to will probably pass a client back…
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In addition to the Plone Help Center, I also wanted to have PloneSoftwareCenter for project management capabilities. PloneSoftwareCenter is used to manage the software projects on Plone’s web site. The installation instructions for PloneSoftwareCenter state to add Products.PloneSoftwareCenter to the eggs = section of the zinstance/buildout.cfg file in the Plone installation. Unfortunately, this method failed due to missing dependencies in my Plone installation. Figuring out dependencies Each time I ran the buildout command, I received an error message similar to this one reported on the PloneSoftwareCenter issue #84: 2009-02-24 10:03:06 ERROR Application Could not import Products.PloneSoftwareCenter Traceback (most recent call…
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Plone Help Center (PHC) is a Plone module used on the Plone site to handle community documentation and support site. The module comes with predefined FAQ, How-to, Tutorial, Reference Manuals, Error Reference, Links, and Glossary Definitions. PHC has compatibility issues with Plone version 4. This information is no readily apparent on the PHC project page. Installing PHC on a Plone 4 installation running on a Mac OS X 10.6.5 server took quite a while due to tracking down errors. PHC will work with Plone 4 if you install PHC as a development egg using the SVN trunk. Development eggs override…
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Plone 4 is an open source content management system (CMS). It’s an elegant, extensible solution for document and content control. Large companies, including Apple, use Plone. I’m evaluating CMS solutions and was pleased to find that Plone has a Mac OS X installer. I tried to install the OS X installer and chose the local installation option. The installation process never completed. About halfway through the installation process I received the following error message: Nov 8 14:13:34 bibracte installd[71515]: ./postinstall: Copying buildout skeleton Nov 8 14:13:34 bibracte installd[71515]: ./postinstall: Fixing up bin/buildout Nov 8 14:13:34 bibracte installd[71515]: ./postinstall: Running buildout;…
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Based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, Doc Box Consulting offers freelance technical writing services and web site development and maintenance at a reasonable cost. Technical writing is about translating complex concepts into plain English, at a level appropriate for the target audience. With over 10 years experience as a technical writer, Kim Nylander, the primary writer for Doc Box Consulting, can help you create materials best suited to your project. Want to learn more about how Doc Box Consulting can create a top-notch content solution for your project? Contact Doc Box Consulting.
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A friend of mine asked for tutorials and resources for cascading style sheets (CSS), so I complied the following list of sites. The most comprehensive place to start is by reviewing the CSS specification (current version is 2.1). The spec is published and maintained by the World Wide Web Consorium (W3C), which also a tutorial on CSS. W3Schools is a good site with excellent tutorials for HTML, CSS, XHTML, among others. I learned HTML/CSS there — and then had to unlearn some things. W3Schools is geared towards coding towards Internet Explorer, which doesn’t necessarily match the actual W3C specs. An…
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Interested in learning about technical writing or getting started in the field? The set of links below were put together when a friend asked me for information on technical writing. My bookmarks on Delicious for tech writing The motherload of all TW mailing lists: TechW-L. Great articles, resources, and mailing list archives. The membership includes several thousand tech writers world wide. Online text book for tech writing Fundamentals of Document Design by BA Stoky Design Monster.com’s Guide to careers in tech writing DocSymmetry’s info on being a tech writer Myths about tech writing Webster Tech Writing (see the field guide…