Archive for July, 2008:

BookSprint for Floss Manuals writing for the XO and Sugar

{ Posted on Jul 26 2008 by annegentle }
11 Comments
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Categories : blogging, OLPC, techpubs
I've been busy lately working on plans for a Floss Manuals BookSprint. A BookSprint is a week-long concentrated effort of technical writers getting together to create a manual for free, libre open source software products. BookSprints are like a workshop ...Read More »

New look, same content

{ Posted on Jul 24 2008 by annegentle }
2 Comments
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Categories : tools, writing
Just updated my blog with a new green theme, Corpgreen from Blog Oh Blog. I think I've tweaked appropriately, such as changing the RSS feed URL in the welcome.php file, but do let me know if you see anything amiss. I ...Read More »

Understanding the database implementation of Author-it

{ Posted on Jul 21 2008 by annegentle }
4 Comments
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Categories : Uncategorized
Author-it uses a SQL Server database to house all of the source material that make up your deliverables. You can export that database content to XML and publish to Word or HTML and other outputs, but the source is stored ...Read More »

STC Intercom – Editorial Calendar progress

{ Posted on Jul 20 2008 by annegentle }
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Categories : techpubs, tools, Uncategorized, writing
Thanks everyone for the great comments and feedback on our starting list of theme and article ideas for STC Intercom's 2009 editorial calendar. I appreciate that comments are still coming in, from all around the globe. I'm enjoying the international ...Read More »

Publish a Word outline using Author-it

{ Posted on Jul 17 2008 by annegentle }
No Comments
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Categories : techpubs, tools, work
At ASI, we're working on book skeletons while we do task analysis for new documentation or feature updates that may change the way users do their work with iMIS. So, to get early feedback, we wanted a way to publish ...Read More »

The art – and instinct – of productivity

{ Posted on Jul 15 2008 by annegentle }
3 Comments
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Categories : work
I just completed David Allen's excellent book, Getting Things Done:The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. I found that some of his tips I do instinctively, yet perhaps not yet naturally, but this book helped me apply practical principles to time management. ...Read More »

We’re not Amish, we just don’t have a TV

{ Posted on Jul 10 2008 by annegentle }
8 Comments
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Categories : techpubs, Uncategorized, writing
I grew up in Goshen, Indiana, a college town of about 20,000 people with many Amish and conservative Mennonites in the surrounding communities. Seeing horse-drawn buggies parked at the local Wal-marts (yes, there was one on each side of town) ...Read More »

Notes from April 2008 Central Texas DITA User Group meeting

{ Posted on Jul 07 2008 by annegentle }
2 Comments
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Categories : DITA
Better late than never, I suppose. I've had these notes on my hard drive and want to post them to the cloud of my blog. John Hunt, DITA Architect in the Lotus Information Development Center at IBM and DITA Learning and ...Read More »

Real life, online life, all mashed up

{ Posted on Jul 01 2008 by annegentle }
2 Comments
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Categories : social media, Uncategorized
Mashups and virtual worlds are more and more a part of Web 2.0, and perhaps as an extension, part of social media. An example of a mashup that is social is on Nikeplus.com, where I can map out running ...Read More »