The Anecdote blog tells of two engineers: an engineers who is 20 years in the business rates himself as "good" while a guy who is only two years in the business rates himself as a professional.
Makes you think, isn't it?
I'd been working on some document for several months, had to put it aside, and returned to it this week. This document - although far for being ready for delivery - is my pride. I love every word in it, and every GIF I patiently crafted from XLS, via Visio (no Photoshop for me, thanks :)
However, there's a lot that needs to be changed in this document. GIF to be improved, text to sharp and clarify, etc.
Why is that?
Because it's the nature of things: every living thing could be improved. Human creation - including documentation (not to mention the technology I'm documenting) - ought to be improved as well. Whatever I'm doing, I can do better.
This is why, if asked, I consider myself an expert. Not because "I don't know what I don't know", but because "I know what I know", I know how I got to know this, and know how to get new knlowledge in the future.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Managing Camtasia Projects
The following notes should help me unify the movies I produce:
Quick-start Movies:
and goes directly to the problem I have these days: I don't have a template for my movies. They all look roughly the same.
Only roughly.
I would like to make sure they have an identical look and feel (and later: that the viewer will immdediately recognize that the movie was made by me, but this will take a while to achieve).
More posts to come.
Quick-start Movies:
- U:\My Documents\Internal Documentation\Movies\Quick-start - Selecting Time Range
- Movies starts and ends with 5 seconds of sterna_logo (same location)
- Fonts for the movies: Calibri 18, 24, Black.
- Output size: 800x600, maximum quality.
- Size: 49 seconds are 3MB.
- Movie took roughly 2 hours to produce.
and goes directly to the problem I have these days: I don't have a template for my movies. They all look roughly the same.
Only roughly.
I would like to make sure they have an identical look and feel (and later: that the viewer will immdediately recognize that the movie was made by me, but this will take a while to achieve).
More posts to come.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Blog-like communication
Tom Johnson argues in favor of organization blogs. I blog myself (via MOSS infrastructure), but... no one reads me. Why is that?
My guess is that is for the very reason our occupation exists: people don't like to read (and write) more that they have to. So, I use my blog mainly for documentation release notes (posts like: GIFs for this manual are kept under this link).
But people on my organization do blog.
They post, and comment to other posts, sometimes as many as 10 posts a day, and numerous comments, as well.
Where so they blog?
Who's the lucky somain that get their attention?
Not at porn-for-the-developer-who-wouldnt-blog.com, of course.
They blog at the defect management application (say, TD/QC, and others).
They post defects, they fix defects, they contemplate on the right way to design and manifest new features, and they do it agily, on the spot, with remarkable results.
They don't call it a blog, so I don't interfere their work :)
As for me? I announce new publication there, as well.
As for my blog? It still contains (useful) lists of GIFs. (useful only for me)
Monday, October 15, 2007
Switching to Hebrew
Focusing on customers, rather than on fellow writers, I have switch to writing in Hebrew, on an Israeli-based platform. From time to time, I find it irresistable to communicate with other writers, so I extensively comment to their posts on their blogs.
My main focus, though, is my next customer. Keeping that in mind, and writing a book aimed at the Israeli hi-tech venturer who would like to recruit a writer, I blog only in Hebrew.
You see, one of the beautiful aspects of being a writer in Israel, is that the customer prefers not to read English at all. This facts defines the Israeli market (along with other factors, though). Writing to my potential customer in English, is like... not writing at all.
Thanks for everyone who've read me so far.
My main focus, though, is my next customer. Keeping that in mind, and writing a book aimed at the Israeli hi-tech venturer who would like to recruit a writer, I blog only in Hebrew.
You see, one of the beautiful aspects of being a writer in Israel, is that the customer prefers not to read English at all. This facts defines the Israeli market (along with other factors, though). Writing to my potential customer in English, is like... not writing at all.
Thanks for everyone who've read me so far.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Katriel of Method M says that DITA is the least worse approach to documentation. I sadly agree. I don't know DITA, so what I am actually agreeing to, is the concept of "least worse". Whenever I find myself telling my managers about the poverty of the tools I use, I end up frustrated. They are willing to open up their check-books, it is me who tells them to save their money, as to be able to write, circulate for feedback and deliver 2000 topics/year, MS-Word is the only tool available.
MS-Word???
Yes, I answer, exactly because it is the least worse tool. Although I write with RoboHelp as a primary source, and CHM a primary output, I admit it is no better than Word.
But there is a solution, say the DITA people.
DITA, they say, will save me from myself. I admit that I don't exactly know what DITA does. It is said to ease the ability to deliver multiple types of outputs. However, I ask, why deliver multiple types of output in the first place? No one read printed documentation anymore, and for on-line readers, no one can tell the difference between PDF and CHM. They're both easy to navigate, search, and find what you are looking for.
Let's take a different angle. Suppose I throw everything I write to a single website. Suppose that this website is well protected (acceessible only to registered users, for example) and well accessible (it takes a fraction of a second to perform a search, and the search returns excellent results). Now, looking, for example, for installation guidelines for some product of mine, wouldn't it be safe to assume that the readers won't mind whether the piece of information they're after is titled "installation guide" or "installation notes for version 1.1.0.35" or "fix to defect #35022"?
If my assumption is correct, piling everything I write onto a single website will eliminate the entire single-sourcing empire (an empire of pit-falls, if I may). No more DOC-to-CHM, RoboHelp-to-PDF. Wow. This is a Wow, no less.
So, this leave me with what Katriel calls "DITA is a standard — and is implemented using topic-centered and minimalism (methodology)". I'd buy this guidlines anytime.
MS-Word???
Yes, I answer, exactly because it is the least worse tool. Although I write with RoboHelp as a primary source, and CHM a primary output, I admit it is no better than Word.
But there is a solution, say the DITA people.
DITA, they say, will save me from myself. I admit that I don't exactly know what DITA does. It is said to ease the ability to deliver multiple types of outputs. However, I ask, why deliver multiple types of output in the first place? No one read printed documentation anymore, and for on-line readers, no one can tell the difference between PDF and CHM. They're both easy to navigate, search, and find what you are looking for.
Let's take a different angle. Suppose I throw everything I write to a single website. Suppose that this website is well protected (acceessible only to registered users, for example) and well accessible (it takes a fraction of a second to perform a search, and the search returns excellent results). Now, looking, for example, for installation guidelines for some product of mine, wouldn't it be safe to assume that the readers won't mind whether the piece of information they're after is titled "installation guide" or "installation notes for version 1.1.0.35" or "fix to defect #35022"?
If my assumption is correct, piling everything I write onto a single website will eliminate the entire single-sourcing empire (an empire of pit-falls, if I may). No more DOC-to-CHM, RoboHelp-to-PDF. Wow. This is a Wow, no less.
So, this leave me with what Katriel calls "DITA is a standard — and is implemented using topic-centered and minimalism (methodology)". I'd buy this guidlines anytime.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Blogging as a form of Procrastination
Inpired by this post I am pleased to announce that earlier this month I have shut down two blogs of mine. Yeap, you don't have to be a teen to have multiple blogs aimed at multiple audience.
The two deceased blogs were quite busy. I wrote 3-5 posts a week per each. I t was fun, it was productive, it help me to a achieve a well set goal and learn something about myself, all in a package of a blog that I could shut down just like that.
Mabe that is exactly the point. Sure, blogs are procrastination. But, they are so as a form of documenting scattered thought. (I alomost worte "managing thoughts") Real life - if held correctly - are purposeful. Blogging - if taken to what they are - are everything else. Blogging means thinking freely. Thinking freely means thinking randomly. Randomness won't achieve any goal for me, but it allows me to recreate and to keep track of my thought at the same time.
The next thought that has just popped up is that procrastination is demoting a short-term goal my daily tasks) for a longer one. Longer, and less definite. Now, I don't know wxactly what I meant by this one, but hey, this is what blogging is all about - keeping track of this halfbaked thought in order to be able to return to it later on.
The two deceased blogs were quite busy. I wrote 3-5 posts a week per each. I t was fun, it was productive, it help me to a achieve a well set goal and learn something about myself, all in a package of a blog that I could shut down just like that.
Mabe that is exactly the point. Sure, blogs are procrastination. But, they are so as a form of documenting scattered thought. (I alomost worte "managing thoughts") Real life - if held correctly - are purposeful. Blogging - if taken to what they are - are everything else. Blogging means thinking freely. Thinking freely means thinking randomly. Randomness won't achieve any goal for me, but it allows me to recreate and to keep track of my thought at the same time.
The next thought that has just popped up is that procrastination is demoting a short-term goal my daily tasks) for a longer one. Longer, and less definite. Now, I don't know wxactly what I meant by this one, but hey, this is what blogging is all about - keeping track of this halfbaked thought in order to be able to return to it later on.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
A semi-wiki documentation trial
I consider myself as "highly pro-wiki, yet the worst salesperson I could think of". I believe wiki is fantastic, yet I fails to pass the argument that an SME * who already reviews a document would benefit from a Wiki platform more that form the MS-Word track changes features that is currently in use.
For several years, I look at such posts with a great envy. Trust, tolerance and confidence are important, of course, but something else is missing. I can't get people to write into a wiki and I can't think of the reason why.
Last week I was asked to write a 2-3 paper one some new feature. It's a command-line operated tool, not very intuitive for me, so I asked R&D for some extra help here. I stored the document on a public domain and send them the link with a general comment that says "please read and comment, thanks".
They were great. Within a day, three developers has commented, raising new questions, answering some other questions, extending the document a little because the feature has evolved, etc.
Of course, I had to go over the text, move some from the comment boxes into the document itself, accept and reject changes, etc. But, the document was extensively written by developers who were happy - and agile - to contribute.
Now, our major documentation set is hundreds of pages long (to each direction :-), so I believe we;ll take it one step at a time.
* This is the guy over the cubicle who is not a tech writer.
For several years, I look at such posts with a great envy. Trust, tolerance and confidence are important, of course, but something else is missing. I can't get people to write into a wiki and I can't think of the reason why.
Last week I was asked to write a 2-3 paper one some new feature. It's a command-line operated tool, not very intuitive for me, so I asked R&D for some extra help here. I stored the document on a public domain and send them the link with a general comment that says "please read and comment, thanks".
They were great. Within a day, three developers has commented, raising new questions, answering some other questions, extending the document a little because the feature has evolved, etc.
Of course, I had to go over the text, move some from the comment boxes into the document itself, accept and reject changes, etc. But, the document was extensively written by developers who were happy - and agile - to contribute.
Now, our major documentation set is hundreds of pages long (to each direction :-), so I believe we;ll take it one step at a time.
* This is the guy over the cubicle who is not a tech writer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
