Category Archive for Writing

Tech writers on the STC Lone Writer SIG listserv were talking recently about input devices they use to alleviate, or to attempt to outright avoid, repetitive stress injuries in their wrists and hands.
I’ve been using the AirO2bic mouse at work and at home for several years and love it. Its general design is on [...]

On April 5, I gave a presentation at the STC Connecticut chapter’s Professional Day on a help authoring topic. During my presentation, I mentioned that I used an outlining tool other than the one available in Microsoft Word…one that I’ve used for years.
Almost instantly, every head in the room went down and I could hear [...]

If you’ve been looking for something different for your Desktop wallpaper, Creative Memories (a purveyor of scrapbook supplies) offers 35 new choices.
Inspired by their own paper stock, some of the wallpaper designs are clearly geared toward scrapbooking enthusiasts. Others, like their Bohemian design (near the top of the list…hold your mouse pointer over each thumbnail [...]

Erik Rhey wrote a post today called “Wasteful Tech Habits That Chap My Hide” — a list that’s worthy of being posted on office refrigerator doors everywhere.
His “print everything under the sun” list item struck a chord with me. I work with people who are compulsive about printing pages and pages and pages of “stuff” [...]

The e-mail came to me at work one day, bearing the Subject line “Would you sign a petition to ban this substance?”. It started as a joke, passed around the office to see how many of the adults were fooled by it. It triggered a thought in my own mind about a) how unnecessarily convoluted [...]

Last time I talked about writing for technical types, continuing a discussion started by Michael Stelzner. Now let’s talk a bit about creating graphics for engineers, programmers, and scientists. 
Too often, graphics are created at the end of the project, close to the final deadline, when the text is nearly complete. The graphics that ultimately are [...]