Technical Writer

We are all noticing a fairly obvious trend on the web—more video, more pictures, more sound. A lot of people are posting videos now, rather than text blogs. I realise this is the way of the future, and I am starting to feel like a dinosaur because, frankly, I can’t be bothered with most of the multimedia.

I am all for web sites that look good, but my prime aim when I access the web is speed. I am not there to be entertained, I am there to be informed. Multimedia doesn’t give me speed.

Flash sites

Some of the Flash site intros you can see nowadays are brilliant mini movies, but I don’t want to sit and wait for that brilliance to unfold when I could be reading what I want from the site.  If I can’t turn it off after the first time I’m less likely to revisit that site.

Audio

I surf the web with the mute button on.  I want quick, I want clean, and I definitely don’t want odd sounds interrupting my enjoyment of what is currently playing on the stereo.

I have friends, however, who work by sound rather than sight. They never read the error messages.  They know they have clicked the wrong button by the sound the error produces.

I often intend to listen to the podcasts on Tech Writer Voices, but don’t, simply because it takes time and concentration to do so. I must be doing something that I am not totally involved in, thus not writing, so that I can listen with half an ear to the podcast.

Graphics

Pictures are great. You can take them in at a glance, decide whether it’s worth stopping or whether to move on.

Video

The problem with videos on the web is that you have to watch them. By the time you have decided whether the video is worth watching or not it’s half over, and you have wasted minutes of surfing time.

Words

I can tell in the first paragraph or two whether I want to keep reading more.

From this you can tell that my web browsing habits are higly visual and based around skimming sites for information, rather than as an entertainment. The problem with audiovisual media such as videos and podcasts is that it slows me down to normal speed. I can’t skim if I have to stop to listen or watch.

As the web evolves the audio-visual is becoming more prevalent. It will be interesting to see if people like me can change our habits—whether we adapt or die.

I was speaking with another technical writer the other day, and the subject turned to tools of the trade. It’s always interesting to know what other people work with.  The software we can’t do without.  Here’s my list.

Microsoft Word

No matter what you say about Word, it’s a powerful tool, particularly when you start using functionality like styles, templates and macros.

This is probably the most basic tool in the tech writer’s toolbox.

SnagIt

You have got to have a screen capture program.  I use Tech Smith’s Snag It, and was so impressed with it at work I bought it for my home PC.

It has since become my graphics tool of choice as well. When I need to simply crop or resize a graphic I open it in Snag It rather than, say, PaintShop Pro.

XML Spy 

I seem to have been using Altova’s XML Spy for years now.  Each release gets more complex, with more features, but it’s the simple features that have been with the program for a number of releases now are the ones I can’t do without.

• Pretty print
• Schema diagrams
• Generating schemas
• Grid views (and the ability to switch between grid and text view)
• Quick transforms
• Creating updating XML in the grid

and the functionality they have really improved in the last couple of releases:

• Generating XML from databases.

As an XML editor, I think it’s still one of the best.

Captivate

I first came across Captivate at a conference. It had just been released, and Macromeida had someone there to demonstrate it.  The salesman loved the product, and it showed.  It was an impressive demonstration and and impressive product.

At the time Macromedia had just bought out RoboHelp, and everyone was asking “Was RoboHelp dead?”.  It looked as if it was, but MacroMedia seemed more than happy with RoboHelp’s little brother—RoboDemo—which they turned into Captivate. 

(We all know how that story ends, of course.  Adobe bought Macromedia, and suddenly the pre-eminent on-line help system had a new lease of life, along with it’s little brother. They’re both going strong.)

Captivate is a great tool for creating on-line training.  Check it out.

Dreamweaver

An oldie, but a goodie.  Everything you need in the one package to create web pages.  I am still using version 4, while Adobe is up to version 8, but I still couldn’t live without it (work-wise, I mean).

So there you have it.  Those are my tools.  Despite what I say, I probably could live without them all.  All one really needs is Notepad, after all, or some other text editor, but how much work would we get done?

I used Dreamweaver this morning to add 100 links to a site.  It took less than an hour.  If I’d had to do it in Notepad I would have been at it all morning.

I finally decided to purchase a TechNet subscription so that I could keep up-to-date with the new version of Microsoft Office and SharePoint.

I have since spent the most frustrating three weeks trying to get the whole thing up and running.

My problem was that while I appeared to have TechNet access, I could not download programs that had already been released to market—Office 2007, Vista, etc.

I consider myself a reasonably competent user.  I can generally muddle my way through most problems just by perservering, but this time I came very close to throwing the whole thing in.

Most normal users would already have done so.  (By ‘normal’ I mean end users who are not part of an IT department.)

Herein lies one of the biggest problems with learning that I know of.

The steepest part of the learning curve is right at the start.  People are at their most confused when starting something new.  It gets easier, but unless they are particularly persistent, or have a real need to find a solution, they give up before they get to the easy part.

Their problems at this stage are usually simple.  They can’t find a link, they don’t know what to do next, and there is no-one around to point them in the right direction.

With my TechNet subscription, for example, there was a Download tab across the top of the screen.  I could click on this and get to a page that allowed me to download beta versions of software that was still being developed.  I could search on, say, Vista and get to a page that said Vista had been released to market and that TechNet Subscribers could get it from here. I clicked on the link, which took me to another page, which took me right back to the page that said “TechNet subscribers can get a copy from here.”

The FAQs talked about TechNet Direct Downloads and Product Keys link.

I couldn’t find that link and I didn’t know if it was because something was wrong or because it had been replaced by the Download tab—and if that was the case, why hadn’t they updated the FAQs?

To make matters worse, there was no support.  The only contact information I could find was a link to the forums, of which none were specific to TechNet installation problems, and one contact number and email address for TechNet sales.

Where was all this support they had promised—the online support chats, even the two support calls that came free with the TechNet subscription?

My problem was that I didn’t really know what my problem was yet.

By this time I was extremely frustrated, and ready to try the scattergun query method.

This method seldom works.  It relies on the goodwill of someone answering a question outside the realm in which it should have been asked, simply out of the goodness of their heart.

I sent an email to the TechNet blog.  I posted on one of the Vista forums. By this stage I didn’t care how stupid I sounded.  I was desperate, and ready to ring the sales office next.

TechNet seemed to recognise me.  It asked me to log on each time, and said, “Hello Cab Sav,” and knew all I about me and my preferences, so I don’t know what made me change my Microsoft passport.  Just the slow, tedious plodding one normally does, I suppose, trying to track down a problem.

When I associated the new passport with my TechNet subscription I suddenly had links I had never seen before.  Including a Direct Downloads and Product Keys link.

Hooray.

The celebrations didn’t last long. Every time I clicked to go to the download page I ended up with the same problem.  Click to go here, click on the link on the following page, and that took me back to the ‘Click to go here‘ page. 

But … all was not lost. I had other links now, too. Support links, including one to an online chat.

Irene, I think her name was, told me to log out, delete all my cookies, and log back in again.  How did I go?

It still didn’t work.

“Don’t worry,” she told me.  “A number of people have had the same problem.  It’s a problem at the server end.  It’s intermittant. Try again later and you should get on.”

Naturally, I didn’t believe her, but I thanked her nicely and logged off.

Half an hour later I tried again and everything worked perfectly.

Hooray.

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p.s.  Microsoft got back to me a day later as a result of my posting to the TechNet blog.  The person whose name is on the sales link.  He (or she) offered helpful suggestions about linking my Passport—which I had already done, so I’m not sure it would have worked until I associated a new one, but they were extremely polite and helpful.  I have to say, the Microsoft support all round, when I finally got it, was good.