Capitalism: A Love Story -- Synopsis and Review

Capitalism: A Love Story is a must-see video. It's an eye opener that reaches a far more radical conclusion than I expected. Somehow, Michael Moore manages to keep a sense of humor throughout it all, so the video winds up being entertaining, rather than depressing (no small trick). It's full of things you probably knew, but contains quite a few surprises as well.

Books on Writing that are Worth Reading (and some that aren't)

Some books on writing are worth reading--and some aren't. Here is my list of must reads, and one must-avoid.

Need to Check Links before Running the OT

>(Re-post) I just encountered a situation that underscores the need for a Link Checking step that runs before the OT. It applies to those of us who are using DITA in organizations that haven't shelled out big bucks for a content management system. [Note: XDocs is the only really affordable CMS there is. It just needs to add Link Checking to be a really stupendous buy.]

Using a Blog to Track Documentation Issues

Bug tracking tools intended for developers are too “heavyweight” for documentation. They don’t help at all with workflow, and invariably have categories and status options that make no sense whatever for documentation.

Is DITA a "semantic tagging" standard?

As much as DITA has the capacity to be a system for totally semantic tagging, the reality is that what happens to those tags totally depends on what kind of output you're generating, and what processing engine you're using to do it. So the answer to the question posed in the title is, "It isn't yet. But hopefully it will be, soon." This post explains why.

Titles, NavTitles, and SearchTitles

This is one of the decision-areas for departmental standards that needs to be decided at a new installation. It’s more about long-term implications than short-term. But as the number of topics grows, the long term begins to arrive.

Finally! Access to my Yahoo Account

This Yahoo bug has been plaguing me practically forever:

My ID and Password work everywhere they’re requested at Yahoo, except for one place: Account Management.

Writing in 2nd Person

I have been writing in 2nd person for the majority of the last decade, mostly because it just felt better. But just the other day I realized exactly why it is the right voice to use for technical documentation. (It's rather astonishing how long it took, in retrospect.) 

Heck of a good blog site

Having just gone to Google's Blogger.com to create this blog, I am forced to admit that they really got it right.

DITA Tip: Use alt tags to plan your GUI writeup

Quick tip here. Use alt-text attributes on images to plan your GUI topics. Later, when you fill in the actual screenshots, the accessibility work is done!