Invitation to a networking event

Autumn's in the air so join us and your fellow technical authors in toasting the end of summer.

Our last networking event was a great success and we're hoping to organise them on a regular basis. If you missed the last one here's an opportunity for you to share your ideas, thoughts and problems with other tech authors in the relaxed environment of the pub.

Join us between 18.30 and 22.00 hours on Wednesday 14th September for a few drinks and food at The Colonies pub, central London.

Contact us to sign up and get more details.

New technical author vacancies

We'll be posting two new vacancies to our Web site today - one for a technical author at circa £45,000.

Comment on our article

We received this comment on our article "The death of the Technical Author?"

Comments: Interesting evaluation of the changing role of the 'Technical Author' but I don't agree with the use of the expression 'Information Designer' in the context of "Explaining technical information to a non-technical audience". The advertising and marketing profession in general provides 'Information Design' when originating brochure layout and developing documentation stylesheets, etc. and it is the understanding of desk top publishing that is the skill required for today's 'Information Design'.

The real meaning of 'Information Design' is best illustrated by the London Underground Map where all the information required by the reader has been creatively designed and presented with simplicity and relevant accuracy. In my experience, very few technical authors are capable of the creativity required for true 'Information Design'.

'Information Communicator' is perhaps a more appropriate expression for a technical Author to adopt if they don't want to be recognised as a 'technical' communicator.

Please preserve the word 'design' for where it belongs, alongside creativity and ingenuity.

Is he right?

Vacancies for technical authors

Shortly after sending out our latest newsletter, we had three new contract and permanent job opportunities confirmed. If you are a technical author looking for work then do take a look at the front page of our Web site www.cherryleaf.com. We have a position for a technical author in Kent a contract opportunity for a junior technical author who wants to work from home, and opportunity for someone who is expert at Word macros.

Justin Darley to speak at STC UK Chapter event in Cambridge

Justin Darley of Cherryleaf is to be the guest speaker at an STC UK Chapter event in Cambridge on Wednesday 7th September 2005. Justin will speak about "Using DocBook to Create HTML Help", and will answer questions after his talk.

The event will take place at the offices of ARM, at 5:30pm. For details of the venue and how to get there, please see: http://www.arm.com/contact_us/ARM_Cambridge.html

You do need to register in advance for this event as our hosts have requested a list of attendees. To register, please send your name by email to stc_uk_chapter@yahoo.co.uk, with the subject line "Cambridge event".

This meeting is open to both members and non-members. Tea and coffee will be available and there will be time to network and socialise before and after Justin's talk.

We look forward to seeing you in Cambridge.

David Farbey,
President,
STC UK Chapter

Microsoft Vista Help update

Here's an update on the new Help system that will be shippng with the next version of Windows (Windows Vista).

Vista's Help, and the XML tags in MAML are primarily task-oriented. Presentation is separated from content, so you can maintain a consistent look across programs. The MAML schema is included in the Windows Vista beta, which means you can start understanding the XML tags Microsoft has devised.

Help displays on the right of the screen so you can jump back and forth between the help text and the application screen. Vista's Help system is supported by a programmatic interface in .NET, allowing you to develop "persistent Help" - topics that change depending on what the user is doing in the application.

New Help topics will be added to Help files as part of the Windows Update feature. According tothe AP team, content is downloaded to the local machine as MAML and transformed at runtime into HTML for display, as per local content. There's also a beta version serves the same MAML content in a Web browser.

What are you doing about Vista Help - hoping it will go away, chomping at the bit, totally indifferent to it?

Our Web site redesign

We revamped our Web site in July, moving from a layout controlled by tables to one controlled by cascading style sheets. The site is now more accessible for the sight-impaired and for people using PDAs or text browsers. It also takes less time to load.

We've also rewritten the text for our marketing and copywriting services, to reflect the range of services we now offer in this field. How long it takes our competitors to copy us again remains to be seen.

It's not easy to implement this design in a way that it works in all the mainstream browsers and all screen resolutions, and a few compromises have had to be made. We're not aware of any bugs, but if you spot one, then do please let us know.