October/November 2004

Volume 45, Number 2

Tips from the Trenches

by Deb Lockwood

Editor's note: Some of the sites listed in the Humor and cartoons section contain material that might be considered offensive to some readers. All links in this article worked at the time of publication.

With the World Wide Web being so dynamic, and hundreds of new sites being added daily, I thought it would be helpful to our group if I compiled a list of our favorites and published that list in of Technicalities. The contributors submitted some wonderful resources, and I organized them into the following categories:

• Books, Magazines, and E-zines
• Editing
• Humor and Cartoons
• Information Architecture
• Human Computer Interaction
• List Serves
• Professional Organizations
• References
• Research
• Resources, Technical
• Search Engines
• Small Business Operations
• Standards
• System Development Life Cycle
• Teaching Resources
• Tools
• Usability
• Web Development
• Writing

Books, magazines, and e-zines

Fast Company contains business information from a unique perspective, including interesting articles that seem to capture trends. http://www.fastcompany.com/homepage

Forbes highlights business news. http://www.forbes.com

Inc. contains articles and information that focuses primarily on leadership and high-tech. http://www.inc.com

Writer's Digest contains hints for writers and promotes various writing classes. http://www.writersdigest.com

Editing

Editorial Freelancers Association's What Members Do page contains a description of the different types of edits an editor might perform. http://www.the-efa.org/clients.html#WhatMembersDo

Editorial Services Guide, sponsored by the Bay Area Editor's Forum, contains definitions of editorial services. http://www.editorsforum.org/what_do_sup_pages/definitions.html

Editors' Association of Canada's Definitions of Editorial Skills page contains a list of various editorial tasks. http://www.editors.ca/hiring/skills.htm

Levels of Edit is a Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) booklet (second edition) that Robert Van Buren and Mary Fran Buehler wrote about the levels of editing. http://www.io.com/~tcm/etwr2371/planners/levels_of_edit.pdf

Levels of Edit (JPL) is a table that shows the give levels of edit by edit type. http://www.uah.edu/editing/LEVELS.DOC

Humor and cartoons

Bulwer-Lytton sponsors a contest for the worst opening paragraph to a story. Good for a laugh and 15 seconds of fame, if you're lucky. http://www.bulwer-lytton.com

Douglas Adams' site is for those cult followers of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. http://www.douglasadams.com

Darwin Awards is for those among us who enjoy reading about the shallow end of the gene pool. http://www.darwinawards.com

Dilbert is the premier comic strip about life in cubeland from Scott Adams. http://www.dilbert.com

Engrish site contains real-life examples of "flawed English." http://www.engrish.com

The Onion contains twisted national news. http://www.theonion.com

Rinkwords allows you to convert any corporate memo to a comic dialect such as Redneck, Elmer Fudd, or Swedish Chef [think Muppets]. http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect

Information architecture

American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) hosts this site, which contains information about the discipline, practice, and culture of designing. Use the "What is Experience Design" link to go to helpful information, including a case study archive. http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm?Alias=experiencedesign

Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture (AIFIA) provides resources for the information architecture community. Information available through the Design Tools link is especially helpful. http://www.aifia.org

Boxes and Arrows is a peer-written journal dedicated to discussing, improving and promoting the work of information architecture, information design, interaction design, and interface design community. http://www.boxesandarrows.com

Human computer interaction

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) bibliography information categories include Learn about HCI, The Bibliography, HCI Columns and News, and Developer Resources. http://www.hcibib.org

List serves

(Note: List serves are online discussion groups about topics that interest members of the list. These lists are of particular interest to technical communicators. One caveat though-these lists can generate a high volume of e-mail, so you might strongly consider requesting the digest version.)

FrameMaker users, go to http://www.frameusers.com and select E-mail lists from the menu subsection labeled "Website Subsections." This is the premier list for folks who use FrameMaker. This site includes links to product news, training classes, job opportunities, and a resource guide section.

TECHWR-L, go to http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/subscribercentral.html. This is the premier list for technical communicators and a source of great information that ranges from tool issues to professional development. The home page for this site is full of other interesting tidbits and links. Be sure to read the rules since Eric, the moderator, can get crabby when people stray from the topic.

XML, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/messages/xml-doc. This Yahoo group is specifically about applying XML to technical documentation.

Professional organizations

American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) is a professional society catering to technical communicators work in the medical and biotechnology industries. http://www.amwa.org

Association of Training and Development (ASTD) is the leading association of workplace learning and performance professionals. http://www.astd.org/astd

Boulder Writer's Alliance (BWA) is a nonprofit organization of communications professionals in Boulder and throughout Colorado. http://www.bwa.org

Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) is a localization standards organization for the GILT (Globalization, Internationalization, Localization, and Translation) business community. http://www.lisa.unige.ch

Society for Technical Communication (STC) is the largest organization for technical communications. http://www.stc.org

STC's Rocky Mountain Chapter. http://www.stcrrmc.org

STC's Snake River chapter. http://www.stc-src.org

References

Acronyms Finder, sponsored by Mountain Data Systems, is a comprehensive dictionary of acronyms, abbreviations, and "initial-isms." http://www.acronymfinder.com.

Babel Fish Translation is an application that translates blocks of text into other languages, sponsored by AltaVista. http://babel.altavista.com/sites/babelfish/tr

Barleby is the preeminent Internet publisher of literature, reference, and verse providing students, researchers, and the intellectually curios with unlimited access to books and information on the Web, free of charge. http://bartleby.com

Dictionary, sponsored by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC, is an online dictionary. http://www.dictionary.com

Earthlink contains a glossary of high speed Internet access terminology. http://www.earthlink.net/highspeed101/glossary

Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing, sponsored by the Imperial College Department of Computing, contains a searchable dictionary. http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc.index.html

Glossarist contains links to glossaries and dictionaries on all subjects. http://glossarist.com

IT Storage White Papers and Case Studies contain articles about data storage issues. http://www.itstorage.co.uk/default.asp?page=/Resources/WhitPapers/item_list.asp

Jargon Scout contains jargon that is about to hatch into the popular language use on the Internet. http://tbtf.com/jargon-scout.html

Merriam-Webster Online includes an online dictionary and thesaurus. You can also look up the word of the day, or play word games. http://www.mw.com

Microsoft Press Books is a good source for Microsoft publications. http://www.microsoft.com/learning/books

Microsoft's Resources to Decode Technical Jargon site lists several technical dictionary-type resources. http://www.microsoft.com/learning/start/terms.asp

NetLingo contains a dictionary of Internet terms. http://www.netlingo.com

Official U.S. Time Clock contains (of all things) the official time in the U.S. This particular link takes you to the Mountain timezone. http://www.time.gov/timezone.cgi?Mountain/d/-7/java

One Look is a dictionary search that looks at 970 indexed dictionaries. http://onelook.com

Online Dictionary contains a listing of various dictionaries, including lists of English and non-English language dictionaries, as well as such diverse topics as law and rhyming dictionaries. http://www.online-dictionary.net

PC Webopedia contains a dictionary and search engine for computer and Internet technology definitions. http://www.pcwebopedia.com

Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) contains a Standard Template Library Programmer's Guide in the Services and Support section. http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl

Techtionary is an animated dictionary about technology. http://www.techtionary.com/index_in.html

TechWeb contains definitions of IT terms. http://www.techweb.com

Telecommuting and "alternative officing" by Gill Gordon includes resources for the telecommuter. http://www.gilgordon.com

Virtual Reference Desk provides links to other reference information, such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, and style guides. http://www.lib.purdue.edu/eresources/readyref

Webopedia contains a dictionary and search engine for computer and Internet technology definitions. http://www.webopedia.com

What Is contains definitions for technical acronyms and terms. http://www.whatis.com

Word Smith, a community of more than 550,000 linguaphiles, allows you to sign up for a Word-A-Day e-mail program. http://wordsmith.org/awad/index.html.

Word Spy contains new terms in our evolving language. http://www.wordspy.com/index.asp

Your Dictionary is a language portal containing more than 2500 dictionaries and grammars in over 300 languages. http://yourdictionary.com

Research

Encyclopedia Britannica sponsors a Web site from you can use to browse their 32-volume encyclopedia, as well as the student and concise encyclopedias, Web sites, multimedia, and magazines. http://www.britannica.com

Forrester Research is an independent technology research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice about technology's impact on business. http://www.forrester.com/my/1,,1-0,FF.html

Hints-N-Tips is an exchange center for practical information. http://www.hints-n-tips.com

Internet Public Library, sponsored by the School of Information of the University of Michigan, contains a wealth of information about a host of subjects, and includes a reading room with books, magazines, and newspapers. http://www.ipl.org

Public Library, Chicago, contains library resources. http://www.chipublib.org/cpl.html

Public Library, Denver, contains library resources. http://www.denver.lib.co.us

Public Library, New York City, contains library resources. http://www.nypl.org

Reference Desk is the single best source for facts on the Web. http://www.refdesk.com

Resources, technical

Computer Knowledge contains tutorials, information, acronyms, and more about computers. http://www.cknow.com

Convert Me, by Sergey & Anna Gershteins, contains an online units of conversion and metric conversion calculator. http://www.convert-me.com/en

Doxygen is a documentation system for C++, C, Java, Objective-C, IDL (Corba and Microsoft flavors) and to some extent PHP, C#, and D. http://www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) develops and promotes measurement, standards, and technology to enhance productivity, facilitate trade, and improve the quality of life. http://nist.gov

NIST's Time and Frequency division maintains the standard for frequency and time interval for the U.S. http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/index.html

Physics, National Institute of Standards and Technology, contains the NIST Reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty: International System of Units (SI) prefixes for binary multiples. http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html

Science World is Eric Weisstein's World of Science, A Wolfram Web Resource: A resource for math and science. http://scienceworld.wolfram.com

Wiha Metric Conversions, sponsored by Wiha Quality Tools, is a conversion tool that you can use to convert standard units of measure to metric. http://www.wihatools.com/conversion.htm

Search engines

Search engines help you locate information on the Internet by searching for sites with a particular keyword or subject. Since the way each search engine works is unique, read each engine's search criteria "how to" information so that you can effectively limit your search to relevant data.

Altavista http://www.altavista.com

Ask Jeeves http://www.ask.com

Dogpile http://www.dogpile.com (a meta search engine)

Google http://www.google.com

Lycos http://www.lycos.com

Search Engine Guide http://www.searchengineguide.com

Yahoo http://www.yahoo.com

Small business operations

Business Filings Incorporated (Bizfilings) includes information about incorporating your small business. http://www.bizfilings.com/learning/index.html

Colorado Small Business Association contains resources for small businesses published by the SBA in Denver, CO. http://www.sba.gov/co

Getting Started in Consulting and Independent Contracting, sponsored by the University of Texas Tech's University Writing Center includes information expressly for technical writers, including articles about getting ready, working as an independent (including an article by our chapter's Linda Gallagher), and taking care of business. http://english.ttu.edu/gscic

STC Rocky Mountain Chapter's website offers a variety of resources for small business owners. http://www.stcrmc.org/resources/resource_internet.htm

Standards

InfoDev Development Standards site contains code, database, and documentation standards. These information development standards are brought to you by the Application Management and Innovation Services Directorate (AMIS) of Canada. http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/ininfodev.nsf/en/h_00157e.html

International Standard Paper Sizes site by Markus Kuhn includes information about the ISO 216 paper size system. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html

W3C World Wide Web Consortium is the standards organization for all things Web-related, and their Web site contains a great deal of resource information. http://www.w3c.org

System development life cycle

Software Partners LLC is a provider of highly functional web applications. The Methodology section, especially the Detailed Design information, can be helpful to anyone researching the system development life cycle. http://www.swpartners.com/methodology.html

Teaching resources

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) portal includes a digital library with journals, magazines, proceedings, and newsletters from the ACM and other affiliated organizations. One instructor said "I can't believe how much free text is available here. And it catalogs articles I'd never find elsewhere." http://portal.acm.org/dl.cfm?coll=portal&dl=ACM&CFID=18231056&CFTOKEN=23957066

EServer TC Library, a cooperative library for tech communicators is an experiment in community libraries - part library index, part Web portal - for professional, scientific, and technicial communicators. This site includes many articles about various topics, career suggestions (e.g., resume, portfolios), and instruction ideas. http://tc.eserver.org

Normandy Sandhills contains links to various education topics, including the following: online research, list of education links, online and distance learning courses, children's and curious person's links, book reviews, book publishers and sellers, online encyclopedias, libraries and e-texts, writing and research guides, word processing with Microsoft Word, dictionaries, word origins, quotations, and teaching. http://normandy.sandhills.cc.nc.us/education.html

Tools

Adobe includes information about all Adobe products. The site includes technical support areas where you can research issues related to the products. http://www.adobe.com

FrameMaker provides reference information about Frame and Frame training and system bugs. This site is independent from the Adobe site. You can also subscribe to the Framers list from here. http://www.frameusers.com

FrameMaker Plug-ins is Steve Kubis' Silicon Prairie Software site, which includes auto-text, indexing, and master page tools. http://www.kagi.com/SPSoftware

Microsoft contains a plethora of information about MS products, tech support issues, goings on, and other stuff. http://www.microsoft.com

Microsoft Longhorn Help is the next generation of Help engine currently in progress at Microsoft. http://longhorn.msdn.microsoft.com/?//longhorn.msdn.microsoft.com/
lhsdk/help/hachelpauthoringguide.aspx

Webex is a web conferencing, video conferencing, and online meeting services software application. Using Webex, you can set up the meeting so that you can access other meeting attendees' computers. This functionality is very useful for troubleshooting. http://www.webex.com

Usability

Alertbox, which is published by Dr. Jakob Nielsen, contains a list of articles available that address current issues in Web usability. Available articles are dated from today back to 1995. http://www.useit.com/alertbox

Nielsen Norman Group Information's site contains information about interaction design solutions for the real world. http://www.asktog.com

U.B. Department of Health and Human Services sponsors this resource for designing usable, useful, and accessible Web sites and user interfaces. http://www.usability.gov

Usable Web contains 1056 links to other sites containing information about web usability. http://www.usableweb.com

Use It is a Web site, written Jakob Nielsen, that includes his Web usability column and new about the profession. http://www.useit.com

User Interface Engineering is Jared M. Spool's company, and this site contains white papers and other resource information about usability. http://www.uie.com/publications

Web development

CNET's "Beyond the Code" site contains resources about building Web sites, useful HTML tags and their attributes, and other architect and Web development resources. http://builder.com.com

HTML tag list is sponsored by the University of Salzburg's Scientific Computing Department. http://www.cosy.sbg.ac.at/~lendl/tags.html

Index DOT HTML, the advanced HTML reference, contains HTML language and historical information. http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/html/index.html

Net Mechanic is a resource for Webmasters. http://netmechanic.com

Two 4 U color compose engine allows you to adjust and see how colors will appear on a Web page. http://www.two4u.com/cgi-bin/color/compose

Webmonkey, the Web Developer's Resource, contains how-to information about Web sites for beginners, builders, and masters. http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey

Web Reference contains the Webmaster's Reference Library, which includes Web authoring tips and tutorials fro Web developers. http://www.webreference.com

Writing

Beehive contains a basic review of grammar rules and includes practice exercises. http://www.thebeehive.org/school/middle/subjects.asp?subject=12

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Grant-Writing Tutorial walks you through the process of writing a grant proposal. http://www.epa.gov/seahome/grants/src/grant.htm

Gary Conroy's technical writing site contains a comprehensive guide including articles, resources, and forums to all that's technical in writing. http://www.gary-conroy.com/index.php

Guide to Grammar and Style by Jack Lynch provides a discussion of various dogmas about grammar and explanations of accepted usages, as well as links to other resources and information. http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing

Guide to Grammar and Writing, sponsored by the Capital Community College Foundation, provides oodles of examples of proper grammar and usage. Use this site to refresh your memory about the basic grammar terminology and rules. http://ccc.commnet.edu/grammar

Information Mapping, Inc., is a professional services firm with 30 years' experience helping leading organizations to leverage knowledge and communications to improve performance. The method hinges on their approach to analyzing, organizing, presenting information so that it is easy for people to access, use , and remember. http://www.infomap.com/rc/rc_index.htm

Information Week's White Papers Directory, which contains free, timely, and technical information on hot IT issues. http://infoweek.bitpipe.com/data/web/iw/iw_index.jsp

Institute of Electrical Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society's site contains a style guide. http://www.computer.org/author/style/index.htm

IT Papers is the Web's largest library of technical white papers, Webcasts, and case studies. http://www.itpapers.com/index.html

New Mexico Tech Library's best picks for writing and technical communication resources. http://www.nmt.edu/~nmtlib/subject/write.html

Plain English Campaign is an independent pressure group fighting for public information to be written in plain English. http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/index.html

SMOG Readability Formula is a simple method you can use to determine the reading level of your written materials. http://www.med.utah.edu/pated/authors/readability.html

TechComm Plus, LLC, which is Linda Gallagher's company, contains resources for technical communicators and is of particular interest to independents. http://www.techcomplus.com/reference.htm

Technical Communication, Mike Markel's Web site that supports his Technical Communications textbook, contains information about the examples and concepts in the 7th edition. http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/techcomm

Technical Publications, a site by Michael Bradley, contains the following resources for technical writers: search engines and portals, good reading, mailing lists, professional associations, software and technical support, and technical writing and design. http://www.techpubs.com/resources.html#Tech_Writing

TECHWR-L is an Internet-based community and resource for technical communicators worldwide. This site includes access to a discussion list that includes more than 5,000 direct subscribers. http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl

University of Minnesota's guide to writing university policy contains information about the ongoing process to create, distribute, and maintain a university-wide policies, procedures, instructions, and forms. Although it is geared for universities, this guide also contains good, practical information for all policy and procedures writers. http://www.fpd.finop.umn.edu/groups/ppd/
documents/information/guide_to_writing.cfm.

User-Friendly Manuals' Website (Peter Ring Consultants, Denmark) contains information about producing user-friendly manuals. http://www.prc.dk/user-friendly-manuals/ufm/home1.htm

Contributors: Ron Arner, Kristy Lantz Astry, Rita Braun, Kit Brown, Lynn French, Linda Gallagher, Mary Headley, Laurie Lamar, John Martin, Carla Mead, Eileen S. Potter, Kathy Ramsey, Martha Sippel, Elizabeth W. Staton, Tammy VanBoening