Orion Spur

My favourite quote, as a technical writer, is by George Bernard Shaw: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”  The story below is a great example of how many writers the world over are striving to standardise English to the point where instructions cannot be misinterpreted by end users for whom English is a second language.  Linux.com :: FUEL: An initiative ....

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Published in The Register, this article by Andrew Orlowski about the American public’s (tragically short-lived) rejection of the $700 billion Bailout plan refreshingly exposes the way the Western media is permanently biased in favour of the Stinking Rich.  I especially liked this line; so straightforward and indelible: “The media’s role is simply one of providing comfort and propaganda.” Sudden outbreak of democracy baffles US pundits [printer-friendly] • The ....

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A great list of free ebook resources, courtesy of MakeUseOf.com: The Best 6 Sites to Get Free Ebooks        ....

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In Harvard Business Publishing’s “Ask the Coach” column, consultant Dr Marshall Goldsmith recounts his youthful anger at inefficient bureacracy and the subsequent response of his PhD sponsor: “Marshall,” he explained, “you are becoming a ‘pain in the butt’. You are not helping the people who are supposed to be your clients. You are not helping me and you are not helping yourself. I am going to give you two ....

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That heading comes from the title of a book of letters and essays by Albert Camus, and I couldn’t resist it; the messed-up-ness of the world often brings out the melodramatic in me.  I felt the same resonance this weekend on reading a particular passage in a phenomenally violent but deep SF novel called Altered Carbon, which is the first Takeshi Kovacs novel — and first novel — by ....

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As someone who is forever moaning that he needs a project to be concluded before he can document it properly, Agile development is like a really gruesome horror movie to me.  But tech-writers have to study the beast if they want to flourish in this new era. Writing end-user documentation in an agile development environment The agile technical writer Best practices for increasing the agility of documentation The ....

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A Quick Reference Guide, or Cheat Sheet, is a one-page document that often stands in for a whole manual — mostly because people couldn’t be bothered to RTFM  In a great article called “Quick Reference Guides: The Poetry of Technical Writing”, tech-writer/blogger Tom Johnson provides valuable tips on the creation of these tools which, if done right, have the extraordinary power to light up the faces of everyone ....

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