Have a wonderful New Year :-) May you make just the right number and type of resolutions ;-)

There's not much hard news, especially at this time of year. But several vendors have made announcements:

• AuthorIT released their latest newsletter. Next year is their ten-year anniversary! And they're celebrating with no fewer than five new product releases. Stay tuned!
• Save money on MadCap Software's Flare by registering for their sneak peek...oops, before tomorrow night ;-) (Sorry for the short notice!) The sneak peek is due to be released in January sometime, followed by the full release in February.
• ComponentOne recently released Doc-To-Help 2005 v2. They've added more features: integration with Dreamweaver, RoboHelp for Word project converter, Visual Studio 2005 support, plus more.
• Olson Software and EC Software will have announcements after the beginning of the year about their respective tools, The HyperText Studio and Help & Manual.

Meanwhile, registration is open for the Fourteenth Annual WritersUA Conference, held this year in Palm Springs from 9-12 April 2006. Hope to see you there!

Seems like everyone is getting in on the "politically correct" aspect of the holidays. Ellen Philips, a friend of mine, sent me the following, written by Jen Tustin, a friend of hers, that I think addresses the situation quite nicely :-)

~~~~~

Thoughts on Christmas, christmas, and branding

There's been a bit of a debate going on...it started out to be about respect for minority religions, and turned into a debate about christmas. Because hey, tis the season!

One of the more vocal debaters ended a comment with this thought:

*if Christmas is such a horrid holiday, to be celebrated only by Christians, how come there's so many non-Christians who seem to celebrate it as well?*

...

I don't think anyone's saying that. But there's christmas and then there's CHRISTmas.

Consider, if you will, disposable facial tissues. There's lots of manufacturers who make lots of different brands of them. But most folks (around here, anyway) call them "kleenex". Now, Kleenex is a brand name, owned by Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc. In a way, Kleenex's brand is weakened by the fact that most people, when they ask for "a kleenex," don't care if the tissue they get is a Genuine Kleenex Tissue, or whether it's made by Puffs, or Marcal, or if it's just a store brand. But that's one of the effects of the Kleenex brand dominance over time.

If you're a normal consumer, you probably don't care. But if you work for Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc., or if you work for Proctor and Gamble (who makes Puffs) - oh, the difference is huge.

Now, consider the December Holiday Season - there's lots of holidays that have similar themes, and are all celebrated around the same time. Christmas, Hannukah, Ramadan, Yule... And since we don't have state-sponsored religion in the U.S., there's no rule as to what traditions you have to observe. Since Christianity has been the dominant religion in this country for so long, most people refer to the December Holiday as "christmas." Now, by definition, Christmas is a Christian holiday, wherein the birth of Christ is celebrated. A "brand name" of any of the religions who revere Christ as a deity. But lots of folks who don't observe that portion of it still use the term "christmas" just to keep it simple - and so as not to stir up the folks on the fringe of the majority who get really tetchy about people who don't believe what they believe.

The "War On Christmas," as I see it, is all about branding. Folks who don't celebrate Christmas (note the capital "C") have less brand dominance, and therefore want to raise awareness that there are other holidays out there that are being celebrated at the same time - not necessarily for money, like most brands, but to keep from feeling left out. Meanwhile, Christians, seeing a threat to their brand, are trying to reinforce the traditions of their holiday, so that their traditions don't get diluted. The problem with this is that it gets annoying to the folks who have been celebrating the season on an "a la carte" basis, picking out the traditions that are comfortable to them, and calling it christmas (note the lowercase "c").

To the ones in the trenches, it matters a lot. And the more people nitpick over defending the brand, the worse it's probably going to get. I don't see this turning out well for anyone who's got a serious emotional stake in it, no matter what "brand" of "christmas" they celebrate.

Personally? I'm going to keep calling it christmas - lowercase "c", out of respect for the brand. My spiritual observance of the holiday will, as always, be between me and The One I Worship. My outward observance will include the usual generic trappings. Whatever holiday I am wished to have Happy or Merry, I will respond in kind - because it doesn't matter if you're wishing me a Merry SockPuppet or a Blessed YoYo or a Happy HamsterDance. You're
wishing me well - semantics don't matter. :-)

~~~~~

So, in keeping with the spirit of the season, Merry Mousepad and Happy Snowfall :-)

It's that time of year again :-)

Registration is now open for the fourteenth annual WritersUA conference, which will be held in Palm Springs, California from 9-12 April 2006.

The program looks awesome, covering seven interest areas. As always, Joe has put together a program where most attendees should want to attend at least two sessions in any time period.

I'll be presenting two sessions:

• Migrating from HTML and XHTML to XML
• Creating HTML Layouts without Tables

Register now and take advantage of the early registration discount (until 28 January 2006). Hope to see you there!

...thanks to Norad Santa.

For the last five years, I've gone to Norad Santa on Christmas Eve so that Jesse could track Santa's progress. And every December, Jesse remembers the site...he's usually ready to track Santa on December 1 ;-)

Now that he can read, he surfs the Web and goes to sites that he likes. (Yes, I know which sites he goes to ;-) His computer is in the same room as mine for this reason.) So he went to Norad Santa this weekend, and started surfing through the updated site.

Last night, I discovered that he had downloaded the Christmas Countdown.

Eleven days until Christmas...and all I can think of is that we are so not ready.

(If you have kids, the Norad Santa site is lots of fun...especially on Christmas Eve when you're trying to get them to go to bed!)

So Friday was a great day, and Saturday was amazing...

Sunday was a bit of a bummer ;-)

Jesse swam three events:

• 100 back. He DQd, probably during a flip turn. I didn't see him take an extra stroke, but he probably didn't follow through on the one he took. (If I understand correctly, swimmers are supposed to take one complete stroke, with their hand ending up at their thigh. More than likely, Jesse kept the arm extended.) I'll find out more at practice tomorrow...the couches always follow up with the kids on the DQs.

• 100 breast. Jim taped him swimming, and I cheered from the end of the pool (since he doesn't like me to yell while he's swimming, I kept signing "I love you"...which got me a big smile :-).) When he finished, the scoreboard showed...nothing. I figured that he didn't hit the touchpad...

  Later it occurred to me that the timers must not have triggered the plunger, which is the backup system. The plunger is really important when the little ones are swimming, because they tend to miss the touchpad. But when we went to check his results after we got home (they weren't posted by the time we left), we discovered that he's listed as a No Show.

  I can understand how he missed the touchpad. I guess I can understand how the timer wasn't able to trip the plunger. But with two timers at the end of the pool, how is it possible that no time was recorded???

  Stay tuned for more info...

• 50 free. He swam a good heat, with a time of 46.59 (just slightly slower than his last race).

So...one great day, one amazing day, one good day. You can't really ask for more :-)

If we thought he was amazing on Friday, he was positively awesome on Saturday. I know, I know...lots of adjectives ;-) But this meet is huge...20+ teams, and the lowest age group is 10 and under. Jesse's 8 and under group isn't swimming at this meet, although eight-year-olds are allowed...just in the older group.

As a result, he's shorter and typically slower than most of the kids. (He wouldn't have made the cut-offs based on time, but because his team is hosting the meet, he's allowed to swim.)

Jesse swam the 100 IM, the 50 back, and the 200 free. The last time he swam the 100 IM at a meet was a year ago. The last time he swam the 50 back was two weeks ago, and he disqualified (bad turn). He's never swum the 200 free in competition...and the 200 is long for a little kid.

He started with the 100 IM, and finished last in the field (or 24/27, given that three kids DQ'd). His time was 1:48.18, and he was only .08 behind the previous swimmer. The last time he swam this event, his time was 2:22.54. That's an amazing drop in time.

He then swam the 50 back and finished with a time of 49.16. He finished 32/33 (32/35 if you count the DQs). The turn was a bit of a nail-biter...he flipped early for some reason (nerves, I assume) on stroke 2, not stroke 5 like he's supposed to. But this time, he remembered not to take any extra arm strokes, and just kicked to the wall.

His last event was the 200 free. He was a bit nervous (understandably), but he finished 21/22 with a time of 3:41.30. He started to look really tired on the last 50, and could barely drag himself out of the pool at the end, but he maintained 55 second 50s. (I didn't have a watch at the time to check his splits.)

And I was able to enjoy his swims yesterday, because I was timing in the senior pool (where kids 15 and over swim). They were short on timers for that pool, so I volunteered...as long as I could go watch Jesse swim. When the relief timer showed up, I was able to go over to the other pool and watch him swim, and it was great.

Three events left for Sunday: 100 back, 100 breaststroke, and 50 free. He's never swum the first two before...but that doesn't seem to phase him!

Jesse swam three events today, and we think he was awesome :-)

Note: for today at least, he was the only eight-year-old in his events.

50-yard breaststroke. Seeded with a time of 1:00.38, finished with
55.27 (he cut more than 5 seconds!).

50-yard butterfly. Seeded with a time of 59.85, finished with 58.73.

100-yard freestyle. No seed time (he's never swum it before), finished
with 1.45.83. His 50-yard split was 46.89, compared to his last
50-yard time of 46.19. (This means that he was actually maintaining
his pace for the first 50 yards.)

Tomorrow: the 100 IM, 50 back, and 200 free.

Shane and Stephanie have added to their family. They are the proud parents of Lina Min McRoberts (who is absolutely adorable, btw).

Their blog at AtomicPug describes everything, and it's a great read. (To get the most out of it, you need to start at the end and read backward.) The pictures are awesome, and they tell a great story.

So we welcome Lina and look forward to meeting her!

(Disclaimer: AtomicPug is hosted by our subsidiary, JTF Hosting.)

It's official...Adobe Systems Incorporated has completed its acquisition of Macromedia. While the effective date is 3 December 2005, all notices, press releases, etc. are dated 5 November 2005.

The online Help world is buzzing, of course ;-) The first thing many people did was look at Adobe's product page to see what was missing. While it looks like all of Adobe's products are included, only a selected few of Macromedia's are shown, including Studio, Dreamweaver, and Flash.

However, a link to Macromedia's site shows that all Macromedia products can still be purchased. The question then, is...should you purchase any of the software? Specifically, RoboHelp?

This debate has been raging on and off for months, ever since Joe Welinske's announcement in March that RoboHelp will no longer be in common use in two years. The facts that we know are:

• Many members of the RoboHelp development team were laid off last year.
• Mike Hamilton, former RoboHelp Product Manager, resigned in early March.
• Many former RoboHelp folks (some who had worked for eHelp before Macromedia) have started a new company, MadCap Software. Mike, Anthony Oliview (former eHelp CFO), Their new XML-based Help authoring tool, Flare, is due for release after the beginning of 2006.
• Macromedia, while continuing to sell and support RoboHelp, stopped selling maintenance plans earlier this year. (Maintenance plans include upgrades.)

While RoboHelp continues to be a viable tool, I no longer suggest it as choice to any of my clients. (That is, I don't suggest that anyone should purchase it now.) Should the situation change, and should development continue, then I will probably change my opinion.

If you are a current RoboHelp user, don't panic...the tool will continue to work. While you may want to think about moving to another HAT, you don't need to do it NOW. You just need to be aware that you might have to change.

(Many folks want to know when they might need to change. The fact is, no one knows. You'll be fine as long as RoboHelp continues to work and produce the output you need.)

Several years ago, Jesse's Aunt Sandi (who's actually his godmother, not his aunt) told him that she is good friends with Margaret Claus. (What...you didn't know that Mrs. Claus had a first name? ;-) ) So we've gotten other folks involved by making sure that everyone knows Mrs. Claus' first name.

This year, Sandi has made arrangements with Liz Silva of Silva Bells to send Jesse a letter. Because Sandi named Mrs. Claus years ago, she asked Liz to sign Jesse's letter from "Margaret Claus."

I found out about this when Liz wrote to ask me some questions that Sandi couldn't answer...names of some of Jesse's friends and his pets, any awards he's won this year, etc. So I asked Liz for more information.

She's been writing unique letters for eight years to children around the world, using different stationery for each and containing facts specific to the child. Liz donates 10% of her proceeds to the Salem Mission Homeless Shelter (Massachusetts).

If your child still believes, like mine, consider sending a letter from Margaret Claus. You can get information at Liz's site.

Jesse's letter should be here in a couple of days. I'll let you know what it says ;-)

Lots of folks are checking out the HAT comparison matrix these days, in their search to figure out which HAT is best for them.

It's a bit out of date ;-) Basically, almost all vendors released updates in the last six months, and it can take me 40 hours or more to update it. It's on the to-do list...but right now, it's more toward the bottom.

And because of the many changes and also those I foresee, I'm going to change the design. This is something I've been working on for about a month now (mostly in my "free" time, which means when I'm waiting for an appointment, or watching Jesse's swim team practice, or flying, and so on). I hope to have it available at the beginning of the year.

Jesse swam at the Seekonk meet this past weekend. It's his second meet with this team...and his first with longer events. (He typically swims the 25 yard events, because he's still in the 8 and under age group, but his coaches have now started putting him in 50 yard events.)

Overall, he did very well. He DQ'd on the 50 back (he took an extra armstroke on the flip turn), but his time was good. He swam in eight events and finished in the top 10 (with several 3rd place finishes).

Our next meet is in December, where he swims nine events (all 50s and 100s, and the 200 free). No, we haven't told him what he's swimming yet ;-) (Actually, we're leaving that to the coaches!)

So I just returned home from Tekom (in Weisbaden, Germany). I had a wonderful time...I even took some time for myself while I was there.

I presented Introducing Windows Vista Help as one of the opening keynotes on Wednesday morning. I was amazed at the turnout at such an early hour...the room was almost full. Of course, with almost 2100 total attendees, it was expected that some of them should show up ;-)

My session presentation is available at the Tekom site. (Look for Downloads at the bottom of the page, then look for my name.) This is one of those very unusual times when I actually make my presentation available at a site other than my own.

Many thanks to Michael Fritz and Helga Allmaras for all their help!

Well, as you can tell, I got most of this figured out. I did figure out how to add the blog into helpstuff so that it's using my design and layout. And now that it's a month later, I'm really wishing I kept up with the blog, even though it wasn't really live. (Well, ok, yes, it's been live, but "hidden" because almost no one knew it was here.)

The site itself is just about ready. I'm sure I've forgotten something, which is why I've hesitated to upload it. At some point, I just need to "bite the bullet" and see what happens...but, because I'm in Germany right now, I think I'll wait until I'm home on Friday.

Of course, by the time I upload everything, I'll have several blog posts in effect ;-) You may wonder if somehow you missed something...you didn't :-) I was just blogging "behind the scenes," as it were.

Right now, I'm headed off to the Kaiser-Friedrich-Therme, a beautiful spa in Wiesbaden, for an afternoon of pampering. And tonight I have a speaker's meeting for Tekom. Hopefully I'll be able to report tonight on the spa, so that tomorrow I can report on the first day of Tekom.

So I'm trying something new...a "real" blog. I'm using b2evolution, which has a lot of features...unfortunately, I just don't know how to use them all yet ;-) I've gotten the blog to match the new "look and feel", but there are so many other things to learn...

I'll get it figured out one of these days :-)