Jesse has a crush on one of the girls in his 5th grade class. It's so innocent and so cute to watch...private phone calls at night, cutesy nicknames...you know the deal.

Last night, Jesse and I finished some Christmas shopping. We were in the Jeep, which means that Jesse can sit up front (no passenger airbags). I ask Jesse if he's going to get a present for The Girl. He seriously ponders it, and then says, "I want to get her diamonds."

You try to keep a straight face when your son is sitting where he can see you as he's talking.

"Diamonds? Why do you want to get her diamonds?"

"Because the commercials all say, get diamonds for that special someone."

(No, he didn't get her diamonds. But he did get her a lovely sterling silver cross on a necklace.)

Registration is open for the Sixteenth Annual WritersUA Conference, held in Portland, Oregon, and you have one week to take advantage of the early discount. Joe Welinske has put together another top-notch program covering a variety of topics, including tool-specific tips and tricks, conceptual information, cutting edge techniques, and more.

I'll be co-presenting a session on collaborative editing of online Help with Geoff Hart, and I'll be moderating a panel of pundits as we discuss key issues in Help authoring tool selection.

Check out the agenda and then tell your boss that you need to attend this conference. And save money by registering by December 15, 2007.

Hope to see you there!

Today (November 26) is Blue Beanie Day, the day that thousands of Standardistas (people who support Web standards) will wear a Blue Beanie to show support for accessible, semantic Web content.

This is an online event, taking place at Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and so on. Standardistas upload photos of themselves wearing a Blue Beanie (to match Jeffrey Zeldman's picture on the cover of his book, Designing with Web Standards) to the social networks they belong to.

I've changed my photos at Facebook and Flickr...now I just have to remember to change them back at some point! (And yes, my beanie is black, not blue, but that was all I could find!)

So don your Blue Beanie, snap a picture, and let the world know that you support Web standards! (Or skip the picture part, but still let the world know!)

Adobe is offering a variety of "on demand" and live seminars for TCS and the individual products (RoboHelp 7, FrameMaker 8, Captivate 3, and Acrobat 3D). These seminars cover a variety of concepts, from ROI to content reuse to specific tool functionality.

OnDemand Sessions use Adobe Acrobat Connect, and require that you register with Adobe first. Note that it isn't possible to leave questions, as the seminars are actually recordings.

Two of the OnDemand Seminars are:

• Real time ROI for Online Help (an in-depth look at RoboHelp 7), a presentation by RJ Jacquez. This presentation covers the new features in RoboHelp 7, and includes a demonstration of new localization features, the new interface (with side-by-side topic display), variables, and FrameMake integration. The presentation takes just over an hour.
• Benefits of Content Reuse, a presentation by RJ Jacquez. This presentation covers integration between the RoboHelp 7 and FrameMaker 8 versions that ship with TCS, and includes a demonstration of how the integration works. RJ also demonstrates Captivate integration with Frame. (I've seen one of RJ's live presentations at a conference that includes much of this information, and he does a nice job of showing how the two products work together.) The presentation takes just over an hour.

Visit the OnDemand Seminars page for the complete list of seminars.

When Author-it Software Corporation (ASC) released Author-it 5.0 at the end of September, it also released Author-it Xtend, patent-pending technology that is a first in the Help authoring world.

Author-it Xtend lets you make conscious, intelligent re-use decisions based on your existing content. You get to choose how often or how quickly you want to be notified of matching content, with settings including:

• Minimum number of words typed before suggesting: Choose the number of words that AIT users must type before Xtend prompts with suggestions.
• Maximum number of suggestions: Choose the total number of suggestions that you want to see.
• Percentage matching: Choose what the match percentage must be before suggestions are displayed.

What's really cool is the customizable highlighting feature of Xtend. When your library has been analyzed, you can enable highlighting and immediately tell how a paragraph has been used before: 100% (exact match), or any range you specify.

Read more!

The Adobe website has been updated, and you can now download trial versions and purchase RoboHelp 7 and the new Technical Communication Suite (which includes RoboHelp 7, FrameMaker 8, Captivate 3, and Acrobat 3D).

While the two versions of RoboHelp are slightly different, they both include UNICODE and translation workflow support, customizable workspaces, support for FrameMaker 8, a true code HTML editor with no Kadov tags (clean HTML in RoboHelp...whoda thunk it? ;-) ), enhanced single sourcing, snippets (which can be imported and exported for use with other projects), user-defined variables, support for Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Windows Vista support, and Captivate integration.

While I wasn't able to spend as much time as I would have liked with the beta, I was quite impressed with many of the changes. The only thing I wish was different (or at least changeable...I need to play with topic templates to see if I can finagle them) was the DOCTYPE of the individual topics.

Hat tip: HATT.

While I was checking out the latest news from the various groups I belong to on Facebook yesterday, I came across wall entries at User Centred Design and User experience design (FaceBook members only) by Katherine Blashki. Ms. Blashki is the guest editor of The Interface: Mediator between Human and Technology, a special issue of the Journal of Human Technology.

From the call for manuscripts: "This special issue of Human Technology will focus on the important role of the interface as the mediator between the human user and the object of interaction, the technology. Particular emphasis will be on the affective aspects of design, development and implementation of interfaces and the generational implications for design of human and technology interaction. Of particular interest to the editor is the emergence of innovative ideas and research that concentrate on the way in which the interface functions as the “translator” between the bits and bytes of technologies and the human body."

I hope to see an article or two from those highly qualified folks that I know read my blog!

Earlier today, Adobe released a security update that applies to Adobe Reader 8.1 and earlier; Adobe Reader 7.0.9 and earlier; Adobe Acrobat Professional, 3D and Standard 8.1 and earlier versions; and Adobe Acrobat Professional, Standard, 3D and Elements 7.0.9 and earlier.

The Security Bulletin provides more information.

And the silence was deafening ;-)

On October 2, 2007, federal district Judge Marilyn Hall Patel granted class-action status to the National Federation of the Blind vs. Target lawsuit, filed in February 2006. This means that blind people throughout the country who have tried to access Target.com can become plaintiffs.

In addition, she ruled that websites like Target's are required by California law to be accessible. (The orginal lawsuit was brought by northern California resident Bruce Sexton.)

This news is HUGE, and could have long-reaching implications in website design for accessibility. So many sites are not W3C-compliant nor accessible, in part because these items are not official requirements. Some designers think it's too hard to make a compliant site. Others just don't know how and think that a second accessible site is required. (Ask anyone using a screen reader about trying to shop at Amazon.com, which runs a not-quite-parallel site.)

What amazes me is how much money Target is probably spending to defend their practices and their website, when in reality, all they needed to do was add alt attributes to images, properly label form controls, and make sure that a mouse wasn't required for navigation.

Next week, I'll be presenting "Accessibility: An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure!" at LavaCon. This session will demonstrate some accessibility issues, show some good and bad sites, discuss how you can make your websites more accessible, and provide a list of applications that can help you gauge the accessibility of your site.

This year, LavaCon is partnering with Project Management Institute's Greater New Orleans Chapter, and Jack Molisani has planned a fantastic conference program. Come learn innovative techniques, proven best practices, leadership skills, and more. I'll be speaking on accessibility (an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!), made all the more timely by the recent announcement in the Target lawsuit.

If you get there on Saturday, help out at the Community Service Day by working with Habitat for Humanity, and then attend the Welcome Reception/Networking Mixer.

At least two vendors are offering special discounts...Adobe is giving 10% off, and MadCap is offering a special price for the MadPak and will donate $100 to the New Orleans Habitat for Humanity effort.

MadCap Software is doing a survey (and they'll be giving away T-shirts to five entrants who leave their contact information. They're asking about Frame and Word usage, and are trying to collect as much data as possible before the survey closes on October 6.

Author-it Software Corporation today announced the release of version 5.0. Yay!

This version has loads of new features. It starts with a brand-new interface that is similar to Microsoft Office 2007 with the ribbon and "pearl" in the window's upper left corner that leads to more options.

One of the new big features is Author-it Xtend, a patent-pending technology that uses intelligent "fuzzy logic" matching to provide a faster, more efficient way to reuse and share content and knowledge within an organization's library. This functionality is available to all content creators and can be customized. (Note: Author-it Xtend requires the SQL library...it can't be used with JET.)

Publishing Profiles are another big feature. As users know, Author-it uses media objects to pass layout information when publishing. Until now, it's been a bit of a pain to publish something like a Word document on both Letter and A4 paper, or to create HTML outputs that are branded differently. I've created some workarounds, but I have to remember all the steps. With Publishing Profiles, I will no longer need my workarounds...I can set it all up in AIT. So once I get 5.0 installed, I can publish branded outputs without doing anything afterward...I can store all the steps inside a profile. (For example, I license some of my training materials, and now I will be able to brand them for the licensees.) And I can throw away the sticky with my "branding" notes :-) (Just a note...I could have set this up so that all the information was stored within my library, but it was easier at the time to do it this way. And because I did set it up like this, it will be much easier to use Publishing Profiles.)

For more information on the 5.0 upgrade, see the Author-it Knowledge Center.

All Author-it users with maintenance plans can get the v5 release, and should receive an email this week. However, users must attend a webinar that discusses the new features before receiving a link to the download. In addition, users will receive an evaluation license and a test script to use with their library (or libraries). After returning the test to Author-it, a license file will be generated and emailed to match the currently installed 4.5 licenses.

Desktop and Workgroup users will be given the option to upgrade to Enterprise Edition by paying the difference in licensing fees. Talk to your reseller or someone at Author-it Software Corporation for more information. (I'm not a reseller, so I don't know exactly what's involved.)

If you need training, I'll be creating new materials for 5.0 and hope to have them ready by the beginning of December. (I know...that's so far away! But I'm speaking at the Yggdrasil, LavaCon, and tcworld conferences between now and mid-November, and I still haven't figured out how to get more hours in a day.) I'll also be putting together some "upgrading from version 4 to version 5.0" materials, but I'm not sure yet what they'll include.

(Lots of vendor announcements this week...wonder what's next?)

Between emails and search logs, it seems that folks want to know about:

• Author-it 5. It's in beta, folks. As soon as I'm able, I'll let you know the possible release date. (But it's cool :-) )
• RoboHelp 7. It's in beta, too. As soon as I'm able, I'll let you know the possible release date. (It's cool, too.)
• Collaborative writing. I'm working on a workshop for the Yggdrasil Conference now (well, when I'm not writing blog entries) that will cover a variety of collaboration types. I'm really excited about this workshop, and my system administrator has figured out how I can use my laptop as a server so that I can present this workshop in places with no Internet connection. (BTW, I'll be ariving in Oslo on Friday, 12 October, if anyone wants to get together to tour the Munch Museum or otherwise sightsee.)
• Best HAT to use. Seriously, the best HAT is the one that has the features you need. I love getting questions on "which one's the market leader?"...no one knows! The vendors don't share that information, other than in big broad strokes. Find the one that has the features you need and try it out...the vendors all offer trial versions. And please, don't try to pick your HAT by a popularity vote...you'll be disappointed.
• My speaking schedule.
• Training Materials. I currently offer training materials for Author-it 4.3, Author-it 4.5, and RoboHelp X5. The current plan is to offer updated versions for Author-it 5 and Robohelp 7 (thus skipping RoboHelp 6) within 6 to 8 weeks of their releases. Of course, with my luck, they will release within several days of each other.

More soon...

This year, LavaCon is partnering with the Project Management Institute, Greater New Orleans Chapter, to co-host a Professional Development Summit in New Orleans, October 27–30, 2007. The fifth annual LavaCon includes practical information you can apply and will present proven best practices in the fields of technical communication and project management.

The conference is coordinating a community service day on Saturday,
October 27, for people wanting to help areas that are still in the process of recovering from hurricane Katrina. Two opportunities currently exist, one for Habitat for Humanity and one for New Orleans City Park.

The program includes both sessions and workshops, keynotes at the beginning of each day, and speakers during each lunch session. Conference speakers include me (Char James-Tanny), Joe Welinske, Scott Abel, Rahel Bailey, Kay Ethier, Paul Mueller, Nicky Bleiel, Neil Perlin, Michael Priestley, Bernard Aschwanden, and more.

Hope to see you in New Orleans!

You still have time to refister for this year's European Online Help Conference, held in Vilnius, Lithuania, on September 20 and 21. In two information-packed days, you'll hear about new trends, key issues, emerging designs, and key technology developments relating to software user assistance. Sessions are presented by leading industry experts from the USA, Europe, and Australia, including Joe Welinske, Matthew Ellison, Tony Self, and Scott Boggan.

The event also features an exhibition of the latest tools and technologies for creating online Help. Exhibitors include Adobe, AuthorIT, Innovasys, ComponentOne, MadCap Software, 4.ST, 3di, and Cherryleaf. Both product and service demonstrations will be taking place.

The main conference is preceded by an optional half-day workshop called Introduction to DITA, presented by Tony Self, a member of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee.

Yggdrasil 07 is the ninth annual, national, two-day conference arranged by the Usability and User Documentation special interest groups of the Norwegian Computer Society. The conference covers user experiences, usability, technical communication, and related topics.

This year's conference starts off with two international keynote speakers, Luke Wroblewski and me (Char James-Tanny), followed by three parallel sessions. The second day starts with four workshops (two by the keynote speakers) and then features two parallel sessions of presentations by (mainly Norwegian) professionals.

My keynote is called The Future of Communication (Luke's is called Designing for Web 2.0). My workshop is called Getting the Most from online Collaboration, and I'm really excited about it...we'll have Internet access, which means hands-on exercises using a wiki, Google Documents, a spreadsheet, maybe more. I'll cover the process, too, so that everyone attending has a good idea of how to proceed when they get back to their offices.

(BTW, most of my information is in Norwegian. However, my presentations will be in English ;-) )

Lots of folks want to create CSS-based websites that are W3C compliant, but it takes time to learn the necessary bits (especially when positioning divs and creating more complex layouts). Eric Meyer has the answer.

Working with WebAssist, Eric has created Eric Meyer's CSS SCULPTOR 1.0.0. Designed as a Dreamweaver 8 or Creative Suite 3 extension, CSS SCULPTOR helps you create websites by providing 30 customizable layouts with 12 color schemes. The tabbed interface lets you select between layout, box, type, design, print (for a print CSS), and output at any time. A preview pane shows the results of your current selections.

When you're finished, you can save your layout as a new preset or overwrite an existing one. Add your content to the HTML files, and enjoy your new site!

Eric Meyer's CSS SCULPTOR 1.0.0 is currently on sale for $99.99. After Sept 6, the price goes to $149.99. So get it now and save!

Neil Perlin started a blog at the beginning of May 2007. (A belated welcome to the blogosphere, Neil!) In his latest entry, he talks about his reaction to RoboHelp 6 and gives his assessment of RoboHelp 7, based on the various sneak peeks that Adobe has made available.

Neil talks about kadov tags (they're going away!), Multiple Document Interface, snippets and variables, Unicode and double-byte support, support for Vista and Office 2007, support for multiple TOCs, and customizing the interface.

RoboHelp is always going to be a polarizing issue in the HAT world, no matter who owns it. Even though some of the other HATs have been around as long as RoboHelp (and one's been around even longer), only RoboHelp seems to be one with the target on its back. Neil's objective blog entry lets everyone know about the upcoming improvements.

Three times a year, STC distributes a knowledge-based survey to members to gather information about opinions on a variety of subjects.

This month, the survey asks about:

• Auto-assigning chapters based on your ZIP/postal code (basically, it means that if you move around the corner or to a different country, the membership database will assign you to a new chapter if one is closer to your new address)
• Capability of updating your own member record
• Searching the membership directory
• Joining communities throughout the year
• The STC Forums
• Strategic objectives

The Board uses the information gathered from the surveys as a basis for discussions and to make future plans. Check your email for the link, and then get heard and take part in the survey today!

The sixth annual WritersUA Skills and Technologies Survey is now available. Please participate!

If you are a currently registered member of STC Region 1, voting has opened for the position of Director/Sponsor.

This election is necessary because Cindy Currie, former Region 1 Director/Sponsor, is now our 2nd Vice President. According to New York state law, Region 1 members must elect someone to replace her on the Board of Directors for the last year of her term.

You can read about the three candidates at STC's website.

Online voting closes August 3, 2007, at 12:00 noon ET.

Please vote!

I upgraded to Office 2007 back in December. As AuthorIT users know, I didn't have to uninstall and reinstall applications because AIT uses whatever flavor of Word is installed.

I've been happily publishing all this time using my .dot files. At one time, I did try using a .dotm (Word's new macro-enabled template), but it didn't seem to do anything different, so I went back to .dot.

But earlier today, I was updating AutoText entries in a custom Word template (which are called Building Blocks in Word 2007, and which are organized by Gallery and Category). If you use a .dot from an earlier version of Word, an AutoText Gallery is created for its autotext entries. And if they don't need to be changed, everything is fine. (It seems to depend on the changes.)

Anyway, I tweaked a header by removing a graphic. But when I published using the .dot file, the graphic suddenly "forgot" its settings, and was appearing at 500% of its original size. Then I remembered the message that appeared when I was saving the .dot (which I had quickly clicked OK to)...it said that by saving building blocks to a .dot, I might lose functionality.

So I opened the .dot again and saved it as a .dotm. I then selected this Word template on the Document tab of the Book object so that it would get used for publishing...and the graphic displayed correctly. Obviously, that formatting was one of the pieces of functionality that I lost. ;-)

[BTW, it took me a wee bit of time to get used to the Building Blocks (including remembering where the option is located, which is on the Insert ribbon under the Quick Parts button). But there is a lot of new stuff here...in addition to Gallery and Category, you can quickly see which template the building block is associated with and how its behavior is defined (insert content only, insert content in its own paragraph, or insert content in its own page). And you can change the properties of a building block at any time...change the name, assign it to a different gallery or category, change which template it will be saved in, and change the behavior. In Word 2003 and earlier, changes like these required that you resave the AutoText entry.]

So, if you're using Word 2007 with AIT and you're having problems with your AutoText entries, try saving your .dot as a .dotm and see if that solves the issues.

If you're a member of SecondLife, visit the island of Sheba this Saturday from 3 pm-6 pm SL (which is "SecondLife time", but is also known as Pacific time, or GMT-8). Come tour the island, listen to the DJ, and ride the bull in the city square!

To get to the island of Sheba, log on and use the map.

The island features a mall, brand new conference (training) center, and real estate (some houses are for sale).

The mall features stores such as Chain Link Tattoos, Virtual Impressions, $25 Diva, La Musique, UK Women's Clothing, Draco's Script Store, and L$1 Store.

If you see HD Slade or Monmakr Allen, tell them I said "hi" :-)

Several months ago, MonkeyPi blogged about the latest version of RoboHelp (and what he didn't like about it). What I didn't realize was that the discussion is still going on. (I really have to start paying more attention to the comments!)

Scott Abel, the Content Wrangler, wrote a blog entry earlier this week that referenced MonkeyPi's RoboHelp post (actually, he left a comment at MonkeyPi's blog, and then reproduced it on his blog...and no, there's nothing wrong with that). Scott says "..software purchasing decisions ought to be done with a strategy in mind and based on real, actionable data about your environment, your authors, your customers, and your organizational needs and goals."

I agree with him...to a point. No one should choose software based on marketing. (I saw a post to an email list once that said, "I'm buying X because it's [insert marketing blurb here]". Um...shouldn't you make sure it does what you need first?) You need to take several factors into account before sending out that purchase order.

But then he says, "And, the decisions should be metrics-based (quantifiable)...Features are nice, but they have little to do with the true cost of adopting software."

And that's where I disagree. Features are more than nice, and they definitely affect the cost of adopting software. (And wouldn't features be considered part of that "real, actionable data"?)

If your customers need a specific output, the software you choose must produce that output. If your users currently use one application for development, ROI will go down if the software you choose uses a different application, because now you've got added costs for training. If you've made a business case for XML, then you need an application that supports XML.

For example, let's say that you do all the analysis, and MadCap Software's Flare has the best ROI for your team. So you purchase it...and then realize that you can't publish WinHelp, which is one of your deliverables. (I know that this isn't the best example, given that Microsoft has deprecated WinHelp, but the point is still valid.)

Or maybe RoboHelp has the best ROI, but the writers on your team have updated to Office 2007. RoboHelp 7 (currently in beta) will support Office 2007, but earlier versions do not.

I'm not saying to ignore metrics, or to forget about ROI. What I'm saying is that you need to do that analysis on the short list of tools that include the features that are important to you.

On Thursday night, I presented a session on the Future of Communication to the Tampa STC chapter. (This was a more enhanced version of the session I gave to the Boston chapter in February, and will be changed and re-enhanced for my keynote at the Yggdrasil Conference in October.)

Someone asked if I would share my slides, because they wanted the links of the different sites I talked about. However, the slides don't actually contain the links, so here they are!

Read more!

Jesse fell last night while roller-blading, and immediately complained that his right wrist was hurting. (Actually, the complaint was that it hurt "inside the bone".) We iced it and put an ace bandage on for stability.

It still hurt this morning, so we headed to the doctor's office. He has a buckle fracture of his right radius. (I found an x-ray that looks similar to his.) Also known as an incomplete fracture and a greenstick fracture, it means a minimum of three weeks in a cast and more x-rays while they verify that it's healing correctly.

It also means no playing in the soccer tournament this weekend, no more soccer this season, no bike riding, no swimming, no karate...and lots of complaining about how he can't write ;-)

It's gonna be a long three weeks!

At Palimpsest, Sarah O'Keefe (Scriptorium Publishing) has recapped the issues on Quadralay and their now revamped EULA. Read Water from a a stone? for the introduction, and Update: ePublisher Pro license.

(This reminds me...at least a little bit...of the brouhaha that took place when eHelp quietly revamped the license for WebHelp back in 2000. I can't remember the entire story, and all the old sites that I'd use for reference are gone now, but I do remember that the license was changed pretty quickly after the issue was pointed out.)

What a week! The Conference Program Committee team outdid themselves, and I expect next year's conference to be even bigger and better. This year, more than 1400 people attended the conference, and the 79 exhibitors made it the biggest exhibition ever.

Some of the highlights:

Read more!

Trying to build a business case for XML where you work? Check out Sarah O'Keefe's presentation, Building a Business Case for XML.

And if you have any questions, and if you'll be at STC's Technical Communication Summit in Minneapolis, stop by Scriptorium Publishing's booth. (Or stop by just because you want some chocolate. Dark, of course!)

The Bylaws Committee and the Board of Directors have spent an enormous amount of time working on the new bylaws. The old bylaws were out of compliance with New York laws (where STC is incorporated) and are overly complicated from years of additions.

The current and previous bylaws are available, along with a comparison/rationale document. These documents provide historical background and the reasons why specific changes were made.

On Sunday, May 13, at 3:00 pm, there will be a Bylaws Forum at the Technical Communication Summit. This is your opportunity to hear about the bylaws, ask questions, and provide input. In addition, you can send email to Mary Wise, Bylaws Committee Chair for 2007-2008, by June 15 with any feedback. (Her email address is available through the above link.) (Note: if you want to provide anonymous feedback, send it to me and I'll pass it on.)

This is an unprecedented opportunity to take part in STC's governance process.

If you're going to be in Minneapolis, please consider stopping by, even for just the first half-hour. Listen to the conversation, participate if you want, and feel free to leave at any time. (There's no requirement that if you show up at the beginning, you must stay until the end.)

The Board of Directors (current and future) must follow the bylaws when making decisions and voting. The bylaws will be best if they include feedback from members who question why something was changed or who ask for something different to be included. All changes have to be approved by STC's legal counsel, but unsubmitted changes cannot be considered. ;-)

STC will run a special election to approve the new bylaws later this year.

Thank you.

Several HAT vendors have been making plans for STC's annual conference, the Technical Communication Summit. Be sure to stop by their booths!

• Author-it Software, booth 316, will be providing demos of Author-it Live and a sneak peak at Author-it 5.0. Stop by their booth to register to win a set of BOSE headphones.
• ComponentOne, booth 202/204, will be previewing the next generation of Doc-To-Help. Stop by their booth to register to win a Nintendo Wii.
• MadCap Software, booth 300/302, will be providing in-booth demonstrations and providing sneak previews of the new Feedback Server and some of the new features in Flare 3.0. They will also be announcing a new product.
• Adobe Systems (Platinum Sponsor), booth 306, will be providing technology sneak peaks of features in the next versions of FrameMaker, RoboHelp, and Captivate.

See you in Minneapolis!

STC posted IRS Form 990 today for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006 (FY 2005). An extension was required for various reasons, which the IRS granted. The IRS uses this form to assess the non-profit organization's compliance with the Internal Revenue Code.

Form 990s list assets, receipts, and expenditures. All 501(c)3 organizations that are required to file IRS Form 990 are also required to make their Form 990 available for public inspection upon request. STC has made it easier to see Form 990 by posting it on the site.

This year, STC has documented some background information about the 990 in general (including links to Guidestar, "Connecting people with nonprofit information"). In addition, you'll find information related to this year's Form 990.

Tom Johnson of Tech Writers Voices posts weekly podcasts devoted to technical communication. (For example, he recorded an interview with Brenda Huettner, Kit Brown, and I on April 29 about our book, Managing Virtual Teams: Getting the Most from Wikis, Blogs, and Other Collaborative Tools. He's also posted podcasts with George Hayhoe, editor of the Technical Communication Journal, on technical writing in China and Korea; Making Help More Human, and with Susan Burton, Executive Director of STC.)

He's currently running a "spring membership campaign" in the hopes of purchasing an EDIROL recorder so that he can record podcasts at the STC Annual Conference, the Technical Summit.

If only 20 people donate $20, he can get the new recorder. Please consider supporting Tom and Tech Writer Voices!

Lots of folks have done an immense amount of work this year to pull STC's Technical Communication Summit together. Here are eight reasons why you should attend:

• President Paula Berger has awarded former Vice-President Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth the President's Award because it conveys "complex technical concepts in ways that people can understand and use".
• Five certificate programs, which include a pre-conference seminar and full conference registration. Choose from Basic Technical Communications, Undiscovered Country: Taking Your Information Design to the Next Level, The Science and Art of Effective Interface Design, Moving to Content Management: From Justification to Implementation, or Managing Culturally Diverse Teams and Successfully Managing Geographically Dispersed Teams.
• More than 100 educational sessions, in 11 tracks, over three days, for novices through experts. A PDF copy of the day-by-day schedule is available, along with session search functionality.
• Keynotes by Simon Singh and Ze Frank. Singh, author of three books (including the first book about math to become a number one bestseller in the United Kingdom) speaks on Monday, May 14. Frank, a high-tech humorist, speaks at the closing session on Wednesday, May 16.
• Bylaws Forum. The bylaws have been reworked to bring them into compliance with New York laws (where STC is incorporated) and association best practices. Held on Sunday, May 13, after Leadership Day, the bylaws discussion is the place where you can make suggestions on the proposed changes before they go to the membership for a vote.
• Leadership Day. An annual Sunday event for many years now, Leadership Day is the place where current and new leaders can get valuable information for use when planning their upcoming year.
• Leadership Community Resource (LCR) launch. The LCR is STC's new structure for providing support and guidance to communities, including community outreach. If you are a community leader, come learn how the LCR can help you.
• The largest exhibition ever at an STC conference. Over 65 exhibitors will be setting up their booths, announcing new products, and helping you with current issues. The exhibition hall also includes the employment booth, the book store, a massage area, vendor showcases, the awards area, and more.

Hope to see you in Minneapolis!

Last weekend, Tom Johnson of Tech Writer Voices (and I'd Rather Be Writing) interviewed Brenda, Kit, and me about our book on virtual teams.

The podcast is about 30 minutes long, and we cover challenges with virtual teams, holding meetings, selecting tools, economics, and more.

Get a cup of coffee (or tea), put your feet up, and head over to Tech Writer Voices to listen to our podcast.

Anna Bogdanowicz recently profiled my co-authors, Brenda Huettner and Kit Brown, for IEEE's The Institute. Learn more about Brenda and Kit in this informative article!

P.S. If you haven't gotten your copy yet, order it from Wordware Publishing. You'll get 35% off, and free shipping if you live in the continental United States.

If any part of your job involves putting content on the Web, head over to A List Apart and take the Web Design Survey.

And I'll be there, presenting Keeping Your Sanity While Managing Virtual Teams with Brenda Huettner and Kit Brown, and Choosing a Usable Help Authoring Tool: Selecting Software that Enhances the Help Author's Experience.

(What I think is funny is that I'll be seeing folks who I normally only see once or twice a year...for the second time in a month!)

Yes, he's getting tall! (I know, what a surprise ;-) )

At the soccer field, waiting for his game to start. (We won, 4-1.)

Sitting on the couch, holding a plastic Easter egg.

A friend sent me this "quick bit of fun":

1. Go to google.com.
2. Click Maps.
3. On the top bar, click Get Directions.
4. Enter New York in the left "from" field.
5. Enter Paris in the right "to" field.

Check out step #23.

Tonight, I'm going to the STC Northern New England chapter (this, of course, assumes that the storms coming in bring reasonable amounts of snow!). Because of a couple of communication glitches, I'll be presenting two sessions: The Future of Communication (short and entertaining) and Choosing a HAT: Finding the Best Fit.

I like visiting the Northern New England chapter...it's a fairly quick trip, the people are always friendly, the food is good, and I get a bottle of real maple syrup :-)

Documentation and Training: The User Experience runs from April 18th to April 21st in Vancouver. You can still register, and they just announced that there will be free access to the exhibition area on April 19 and April 20 (including a networking cocktail reception from 5 to 6:30 pm on April 19).

I'll be presenting a session on how managers can choose a Help authoring tool for their teams, and I'll be co-presenting a session on maintaining your sanity while working with a virtually distributed team (with Brenda Huettner and Kit Brown, my amazing co-authors of Managing Virtual Teams: Getting the Most from Wikis, Blogs, and Other Collaborative Tools).

Microsoft will be releasing security patches today (after all, it's Tuesday!). One of these patches may require a hotfix on some Windows XP systems that use Realtek audio drivers.

After installing the patches and restarting your computer, the Realtek HD Audio Control Panel may not start, and an error message may display:

Rthdcpl.exe - Illegal System DLL Relocation

The system DLL user32.dll was relocated in memory. The application will not run properly. The relocation occurred because the DLL C:\Windows\System32\Hhctrl.ocx occupied an address range reserved for Windows system DLLs. The vendor supplying the DLL should be contacted for a new DLL.

The problem is that hhctrl.ocx and user32.dll files have conflicting base addresses.

Microsoft KB article 935448 links to a download that includes a hotfix for this.

Note: You must have Windows XP SP2 installed.

'Twas another great conference :-)

On day 3, I attended Joe Welinske and Scott Boggan's session on A Design Review of User Assistance in Microsoft Vista. I think they did a good job of presenting Vista Help's new features: the resizable Help pane, simple search as the primary navigation (no index, a minimal TOC, no advanced search), and Guided Help. They also pointed out some of the deficiencies: only Microsoft, OEMs, and corporations can use and customize Vista Help; no popups; can't view more than one Help file at a time. The only thing I think they got wrong is that the Help viewer has been ported back to Windows XP...I see it when I request Help in Office 2007.

One of the biggest changes (for me, anyway) is the new definition for "online Help", which now means "Help when there is an Internet connection". For years, "online Help" has meant any Help file. Get ready to change your mindset ;-) (Offline Help is that which is available when there isn't an Internet connection. Of course!)

The next session I went to was Dana Worley's Migrating from WinHelp to HTML Help Using Doc-To-Help. Dana spent many years creating WinHelp without a HAT, and she tested several different HATs before choosing Doc-To-Help. Her session included statistics on how well these different HATs imported her hand-coded WinHelp projects, taking into account how well the Help worked with her applications (including context-sensitive Help), formatting and appearance, TOC and index, aliases, and popups. Her handouts included charts comparing her evaluation criteria with each of the HATs that she evaluated.

Prof. Geoffrey K. Pullum, Professor of Linguistics, UC Santa Cruz, gave the closing keynote. Called Far from the Madding Gerund: Observations About Language, Pullum talked about how it's okay to split infinitives, end sentences with prepositions, and more. He also talked about Microsoft's trademark page, and how Microsoft breaks their own rules (they state, "do not use the Windows trademark in the possessive or plural form...um...isn't Windows itself a plural? They also use the possessive form of several trademarks in various supplemental pages on their site.)

At the end of the keynote, Pullum took questions, and one woman asked that he blog about the various points he discussed, addressing it to Joe (her boss). Pullam did.

I've always loved the WritersUA (formerly WinWriters) Conference, and this year is no exception. I think that Joe did a fantastic job with this year's program...I've heard so many people say "I have to choose!", which is always a good sign of a great conference. The speakers include both old-timers and newbies, which is always fun. And the attendees have been wonderful to talk to and interact with. I've met several folks whose names are familiar (many are on HATT or TechWhirl or TCP), and it's so nice to be able to put faces with names. (Although, as I've discussed a couple of times here at the conference, I have a great memory for names and a great memory for faces...I just don't do so well all the time putting them both together ;-).)

Brian Walker and I gave our "Implementing Accessible Web Design" session today. Apart from the fact that we practiced with my laptop and then used his for the session ;-) (which means that we were doing some really quick testing right before we started), the session went great. Brian used JAWS to read the headings on the slides, and was nice enough to slow the rate wwwwaaaaaayyyyyy down (to 20%) so that we could understand it. (Brian's normal setting sounds like the old FedEx commercial with the fast talker!) We ran some demos that showed just how different accessible and inaccessible websites are...as a sighted user, I know that demos like this really help other sighted users understand. I had a great time, and I know Brian did, too.

The last day of the exhibition was today, and I think I managed to talk to everyone. As is usual at the WritersUA Conference, there was a lot of information on upcoming features (many that I covered yesterday), and I think we're going to see some really cool stuff in the next six to nine months from all of the vendors.

I did find an interesting post on Adobe's Technical Communication blog, where they mention that "There is an increasing trend of promising features in the later versions. This makes the comparison of HATs an exercise in futility. Also,a customer can use only what exists today, not what will come 12 months later." I agree with the first sentence...this year is the first time when I remember hearing so much about upcoming features (typically vendors time their releases to coordinate with the WritersUA Conference). And I think the third sentence is just logical...customers can only use what exists today. But I don't agree with the second...anyone looking for a HAT now will (hopefully) be comparing existing features, not those that have been announced. When the new features are released, they will then be available for comparison. (Altogether now...duh ;-) ) But the list of new features is, in my opinion, exciting (because it shows just what the vendors are planning on implementing and it shows the different innovations being considered).

Speaking of new features...RoboHelp will support both Windows Vista and Office 2007 in their next release, due out before the end of the year. I also heard today that Frame 8 will go to beta sometime in the next several months, and that a new product (kinda-sorta similar to RoboHelp for Frame) is under development. No news yet on the feature set, but that's OK...I can wait until it's released. (Given that I don't use Frame, I obviously won't be a beta tester!)

Tomorrow is the last day of the conference. I'm going to attend several sessions, and then enjoy dinner with friends before our road trip back to San Diego.

The vendors at the WritersUA Exhibition have been busy! All have been working on new features, and I was allowed to share some of the information yesterday during my session on innovations in Help authoring tools.

Both AuthorIT and Doc-To-Help are working on new versions with updated interfaces that are similar to Microsoft Office 2007's with a ribbon. (It turns out that I'm one of the few who are using Office 2007, and I really like the ribbon.)

Doc-To-Help also announced that they are working on automatic documenter for .NET that works with Microsoft's Sandcastle. The new application will grab the triple comments from Sandcastle to create documentation that can also handle .NET generics.

AuthorIT version 5 will also include publishing profiles. These profiles will control what underlying bits are assigned to a book so that you won't need multiple copies when you want to change the format (for example, if you want to publish both Letter and A4 output, you won't have to use a generic "one size fits all" set of media objects or create multiple books that call the appropriate media objects...the profiles will take care of all that). (Version 4.5 was just released yesterday, with improved localization functionality and new templates for Word and HTML outputs, plus more. And AuthorIT Live, a way to edit content in your database through a browser, is currently in beta.)

WebWorks is working on a new version that will automate DITA publishing by working on top of the DITA toolkit. If you've worked with the DITA toolkit, this new version will make your life much easier. And you'll be able to mix authoring environments (Word, Frame, XML editors).

HelpServer will be incorporating dynamic hyperlink descriptions. They'll use the target topic description to create the hyperlink, and when the description changes, the hyperlink hotspot text will update automatically. They have also worked on a new "assist" application, which uses Java to display "just in time" Help to the user as they work.

Flare has announced several new features over the past few months, like Echo (sound recording), cross-media variables (variables in topics, graphics, and videos that resolve on publication), and image profiles (specifying various publishing settings on the image so that multiple images and conditions aren't necessary). At a dinner Sunday night, they also announced usage reports (for both web-based and local Help files) and a new format for video files (the resulting output is smaller, which means that the output files...like .chms...are also smaller). (And many people are sporting their new shirts these days.)

HelpStudio announced their new widgets, which are powerful snippets that you can use to add various types of content to your Help files. The widgets are coded separately and then called within a topic, where you edit the content itself. And they can be customized to display one way in an online output and another way in a print output...for example, if you insert a drop-down hotspot, you can set all the formatting and the actions for online Help, and then change the design when publishing the same content to Word. It doesn't just become a static version of dynamic content.

Adobe didn't really announce anything new here, although I did hear that a new version will be out way before the end of the year. And the new version will support both Vista and Office 2007.

More news later...now it's time to get to breakfast and the first session!

It's just about that time again...WritersUA starts Sunday with several pre-conference seminars. I'm already in southern California (I wasn't able to get home last Friday from the Microsoft MVP Summit because of the storms on the East Coast, but I was able to get to San Diego on Sunday. Many thanks to Sue Heim for letting me "move in"!).

I'm looking forward to my sessions this year. Brian Walker and I are presenting a session on creating accessible websites, and we've got some great examples of sites that just don't understand what "accessibility" means. And I'm presenting a session on innovations in Help authoring tools, which includes information from the surveys I ran last month. Several vendors provided me with some late-breaking innovations on their HATs that I am really excited to present.

Hope to see you there!

Microsoft has updated knowledge base article 917607, "The Windows Help (WinHlp32.exe) program is no longer included with Windows operating systems starting with Windows Vista".

As many of you know, Vista has been released and, while it does NOT include the WinHelp 32-bit engine, customers who need it can download it from the Microsoft site. This KB article describes the new functionality of the WinHelp engine on Vista, including which macros have been disabled, settings that can be modified to override some of the security settings, and several others. (Does anyone know what "drag-and-drop functionality" was disabled? I wasn't even aware that there was drag-and-drop functionality in WinHelp!)

In my opinion, you should only be using the WinHelp engine for legacy content that doesn't need to be updated. No one should be developing new WinHelp content any longer...the technology is almost 20 years old and it needs to be put to rest.

Earlier today, the Microsoft Help MVPs were given the news...Microsoft has released WinHelp for Windows Vista!

Some notes:

• This release applies to Windows Vista x86 and x64 only, not Longhorn Server.
• Knowledge Base article 917607 will be updated by Monday, 12 March 2007.
• The Windows Help program is not included with any of the Vista operating systems. If you want to view a WinHelp file on Vista, you must download and install the application from the Microsoft Download Center.
• The Windows Help program cannot be distributed.

The Microsoft Help MVPs have been told by Microsoft that the WinHelp Viewer has been delayed, and it will be released as soon as possible (hopefully within the next month).

Both Microsoft and the MVPs are aware that folks are waiting for this release. However, the viewer has to pass Microsoft's QA team first...we all know that there are problems when software is released before it's ready.

Stay tuned for further information...

For years, I've referred to the Internet refrigerator in some of my sessions (typically those sessions that talk about Web standards). Well, in case you got tired of waiting for it (and as long as you don't need full Internet capability)...

Melitta has released the Smart Mill & Brew Coffeemaker. It connects to MSN Direct (the same system that powers SPOT watches) and delivers the current weather for the "top 100 metropolitan areas in the United States".

For those times when looking outside is too much trouble ;-)

Please welcome guest blogger Dana Worley. Dana, a fellow Microsoft Help MVP, is the Software Product Manager at Campbell Scientific. She will present Migrating from WinHelp to HTML Help with Doc-to-Help at the WritersUA Conference in Long Beach.

In today's blog, Dana talks about some of the her experiences when using WinHelp on Vista.

*

In late December, the Microsoft Help MVPs were given the WinHlp32.exe beta by Microsoft. This executable will ultimately be the file that Vista users download to run 32-bit HLP files on Microsoft’s newest OS.

While my testing was by no means exhaustive, all-in-all I found very few problems. Some of the results of my tests follow. The software applications I tested were coded in Visual Basic and Delphi.

• The Table of Contents, Index, and Search all work normally.
• No problems with calls from the applications to the help, including context sensitive popups.
• Jumps to topics in secondary windows display as expected.
• No problems founds with mid-topic jumps.
• Macros such as Next(), Print(), and Close() work as expected.
• ExecFile macros (which I use for mailto and www links) do not execute. There is no message indicating a failure. Failure of these macros is not unexpected, since MS has really tried to step up its security efforts with the Vista operating system.
• With jumps from one HLP file to another, the behavior depends upon the location of the two help files. If they reside in the same directory, the jumps are successful. However, if the two help files reside in different directories, the user is prompted to search for the second file. The location of a “searched for” file is not written to the registry and, therefore, not stored for future help sessions.

Note that the 16-bit virtual environment (NTVDM) that shipped with Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP is still available in Windows Vista. Thus, for 16-bit help files, which use WinHelp.exe, there should be no difference in performance (and, no need to download a new help engine). But, we all dumped these a long time ago, right? :-)

While all of this looks promising, I still encourage you to make the transition to CHM or some other form of help as your company releases updates to its applications. Many help development tools provide quick and almost painless ways to import your legacy WinHelp projects.

As many of you may know, I attend a lot of conferences, but typically as a speaker. Last week, I was a conference attendee, and was a bit disappointed by the experience. (And I wasn't the only one, as I found out during lunch on the second day.) I'm obviously spoiled from attending the WritersUA Conference for the last 11 years ;-).

1. Fix the typos. I received a booklet that described all sessions and exhibitors. Typos were rampant (the one I loved was an exhibitor's description where their name was mistyped). And every PowerPoint presentation had at least one typo or grammar issue. Granted, this wasn't a "technical communication" conference...but really, typos matter.
2. Presentation descriptions should match the actual presentation. I attended six sessions over the two days, and only one matched the description. In one instance, I attended a Part II of a session, because I was already familiar with what was supposed to be discussed in Part I. Unfortunately, Part II ended up being a recap of Part I, but without the demos (which was what I was really interested in). (When I said something to one of the presenters, I was told that it did't matter. Uh, yeah, it does.)
3. Don't change the slides! None of the slides that were displayed on the overhead matched what I was given for reference. Extra slides were added. Information was added to or removed from slides. As a speaker, I know it's tough to create the decks in advance. I also know that late-breaking news may require changes (this is something that I run into a lot, mostly because of the subjects I talk about). But the changes I saw were not made because of late-breaking news...they were made because the presenter re-read the slides and wanted to modify the information.
4. Sales presentations have no place in conference sessions. Well, maybe that's too strong. If I know I'm attending a sales presentation, that's one thing. But two of the six sessions that I attended were sales presentations on why I should use Microsoft SharePoint (in one case, the previous version). If the session description had reflected what the session was actually about, I would have gone to a different session.

There was one bright spot. The conference was "paperless", which was really cool. All attendees received a 1Gb USB drive (branded, of course, but that's fine) in their badge holder that contained copies of almost all of the presentations. If you brought a laptop, you could follow along, and if you didn't, they provided printers where you could print out just the sessions you were going to attend. (OK, so I guess it wasn't totally paperless ;-).)

When I checked in, I received three handouts: a slim booklet that contained all of the descriptions, a coil-bound notebook that also contained the schedule for the two days, and a small exhibitor's map (that also included the schedule) which fit easily in a back pocket.

And to go along with the "paperless" conference, they used an online survey for evaluations. The email with the link was waiting when I logged on the night that the conference ended.

Unfortunately, I don't have any tips for attendees who end up at a similar conference. Maybe if I go again next year...

So yesterday I reported that I might be spending the night at National Airport in DC. I'm happy to report that I actually spent the night in a hotel :-)

And I've got a seat on the 6:15 am flight. The good news is that I should be home before Jesse has to go to school. The better news is that I'll be home in time for his first school concert (assuming that the schools are actually open tomorrow).

I'm in Washington, DC, right now, where I'm attending the ASAE Technology Conference. Given the current status of things (like snow, sleet, freezing rain, and delayed flights), it looks like I may spend yet another Valentine's Day evening at National (Ronald Reagan) Airport.

<sigh>

It's survey week ;-)

Clyde Parson has created a survey about various technical communication blogs that will be open for another week.

Hat tip: Tom Johnson of I'd Rather Be Writing.

Speaking of surveys...the new Innovations survey is still open. I've received some comments and made some adjustments, including adding an alternate URL and making the table wider (I tested the survey on my desktop, but never verified it on smaller screens).

You try again!

Last week, I announced a survey for my session at the WritersUA Conference on innovations in Help authoring tools. However, a lot of folks had trouble with it, and there were concerns that I wouldn't be able to draw any valid conclusions.

So I have created a new survey. I incorporated as many comments as I could, and then ran a quick beta test. The survey is now open.

The survey closes on 16 February 2007, so spread the word and tell everyone to fill it out soon! The results will be made available at my WritersUA session and then I'll publish them at HAT-Matrix.com. I'll also be sharing some of the comments and extras with the HAT vendors.

Later this week, I'll also share some of the comments from the first survey. Even if the results themselves were skewed (and therefore, not totally usable), I found the comments fascinating.

There has been so much going on...

• Technical Communication Summit (54th Annual Conference)
• Learn about the STC candidates running for election
• STC Fellows have been announced

Read more!

Yesterday, I blogged about a survey I created on innovations in Help authoring tools.

What I was trying to consider was the difference between new features and innovations, which is why I didn't ask how useful the features were.

For example, one of the features in RoboHelp 6 is command line publishing (they call it "command line compilation"). This is something that RoboHelp users have asked for, but while it's new to RoboHelp, it's not new to HATs. You may have only heard about it in January 2007 when you saw that it was included in RoboHelp 6. Or you may have heard about it years ago because it was a feature in AuthorIT or Doc-To-Help or one of the other HATs.

Basically, I'm not interested in whether or not you use RoboHelp, or whether or not the tool you use includes command line publication...what I want to know is, when you first heard about it, did you think it was a really cool idea?

As always, please let me know if you have any questions :-)

As you may already know, I will be presenting Innovations in Help Authoring Tools at the WritersUA Conference in March.

I have created a survey that asks if you think the 25 features that I have selected are innovative, and I want your opinion. The survey is available at http://hat-matrix.com/innovations.html. Do you agree with me?

The survey will be open until 15 February 2007.

The results will be announced first during my session at the WritersUA Conference. Sometime during the following month, the results will be posted on the HAT-Matrix blog.

Thank you for your particiption!

This is something new (and definitely not exciting). We all know that we get spam, some of us more than others ;-) But lately, the spam that's trying to sneak its way through almost looks applicable, with subject lines like "Fix your documentation", "get Help now", "need help with documentation", etc.

I catch it before it gets to my system by using MailWasher, which lets me preview my incoming email. (And Spam Assassin is running on the server, which catches a lot of the other stuff.) Now that spammers are back to sending attachments (like gifs), I like that I can delete it right from the server without taking any chances.

Microsoft told the Help MVPs yesterday that the code base for the WinHelp viewer for Vista is stable, but additional testing is required. At this time, it looks like the viewer will be released in late February.

More information as I get it...

Hat tip: HAT-Matrix.com

;-)

Lots of little things to post about...

• Windows Vista Business Test Drive and other Vista information
• Various bits of RoboHelp 6 info
• Upcoming conferences and other speaking engagements
• Managing Virtual Teams book

Read more!

Jesse changed schools right before the Christmas holiday, going from a Montessori-like school to a Catholic school. (Talk about culture shock! But that's another story ;-) )

He now has daily homework assignments. And research papers are due on a regular basis, like the one last week about komodo dragons. Because his handwriting is so bad, I told him to type it instead, and set him up in Publisher.

As he typed, Publisher very nicely showed him any misspelled words. Because he kept using the arrow keys to position his cursor, I taught him about the Home key ("goes to the beginning of the line") and the End key ("goes to the end of the line").

"Thanks, mom", he said. "Where's the Middle key?"

Yesterday's announcement about RoboHelp 6 has spawned multiple emails to different lists and several blog entries because of the version number. So I went looking in my favorite spot for RoboHelp release information, Rick Stone's RoboWizard.

Combined with my memory (which, granted, has some holes sometimes), I now present the following information.

RoboHelp version 8, also known as RoboHelp 2000, was released in...yeah, 2000. I remember this version well, because I wrote a book for Sam's Publishing in 1999 called "Teach Yourself RoboHELP 2000 for HTML Help". It was released early in 2000, right after the software itself.

RoboHelp 7 was released in January, 1999. This is another version I remember well, because we started 1998 with RoboHelp 5. In 13 months, Blue Sky Software released RoboHelp 5, 5.5, 6 (there it is!), and 7. It was hell being a RoboHelp trainer that year, because we were all updating our materials every 2.5 months trying to keep up.

I don't know why Adobe dropped the "X". After all, it's a lot easier to refer to X5 as opposed to RoboHelp Office X5. We can't just refer to "6" and hope that folks actually know what we're talking about. I'm thinking that maybe marketing got involved...by calling it "RoboHelp 6", they've just about guaranteed that the tool name will also be included.

It's just a thought ;-)

Sarah O'Keefe posted a message at Palimpsest about MonkeyPi's review of RoboHelp 6. (She also had some interesting comments on RoboHelp itself, like its lack of XML, and about Adobe and their marketing department. I love reading Sarah's blog.)

So I headed over to MonkeyPi to see what was going on. And MP is obviously on many of the email lists I subscribe to, and obviously gets many of the same RSS feeds that I do, because the entry started by talking about yesterday's deluge because of RoboHelp 6's release.

And my blog entry from yesterday is mentioned at the start of the second paragraph. "One blogger I really respect claimed, "Congratulations to Adobe for getting this out technically ahead of time!". First, thanks for the compliment, MP :-) But second...what I said didn't mean that it's a great, good, or bad product. It means that Adobe beat the estimated delivery date by months (depending on who you believe, RoboHelp was supposed to be released by either the end of March or the end of June of this year. Or maybe never.).

The thing is, I...um...well, I can't actually provide a review of RoboHelp 6 just yet. I was on the beta list, and did a little bit with it when the beta was first released. But then I kinda committed the unpardonable sin of updating my software ;-) Yep, I upgraded to Office 2007...and couldn't get the later betas to install. I haven't been in the mood to install Office 2003 again and now it doesn't matter, given that the beta is no longer.

It's too bad that the kadov tags are still around. Personally, I'd like to see a version of RoboHelp that uses DreamWeaver as its editor, but I was saying that when Macromedia bought eHelp.

We're going to see more information on RoboHelp 6 in the upcoming weeks. Techshoret is holding their TCC conference in Israel tomorrow, and both Rick Stone and Peter Grainge are giving presentations. Others who were beta testers will start using RoboHelp for real projects.

And folks will post more questions about RoboHelp on HATT and TCP and TechWhirl again. The difference is, now folks will be talking/asking/complaining about RoboHelp 6 (where'd the X go, anyway?), instead of talking/asking/complaining about RoboHelp X5.

Life goes on.

Less than a year ago, Adobe announced that a new version of RoboHelp would be released by the end of Q1 or Q2 of 2007. (See Joe Welinske's article A Revived Future for RoboHelp for more information.)

And today, RoboHelp 6 was released. At Adobe's site, you can get information on both X6 and RoboHelp Server, and you can read various articles:

• What's New in RoboHelp X6? by Michael Hu
• Getting Started with RoboHelp 6 by Peter Grainge
• Using the Conditional Build Tags Feature in RoboHelp HTML 6 by Rick Stone
• Getting Started with RoboControl Source 3 in RoboHelp 6 by Matthew Ellison

There have been a few changes. Adobe has consolidated products, so that now two products are offered instead of seven. ("The authoring and publishing features of RoboHelp Office, RoboHelp Office Pro, RoboHelp Office Pro for .NET, and RoboInfo have been consolidated into RoboHelp 6. RoboHelp Server 6 includes all the server-based functionality from RoboHelp Office Pro, RoboHelp Office Pro for .NET, and RoboEngine Connectivity Pack.") RoboHelp 6 now includes variables, Adobe Acrobat Elements, and command line generation.

Congratulations to Adobe for getting this out, technically ahead of time!

Well, if it's a hyphen, you're in trouble.

I've spent the better part of this morning making travel arrangements for trips to Virginia, Seattle, and Long Beach (via San Diego). Amazingly enough, I spell my name the same way everywhere...on credit cards, on checks, on airline tickets, on my passport. But most online retailers make me change it from James-Tanny to JamesTanny (and CamelCase isn't a problem, just the hyphen).

Sometimes, to really confuse me, they'll let me use the hyphen for my contact information, and then refuse my credit card because the Name field includes it...and this is on sites which automatically fill in the name on the credit card from the contact information. (On one site, the error message was "incorrect ZIP code".)

I suppose there has been some improvement, because I can now use the hyphen in many contact information fields. But I'm still surprised at the number of places where my hyphen can't be used.