Adobe Systems Incorporated announces Adobe Technical Communication Suite software, an integrated solution for authoring, managing, and publishing technical information and training in multiple formats and languages.
The suite includes Adobe RoboHelp 7 as well as Adobe FrameMaker 8, Adobe Captivate 3 and Adobe Acrobat 3D Version 8 software.
Editor: Doug Tudhope (dstudhope@glam.ac.uk) Associate Editor: Daniel Cunliffe (djcunlif@glam.ac.uk) Faculty of Advanced Technology, University of Glamorgan, UK
Submission deadline: January 16, 2008 Acceptance notification: February 27, 2008 Final manuscripts due: April 9, 2008
Submissions may take the form of research papers or shorter technical notes and should be sent by email to the editors, preferably in pdf format. Questions and enquiries are welcome.
NRHM covers hypermedia, hypertext, interactive multimedia and related technologies. The journal invites papers on the following topics and related issues:
The New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia (NRHM) is published by Taylor & Francis and appears in both print and digital formats. For more details and topics, see the journal website: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/13614568.asp
Scott Jehl (http://www.scottjehl.com) has posted a free web-based tool for creating sitemaps, http://writemaps.com/ ”to provide a fast, fun, and easy way to plan your websites.”
If you’re in need of comprehensive information about today’s content management systems, try these sources:
http://www.cmswatch.com/ (offering a report comparing nearly 30 systems, both open source and commercial enterprise systems)
http://www.opensourcecms.com/ (listing available systems)
http://www.cmsmatrix.org/matrix (providing comparisons)
Enterprise systems currently in use include:
The London website, http://www.london.gov.uk is being developed as a “one-stop-shop for all Londoners and visitors” with the help of a new content management system being implemented as a shared service throughout the city: http://news.iwebtool.com/article_23724.html?mp=1
The ITBusiness site has published “Wiki Implementation Challenging, Not Overwhelming” (http://www.itbusinessedge.com/item/?ci=31546&sr=1) Novell IT manager Lee Romero reports on use of Wikis by engineering and enterprise-wide. An engineering Wiki runs on Twiki, chosen because it provides access control for pieces of content.
Romero advises conducing a pilot test when implementing a Wiki, attention to needed security, and plenty of time for training and acclimating employees to the technology. Typical releuctance to embrace new tools caan impeded adoption even though Wiki software is easy to use.
A new and (the authors hope) extremely useful set of accessibility prinicples and checkpoints is now available for download: http://www.mscui.net/DesignGuide/AccessibilityPrinciples.aspx and http://www.mscui.net/DesignGuide/AccessibilityChecklist.aspx
These documents were produced as part of the NHS Common User Interface program, a collaboration between England’s National Health Service (NHS) and Microsoft. The goal is to create design standards for point-of-care IT systems used by doctors, nurses and other health professionals.
This work focuses on complex clinical IT systems, and is drawn from analysis of eight industry-standard accessibility standards, including W3C, ISO and the US Access Board. The work is intended to be applicable to any rich application. Jon Dodd ( http://www.bunnyfoot.com/about/people.html) is the primary author – this work would not have been possible without his experience and expertise in the field. The NHS CUI seeks feedback in order to improve the guidance and thence the accessibility of IT applications within the NHS (the UK’s largest employer). Please direct comments to: cuistakeholder.mailbox@nhs.net
Online SIG Education Lead Tom Johnson has published articles on using WordPress as a CMS and providing other tips too.
Tom explains WordPress plugins here: http://www.idratherbewriting.com/2007/04/17/wordpress-plugins-extending-your-blogs-features-and-capabilities/
Tom’s post on how to use WordPress as a CMS is published at http://www.idratherbewriting.com/2007/07/01/converting-your-wordpress-blog-into-a-cms-content-management-system/
Tom gave a presentation on WordPress that is posted here: http://www.idratherbewriting.com/doctrain
In a message to STC leaders who use WordPress for chapter and SIG sites, Tom also recommends the WordPres podcast: http://wordpresspodcast.org
A “Web Trend Map for 2007″ has been posted and is reported at http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/20/information-architects-2007-web-trend-map/
The map depicts the 200 “most successful” websites on the Internet, shown by category, proximity, success, popularity and perspective. The map is meant to show the relationship among sites, and the focus is on Web 2.0.
The Web Trend Map is based on the Tokyo metro subway map. Posters are available and there is a PDF for download.
Dr. JoAnn Hackos, content management expert, advises on what organizations need to know to move legacy documentation to DITA in an exclusive interview: http://www.dclab.com/DCLNews0903.asp#LSTORY2
Flock (http://flock.com) is a social browser, built on Firefox with all of the Firefox extensions. A bookmark in Flock is instantly mirrored on Del.icio.us. Photos and blogs dragged to Flock are uploaded to Flickr or Photo Bucket. It’s not necessary to log into a blog such as WordPress or Moveable Type to blog text that is selected from a web page; Flock does the blogging.
On January 5, CM Professionals announced that Scott Abel will become its new Executive Director, starting February 9, 2007. Scott Abel is Content Management Lead in the STC Online SIG. (more…)
The founder of Wikipedia has launched a service offering free tools for community websites, it was reported in the BBC news December 12, 2006.
We Are Smarter than Me (http://www.wearesmarter.org/) invites authors to participate in writing the first networked book on business, to be published in the fall of 2007 by Pearson Publishing. The group says “Together we will write the book on how the emergence of community and social networks will change the future rules of business.”
CM Professionals, the international content management community of practice, is changing its public image with the December 7 launch of its new public-facing website: http://www.cmprofessionals.org/
“The outcome of our latest website questionnaire told us that our members wanted an improved website. Having a new website and better tooling was already our ambition, so we did our best to provide one to coincide with our Fall Summit, 27 November 2006”, says STC Fellow Ann Rockley, CEO of The Rockley Group (Canada) and former CM Pros President.
The contents of the CM Pros website has been brought back to the essentials and the navigation is made much more accessible. Members already responded enthusiastic on the new graphical design, made by Studio Zipper. (more…)
New on STC.org STC Worldwide Newsletter: Carolina Chapter Newsletter: France Chapter Newsletter: Technical Editing SIG