|
||||
|
|
|
||||
|
|
|
LEAD STORIES: EXTRA: OTHER NEWS: ASIDES: FAVORITES: LEAD STORIES
Preserving Ancient Ways with 21st Century TechnologySeptember 26, 2006: DCLnews
S1000D or DITA - Which One Works for Me?; And Is Either One Ready for Prime TimeSeptember 26, 2006: DCLnewsFor companies wanting to move to a topic-based structured authoring model the choice between standards can be bewildering. In the first article of a series, DCL News looks at a typical scenario facing a publications manager.
EXTRA DCL's "Digital Information" survey - Initial ResultsSeptember 26, 2006: DCLnewsLast month DCL asked its customers to participate in the latest "Digital Information" survey with the aim of obtaining a clear picture of the current challenges facing documentation professionals as well as an overview of the tools being used. Thanks to all those who participated in the survey. The initial results have been compiled with a more detailed analysis to follow. To see survey results: http://www.dclab.com/survey_results.asp Upcoming DCL Conference ParticipationSeptember 26, 2006: DCLnews
Drug Information Association
ATA e-Business Forum
OTHER NEWS Happy 20th Birthday to SGMLSeptember 3, 2006: O'Reillynet.com
Out-Of-Date Maps May Have Contributed To Kentucky CrashSeptember 12, 2006: The Courier-Journal
(Full Disclosure: DCL does offer a map revision service. http://www.dclab.com/jeppesen_map_revision_service.asp.) LibraryThing - A MySpace for bibliophiles?
September 26, 2006: DCLnews
LibraryThing has become the fastest growing trend amongst internet-using bibliophiles as a way to catalog your books online and browse not only your own library but those of other users too. Having been online for just over a year LibraryThing already has over 5 million books cataloged by its community of 75,000 users. The creators of LibraryThing describe it as two sites in one; "LibraryThing helps you to create a library-quality catalog of your books. You can do all of them or just what you're reading now. And because everyone catalogs online, they also catalog together. LibraryThing connects people based on the books they share."
Meet the New EditorSeptember 26, 2006: DCLnews
Please welcome the new DCLNews editor, Alan J. Porter. Alan has been involved with the technical documentation industry for over twenty years as writer, editor, consultant and trainer. He has also held senior management positions at several publishing software vendors and now heads up his own corporate publishing services and consulting company, the 4J's Group LLC, based near Austin, TX. He is also a published author with a couple of books and numerous magazine articles to his credit. ASIDES Expensive TyposSeptember 26, 2006: DCLnews
In August, Honda issued a recall for 1.2 million car and motorcycle manuals as citing "incorrect information for a vehicle safety hotline." What the official release didn't say, but was quickly picked up and widely reported, was that the "800" prefix printed in the manuals, instead of the "888" toll-free prefix it should have been, led to a sexually-oriented, commercial pay "800" number. In June, Toronto's Globe and Mail reported on what could be "the most costly piece of punctuation in Canada," when a punctuation error led to the cancellation of a contract that could end up costing one of the companies involved as much as $2.13M. The contract between Rogers Communications, Inc. and Aliant, Inc. covered the use of telegraph poles and set a rate for their lease, which Rogers believed was a five-year deal. Aliant however believed that according to the exact wording of the contract they could cancel the deal with just a year's notice - and that is what they did. The offending paragraph was as follows: The agreement "shall continue in force for a period of five years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five-year terms, unless and until terminated by one-year prior notice in writing by either party." The inclusion of the second comma changed the meaning of the sentence from its original intent; if it hadn't been there Rogers would not now be facing potential lease rate increases which could cost them literally millions of dollars. How do you annotate a computer screen?!August 16, 2006: IT Business Canada
Reflecting on a frustration we've all had, in a recent column IT Business Canada asked "What's become of real documentation?" The sort that you can write notes in the margins or add sticky notes to. It does seem that some have taken e-documentation a little too far.
FAVORITES Popular articles from recent issuesSeptember 26, 2006
Converting From PDF To XML & MS Word:
Avoiding The Pitfalls
New S1000D Specification Fuels Content Reuse and IETMs
Virtual Exercises Beef Up Your Biceps...
Quark to XML Conversion
Adobe PDF Conversion: How, For Whom, And When?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
When a large systems integrator was looking for employment opportunities for several Native American tribes it seemed like document conversion might provide a solution. The first of a two part series looks at how DCL helped the tribes adopt new technology to help preserve their culture. DCL News reports.
Even though the concepts behind SGML, XML's ancestor, had been around earlier, it was in 1986, when ISO 8879 was published, that the Standard Generalized Mark-Up Language (SGML) could be considered as having "arrived" on the global publishing stage. At the O'Reilly XML Blog, writer Rick Jelliffe looks back at those twenty years and examines some of the benchmarks in the development of SGML and how it laid the foundation for XML and today's mark-up driven world.
Comair has recently issued a warning to its pilots to use airport maps with extreme caution. On August 17th a Comair jet crashed at the Lexington, Kentucky airport after taking off from the wrong runway, and 49 people were killed. It now appears that the airline had outdated maps of the airport which hadn't been updated since January even though there had been changes made to the taxiways.
Are you the sort of person who when he visits a friend's house or attends a party spends your time standing by the wall with your neck at forty-five degrees, examining the contents of your host's bookcase? If so the LibraryThing.com is the website for you.
A couple of stories over the last few months have shown that you can never be too careful when it comes to proofreading and punctuation. One resulted in a little embarrassment and a large reprinting bill, but the other could end up costing millions of dollars.
Content Management Strategies/DITA North America 2010 Conference,
2010 ATA e-Business Forum,