LEAD STORIES:
DITA-izing Your Documents: Five Issues to Think About When Converting Your Legacy Publications to DITA

Ann Rockley & Steve Manning on XML, DITA Conversions, and Dynamic Personalized Content: An Interview

EXTRA:
The DITA Test Drive Challenge

Upcoming conferences

OTHER NEWS:
PubMed Popular With Africa's Doctors

PC World's 100 Best Products of 2007: You Won't Believe How Many of Them Are Free

Dangerous Counterfeit Drugs, and a New Solution from the UK

All I Really Needed to Know… About SEO

One Laptop Per Child Or One Big Sale for Intel?

Need a Primer on XML?; Or Bone Up on the Latest?

ASIDES:
How Many Internet Mail List Subscribers Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb?

FEATURED DIGITIZATION SITE:
The Giza Archives Project

FAVORITES:
Popular articles from recent issues

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

LEAD STORIES

DITA-izing Your Documents: Five Issues to Think About When Converting Your Legacy Publications to DITA

Converting your legacy document collections to any XML markup scheme presents challenges. While the promise of DITA is great, converting legacy documentation presents many new challenges. This article outlines five issues that you will likely face sooner or later, and should keep in mind when you decide to pour your valuable existing documentation into DITA.

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Ann Rockley & Steve Manning on XML, DITA Conversions, and Dynamic Personalized Content: An Interview (Part 1)

In a DCL exclusive interview Ann Rockley and Steve Manning of The Rockley Group share their thoughts on the latest on XML and DITA, as well dynamic personalized content delivery and component content management, the topic of an upcoming CMS Watch report created under a strategic alliance between Rockley and CMS Watch.

Companies are looking to do more, do it better, do it faster, and do it cheaper. It can be a struggle to manage technical documentation and marketing documentation for different types of products. With XML and DITA, most companies could reduce the volume of content by 35%--some as much as 70% -- with big savings! And these tools let you deliver dynamic personalized content, enticing sales and helping cut down on customer support calls.

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EXTRA

The DITA Test Drive Challenge

If you work with 'tech pubs' you've been hearing lot about DITA. And for good reason. DITA offers an open standard, addressing the issues that previous standards (like DOCBOOK) didn't. It's an XML standard encouraging single source publishing using the DITA Open Tool Kit (a big cost saver). And since it facilitates content reuse, you can have higher quality documentation, while saving even more money. The vendor community has also jumped in, offering 'DITA Ready' software with out-of-the box implementation that saves time and money during the critical start-up period.

But you're probably skeptical. You've heard the promises before of how all your problems will be solved if you'll just...

Now 'test drive' DITA before you buy it! Working with our partners DCL will convert 500 pages of your legacy content to DITA 1.0 XML and analyze 2500 pages of your legacy content in our unique Content Reuse Analysis software for a special price.

Get details on this time limited offer at: www.dclab.com/dita_conversion_offer.asp

Africa's postgraduate doctors are relying heavily on the Internet, bypassing problems with passwords, electricity power outages and librarians. And when all else fails, they do what any resourceful person would do, visit the cyber café. While textbooks are still the main source of information with 70%, 66% report using the Internet for health information in the preceding week! The docs' favorite? PubMed, offering accessibility without a password.

More...

For DCL's data sheet on converting publications to PubMed, see:

http://www.dclab.com/public_access.asp

PC World's 100 Best Products of 2007: You Won't Believe How Many of Them Are Free

PC World rates the 100 Best Products of 2007. And anticipating how quickly new becomes old, they also rate the Most Anticipated Products of the Year. What may surprise you is how many products and services are free: Kayak, McAfee, Flickr, Zoho, and WinPatrol. And for high-end-toy fanatics, PC World provides lots of advice on how to spend that disposable income burning a hole in your bank account. Check out the Nikon D80 SLR camera ($1200), the Lenovo ThinkPad X60 Tablet ($2500), the Pioneer Elite 1080p PRO-FHD1 plasma HDTV ($8000), and lots more.

More...

Dangerous Counterfeit Drugs, and a New Solution from the UK

The US counterfeit drug problem continues to grow. But in Europe and in developing nations, it's already become a real safety threat. More than 1.5 million counterfeit drugs were seized at European borders in 2006. That's about three times as many as the previous year. And now a new technology to combat the problem has come out of a UK-based pharmaceutical authentication company.

Aegate links each individual package bar code through the entire process from manufacture, to supply chain, to point of purchase, storing the information at Aegate's own secure data base. A swipe of the bar code at the pharmacy authenticates the drug was produced and shipped by the manufacturer and lets the pharmacist know in about one second if it's okay to dispense. The system also prevents recalled and expired drugs from accidentally being dispensed, and works for over-the-counter and generic medicines.

More...

Other resources:

www.who.int
www.gphf.org

All I Really Needed to Know . . .About SEO

Maybe you didn't really learn all you needed to know in Kindergarten, but you probably did learn it in high school. Everything about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) anyway. Why? Because just like in high school, the more popular you become, the more attention you get, the more attention, the more popular, and so on, until everyone wants to be "linked" with you. On the web, links mean traffic and traffic means search engine rankings.

One of the unintended consequences of Wikipedia's, and some other's popularity, is that more of our online time is being spent at fewer megasites. The wilds of the Internet are being carved up among a handful of vast information plantations. Blogger Richard MacManus reports that in five years the number of Internet domains expanded more than 75%, from 2.9m to 5.1m. Yet the dominance of the most popular domains grew substantially. In the five years ending in 2006, the % of time spent at the top 10 websites went from 31% to 40%. While there are more destinations online we seem to be visiting fewer of them. As in other areas of human endeavor, do the strong get stronger?

More...

And if you didn't learn it in Kindergarten - learn it now:

http://www.peace.ca/kindergarten.htm

One Laptop Per Child Or One Big Sale for Intel?

Following up on last month's highlight of the One Laptop Per Child initiative, this month a story by CBS's 60 Minutes illustrates how a good idea gains ground in the free market. Hundred dollar lap tops may not just be good for kids in developing nations, but their tough exteriors, their ability to shed water, sand and sunlight, and their toy-like kid appeal, could be the start of something profitable. An idea that makes the nonprofits cringe. And who could blame them? But OLPC could get the last laugh. As these cheap learning tools are made available commercially, you may get a chance to buy one for your own kid, but only if you buy one for a child in a poor country too.

More...

Need a Primer on XML?; Or Bone Up on the Latest?

Need the 411 on XML, but don't have time for formal training? Then grab a low-fat latte after lunch on Friday, and log onto W3 Schools. There you'll find free on-line courses on XML, and other associated topics, from the comfort of your own desk top. Besides being free, courses are short, relevant, and broken into topics. So when your mom calls you can actually stop what you are doing, listen to what she is saying, then get back to where you left off. Try it. The IT guys will think you're brilliant. Your family will be glad you stayed in town. And your mother? Well, she might just call back next Friday too.

• Try the on-line classes at:
  http://www.w3schools.com/xml/default.asp

• Then build on your knowledge with DCL resources such as whitepapers and FAQs.
  
  See DCL's white papers at:
  http://xml.dclab.com/xml.asp#xwp
  
  Read DCL's XML FAQs at:
  http://www.dclab.com/dclfaq.asp#whatis

FEATURED DIGITIZATION SITE

The Giza Archives Project

DCL received great response to last month's digitization article, so we decided to find a new and interesting project to feature this month. This month, visit the Giza Pyramids via 360° tours of a subterranean chapel, the Senedjemib Complex of family tombs, and Giza artifacts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Maybe you'll find some ideas you can use! See why Archaeology Magazine calls The Giza Archives Project "one of its favorite Web sites." The on-line project has vintage photos of early exploration of the site and zoomable maps, aerial photos, and satellite images of the entire necropolis. (Note: you'll need Quick Time to view this site.)

Visit the Giza archives at:
http://www.gizapyramids.org

ASIDES

How Many Internet Mail List Subscribers Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb?

Ever wonder why email subscriber's lists tend to get so long and off-topic? Take a look at this humorous, yet not uncommon, analysis of how a list topic grew from a simple post to 1,331 messages in your inbox.

More...

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

This month's quote:

FAVORITES

Popular articles from recent issues

JoAnn Hackos on Moving Legacy Documentation into DITA: An Interview
http://www.dclab.com/legacy_to_dita_interview.asp

Digitized History & Unsolved Mysteries; A Woman's Search for her Grandfather and a New Use for 19th Century Glacier Photos
http://www.dclab.com/digitization.asp

Component Content Management: Overlooked By Analysts; Required By Technical Publications Departments
http://www.dclab.com/component_content_management.asp

Content Management vs. the Brain Drain Headache
http://www.dclab.com/cms_stops_brain_drain_headaches.asp