Saturday, January 14, 2006

Could be right When I started in technical writing as a professions a few years ago, everyone was ga-ga about online help. It's all you ever heard about. Training in RoboHELP was A Big Deal. Whole conferences were held on the subject. You almost couldn't get a job if you didn't have experience in online help. But the fact is, I have written almost zero online help in six years. Sure, much of what I write is available online, but it's rarely the pop-up, contenxt-sensitive stuff that you usually think of. Jared might be right: The Future of Online Help?. Jared tries to avoid predicting the future of online help by focusing briefly on its past. [UIE Brain Sparks] I expect that there will be more embedded assistance, which isn't quite the same thing. But I think the days of online help being the focus of user documentation are dead. It's just not how users learn. 4:32:09 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

Much ado about triskaidekaphobia The 37Signals folks noticed that yesterday was Friday the 13th. So what? How Stuff Works on Friday the 13th. How Friday the 13th Works examines the folklore behind today and why it scares people. [Signal vs. Noise] Friday the 13th doesn't bother me. My birthday is on the 13th (August), so every few years it falls on a Friday. My 13th birthday was on a Friday the 13th. As was my 30th. I started an ocean voyage on another Friday the 13th birthday, and nothing bad happened. So what? As far as I'm concerned, it's a good day. And I consider 13 my lucky number. Not that I actually believe in luck. . . 4:23:09 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

Something to look forward to I'm really looking forward to seeing what topics and titles Lou Rosenfeld publishes first with his new venture. It's such a cool concept: short, focused, to-the-point expositions on usability and UX topics. Not huge textbooks that try to say something about everything. Cool. Rosenfeld Media site goes live. Friday the 13th; can't pick a better day to start something new... The web site for my new publishing house, Rosenfeld Media, launched this morning. . .  [Bloug] And I see nothing wrong with launching a venture on Friday the 13th. More on that with the next post. 4:14:40 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

Now that's just wrong I really didn't know what to make of this post on the J-Walk Blog for several hours. At first it seemed like a cute way to utilize my name. But then it finally struck me as just another insensitive misuse of a name that some find funny: Who's Fred, Ha! The modern way to relieve stress: The world according to Fred. [The J-Walk Blog] Don't waste your money on the book. This is just a dumb, dumb game. If you have to spend your money on something Fred, please patronize The Fred Society store instead. No, I don't get a kickback. 3:18:44 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

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