Saturday, August 17, 2002

[dws.] MY SOURCE ... dws quoted in Green, rest of the stuff are my notes from the A List Apart site.  This is what we call in the real technology business world a White Paper, because it clearly explains something, the need for it, and has some good links for people who are interested in using this for real. The A List Apart site has an interesting article for people who write on the Web: 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web. Write for a reason, and know why you write. Write passionately about what you care about. Tell us why other people should care about this. Write honestly. Write often, and consistently. Disappearing with no explanation, is rude to people interested in what you write. Say why we away for a while. Store stuff for the times when we have nothing else to write about. Use good tools, to write well, and learn how to use them. Write tight. Proof Read what was written. Does it flow clearly and concisely? Omit unnecessary words Avoid cliches. This is one of Al's big failings. I need to work on continuous improvement of focusing better. Make good friends. Give credit to where I get ideas, or who I quote, from the Internet, or from outside of it. It should be totally unambigous who contributed the original material. Be generous. Find good enemies. Readers love controversy and learn from debate. Seek adversaries who can make the case for a viewpoint other than yours. Someone who we can communicate with on an equal playing field. A debate that is on the merits of the subject. Ignore people who live for controversy and disagreement. Plan closure in advance. Seek a neutral third party to summarize the outstanding issues. Let the story unfold. Understand the storyteller's art. Use narrative. Write about people with care, feeling, precision. When we are writing about an organization, be sure to have permission from the players. People have lost their jobs because of something they wrote on their web site. Not just inappropriate criticism. There are competitive advantages that management might not want advertised. Stand up, speak out. Do your homework so that you can be sure of your facts. State your opinion clearly. If seeking information or guidance, say so, clearly. If you discover someone else is mistaken, be diplomatic. It may be your turn to be mistaken tomorrow. Be Sexy. If writing a personal honest journal, then it has to include things you might not what to share with strangers. Use your archives. Always provide permanent links to our writing. Radio comes with this ... notice the little # symbol at bottom of individual post; notice funny square to left of beginning of each day; this allows you to copy short cut to that link. However, we may later need to move to a different ISP. Radio has software to move OUR LINKS to the new ISP. But this might be a problem for people on other sites that linked to our OLD LINKS. This is a topic for further discussion at another time and place. Default Radio provides links based on Calendar - when something was posted. We need to organize our materials based on Subject matter. This is an area where I am still learning. Plug-In Tools are available to help make this task easier. Google Six Degrees Eastgate’s Tinderbox Relax! Don't worry too much about getting everything perfect. Write clearly, simply, with energy and wit about what matters. Don't take yourself too seriously. Establish a rhythm. But if it is no longer fun, switch topics, schedule, voice, or tone. Discuss this with the folks at A List Apart. It is a good primer for anyone interested in writing a Weblog.  [Mac Net Journal] END [dws.] 9:47:49 PM

Writing Resources at www.dictionary.com for those of us with bad habits and the ability to fix them. 9:30:04 PM

Language Translation Copy text from some place, Go here, Paste it, Select which language combination, (limited to those on the site, I don't think you can translate Klingon to Cardassian.) and you get the same text in another language. Not as good as a human translator, but a good start. 9:26:49 PM

Free Software Tools that work with www.dictionary.com and www.thesaurus.com ... I do not consider this to be an advertisement because I need a spell checker for my browser based editing, I just have not yet decided which one to get, so I am staying alert to what is out there. From any program (presumably on a PC connected to the Internet), spell check any word, look up antonyms and synonyms. Dictionary and Thesaurus buttons to plug into your Browser. Apple Mac users have some additional downloads. 9:19:36 PM

procrastination: Dictionary.com Word of the Day. This is also Al's middle name, unfortunately. 9:11:59 PM

Good Weblog Writing Ideas [Blogfish] QUOTE Remember that your old pages will often be read by visitors from search engines; Introduce yourself on every page, and be sure that every page, however obscure, has links to tell people: who you are, what you want, and why you’re writing your email address where to find your latest writing Link to work you’ve already written — especially to good work that you wrote long ago. Don’t be shy about linking to yourself: Linking to your own work is a service, not self-promotion. UNQUOTE [Blogfish] 9:08:40 PM

© Copyright 2002 Al Macintyre.