Bookmarks for 07/02/2009

by delicious on Jul 2, 2009

These are my links for 06/05/2009 through 07/02/2009:

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Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

Titter announced they want to own the word “tweet” (via The Knockoff Report). From Twitter’s blog post announcing this craziness (see May the Tweets Be With You):

We have applied to trademark Tweet because it is clearly attached to Twitter from a brand perspective but we have no intention of “going after” the wonderful applications and services that use the word in their name when associated with Twitter. In fact, we encourage the use of the word Tweet. However, if we come across a confusing or damaging project, the recourse to act responsibly to protect both users and our brand is important.

This is where intellectual property collides with the idea that everything in the world can be “monetized”. They want the option to enforce modern branding on a word from the mid-1800s (see tweet. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tweet (accessed: July 02, 2009).)

The threat of suing consumers over music and movies has already started leading toward cultural apathy toward intellectual property. While the individuals who are sued embrace the enforced respect of IP, the negative press and customer anger grows. I suppose it’s natural to want to protect your own ideas and you should. Diminishing returns engages around the time the tiny Scrooge in your head starts word counting. Twitter saying they won’t sue unless they feel like they have to doesn’t comfort me.

(I can’t find any information on the following memory, but will when I have a little more time & will cite sources and hopefully a transcript.) I remember toys.com suing toys.net for the name. toys.net was a satire website not located in the U.S. I clearly remember the toys.com CEO on TechTV (ah good times) on Silicon Spin justifying the suit because it was important to protect their brand they worked so hard to establish. After ruining toys.net and some lives financially where the hell is toys.com today?

While companies should protect themselves, our culture should also protect freedom of speech and expression from being disassembled one word at a time.

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In Which I Comment on the STC Issue

by mkanderson on Jun 20, 2009

Online Help is the new 3-Ring Binder

Tech Writing Tradition is Gone

Many months ago, prior to this year’s annual STC conference, I had been privately expressing my displeasure with STC. For many personal reasons, I was not getting value from the organization. I’ve been a member for 14 years or so, previous membership manager, web master, and volunteer. During my time as membership manager for the Chicago chapter, I noticed a decline in renewals and overall difficulty in maintaining willing, happy volunteers. This was 1998 through 2001. Chicago went from well over a thousand members down to just over 800 and then fluctuated from there. Out of all of those dues-paying members an average of 40 would appear at the monthly meetings.

This was not isolated to Chicago. I was hearing from other chapters that meeting attendance and membership retention were top issues of theirs. I would first argue that our current economic situation was not where STC began to experience a disconnect with members. I also noticed that certain topics were recycled at every conference and STC participation in the most cutting edge Web technologies was minimal.

[click to continue…]

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Bookmarks for 06/03/2009

by delicious on Jun 4, 2009

These are my links for 05/17/2009 through 06/03/2009:

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Head First Into Adobe LiveCycle

by mkanderson on May 17, 2009

Yes, yes, I’ve had my issues with Adobe. However, I’m on a project where only Adobe LiveCycle will do. It’s a massive project. The goal is to combine various data sources into PDF files created on the fly and archived for future access. We went through the standard RFP process to evaluate different tools. LiveCycle has the most potential for heavy-duty content integration. But cheap it’s not. LiveCycle is an enterprise software solution with a hefty license fee.

Adobe's LiveCycle Diagram

Adobe's LiveCycle Diagram

Adobe’s website says this about LiveCycle:

Adobe LiveCycle® ES (Enterprise Suite) software is an integrated server solution that blends data capture, information assurance, document output, process management, and content services to help you create and deliver rich and engaging applications that reduce paperwork, accelerate decision-making, and help ensure regulatory compliance.

Huh? Think of LiveCyle as an information hub. Many types of document sources can be used to pass information into LiveCycle and then it can spit out that information into several formats based on pre-defined templates. In other words, LiveCycle is a gigantic single-sourcing tool. You can also use LiveCycle to manage publishing workflows. That means you can assign content creators, editors, and publishers.

One thing I noticed about Adobe was they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) articulate what LiveCycle actually is. It’s a modular framework for content management. You can pretty much make it do what you want it to do, but out of the box it’s close to useless. Adobe will kindly sell you modules for LiveCycle that will connect your installation to your existing document repositiory, for example. The workflow tools were very impressive. I think that was my favorite feature demoed by Adobe. However, workflow management is also part of additional module. We didn’t buy it so I can’t play with it.

In our case, our final product will be PDF files. This is something LiveCycle does exceptionally well, naturally. I am still learning the principles by which the template system works, but what we are doing is using database data and static text files for content. That content will be inside an XML file and sent to the LiveCycle server as an HTTP request. LiveCycle will receive the request and run it through a template and send back a perfectly formatted PDF file. There are many reasons for our decision not to use LiveCycle to collect the data directly, but if we wanted it to, it could. In addition LiveCycle’s output could be more than just a PDF file. For example, we could have it place content on the website and the content can be specified down to the individual customer. That would take more modules and more money.

The templates in LiveCycle are all XML-based. There is a nice GUI to protect you from having to touch XML code unless you need to some very specific but unsupported actions. This is where things start to get murky for me because we are in the preliminary phases, but from my understanding, LiveCycle’s templates do not support CSS. I won’t comment on this right now until I verify why no CSS is being used in our project. However, LiveCycle works best with PDF files, which do not support style sheets either. So it may be just our project. I’ll know more next week.

So far LiveCycle is impressive in its potential. But getting it where you want it may take a lot of time and resources. I also think there is such a need for large content repositories to organize and output information, more products to compete with LiveCycle can’t be far behind. The Linuxhead in me wants to see if you can cobble something together that does the same thing with existing Linux solutions, but I’ll save that for my bucket list.

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Bookmarks for 05/17/2009

by delicious on May 17, 2009

These are my links for 04/28/2009 through 05/17/2009:

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No Traspacing

by mkanderson on May 13, 2009

Eyesore Near My House

Eyesore Near My House

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Word 2007 is Simple Jack

by mkanderson on May 8, 2009

No other explanation is necessary.

word2007jack

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Bookmarks for 04/27/2009

by delicious on Apr 27, 2009

These are my links for 04/22/2009 through 04/27/2009:

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Bookmarks for 04/20/2009

by delicious on Apr 20, 2009

These are my links for 04/13/2009 through 04/20/2009:

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