bookmark_borderpipeline

Join Pipeline – I’ve been following this idea for a while now, they are trying to setup a discount card for fuel in the UK. They need more subscribers to get the ball rolling, so if you have a car, you should head over and sign up.

bookmark_borderSalmon Fishing in the Yemen

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Blimey, it’s been ages since I wrote a book review.

This was passed to me by my Mum, and was quickly added to the book pile for taking on holiday.

The story is simple enough, a rich man from Yemen wants to introduce salmon fishing to his local area. He has millions to spend and uses his contacts in the UK to get some assistance from a government fisheries agency. Told via emails, diary extracts and interview notes, the story flips from view to view, but mainly follows a middle-aged fishery scientist as the project to get salmon to the Yemen takes him on a personal journey.

The story unfolds nicely, although it’s pretty straightforward with a little twist introduced towards the end (which I won’t spoil), the pacing is ok, and…

Well, I’ll be honest, I’m not really sure what to make of the book. It wasn’t bad, not at all, but it just didn’t really grab me. Some parts of the story were a little too contrived and the dialogue, as such, just felt a little forced.

Suffice to say it was an enjoyable holiday book. It wasn’t taxing to read, and kept me mildly entertained between visits to the pub… 😉

bookmark_borderapple uk tv shows

Fire up your iTunes Store, Apple have started selling episodes of TV shows. All your favourite stuff from US TV that you’ve… umm.. already downloaded and watched because why SHOULD we wait until it airs on UK TV?! Idiots. This does not stop piracy. When WILL they learn.

bookmark_borderMusings on X-Pubs

Next week I’m heading down to Reading to attend the X-Pubs conference, where I’m hoping to learn more about both how a solid XML publishing solution is implemented and, ultimately, why I need to bother. OK, I know why I need to bother so I guess I should re-phrase that to “how I justify all the effort involved”.

I’ve done my fair share of research in the past, and have previously implemented an AuthorIT based solution. That worked reasonably well for our needs back then, but I’m with a different company now and the needs have, naturally, changed. I know all about the benefits of single sourcing content (re-use), and why XML is the best choice for storing that content (re-factorability, if that’s a word!) but as yet I’ve still not seen the killer product/solution that makes things:

  1. easy to implement – I’ll accept some pain but most of the solutions I’ve seen have a fairly large knowledge mountain to climb
  2. easy to adapt – I have, currently, very specific needs dictated both by the company and our product, and by my the needs of my team.

Of course no such solution exists, or we’d all be using it, right?

And that’s why I’m attending the X-Pubs conference.

I do believe that single sourcing is THE way to go about things in technical communications, almost (implementation costs aside) without reservation for any size of team and almost without regard for what they are producing. Like here in the UK, which is trapped between imperial and metric measurements, the technical communications industry seems to be a mix of differing output requirements. Some audiences demand printed manuals, some want websites full of searchable content, whilst others are happy with PDFs or online help. And that’s before we start worrying about localisation (localization).

I’m not entirely sure what I’ll discover at the conference, and I’m doing my best to keep an open mind, but I truly believe that the power of single sourcing will remain the refuge of the few until someone comes up with a workable, affordable solution that everyone can use.

I’ll be posting from the conference (possible even “live blogging”), so come back on the 4th June to find out what’s going on.

Do you single source? Or have you consider it in the past but never pursued it, and if so, why not?

bookmark_borderConceited

There was a fairly massive “UK blog event” last week, which culminated in the publishing of a book called Shaggy Blog Stories (you HAVE ordered your copy, haven’t you?). It was a remarkable undertaking and everyone involved should be, and has been, rightly applauded. Plaudits well earned if you ask me.

Of course, as with anything and everything, there has been a little bit of a backlash which mike has handled with his usual aplomb (I do wish he’d stop making things looks so damn easy). I guess some people always presume the worst in these situations and I think that reflects more on them than they care to realise.

Now, I should point out that I’m not in the book. Nor was I involved in the creation process. Hell, I didn’t even offer a contribution. And I’m not for a minute suggesting that I wasn’t given the opportunity to be involved, and I’m quite sure that had I offered, mike would have found some use of my ‘talents’. This post is most certainly not a “toys out of pram” moan, nor a dig against anyone who was involved.

However the simple fact is that I wasn’t, for a variety of reasons that I’ll mention in a minute, involved with this project at all. On any front.

This irks.

And I’m not sure why.
Continue reading “Conceited”