Glenn J. Lea Technical Writing

To-Do Lists – Helpful or Useless?

glenn — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:51:06 +0000

I like using whiteboards. I usually dutifully list my tasks I need to do – and then promptly forget about it! It makes me feel good that I made my To-Do List, but it factors in only a portion of my organizational planning. Why? If I added all of my tasks on my To-Do List, I would simply get overwhelmed by all that needs to be done, and then I would get started on the easiest task first. I follow another method – its called A, B, C. I only do A tasks. When I finish my A tasks, B

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First Day of the Week: Sunday or Monday?

glenn — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:57:26 +0000

I am sure you have wondered about this. Is Sunday or Monday the first day of the week? If you haven’t, then you haven’t bought a calender in Canada and sent it as a gift to someone in Germany. Coming from Canada, the calendar week always started on Sunday. Now, living Germany, I have to get used to writing my calendar notes not on Tuesday when I meant to write it on Monday! Confusing? It is for me. Sometime back in 2001 when I first moved to Berlin, I walked into my doctor’s office expecting to see my doctor. The

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Facebook, the Basis of the Future World Economy?

glenn — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:50:48 +0000

What do you think? Is Facebook a social networking site or a tool for businesses, marketing, advertising, and Brand Makers to mine the data? This video talks about Facebook as an Economy. Is Facebook developing its own world currency, Facebook Credits , a virtual currency which will determine how people trade, sell information, and buy and sell products and services? Will Facebook’s networks be a new world reality and how the world economy will operate in the future, through the harnessing of the massive amount of connections made between people? This video raises as many questions as answers.

How to Work from Home

glenn — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 09:30:14 +0000

I found a useful article on the FastCompany website that sums up the key problems of working from home. Kevin Purdy, the author, zeros in on making a home office work – MEAN IT! Work is work, whether in a company office or a home office. Behave in a home office as if it was a company office. He advises: Look the Part, Be the Part - Dress for Success is not a buzz word. It sets the mind. He says, if you aren’t dressed for the UPS guy, you aren’t in the right frame of mind for working. Schedule

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Empty Your WordPress Cache!

glenn — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:48:23 +0000

I found a rather annoying “feature” of WordPress. When your dashboard gives you a message to empty your cache, do it! Since early December my website kept showing the same list of posts, and the menu did not reflect the changes I made. What to do? Don’t do as I did and start deleting the Internet Explorer and FireFox caches, and think that should do it. Check your WordPress Dashboard. If you see a message saying Empty your Cache, just do it and don’t ignore the message. It is possible the cache is full and cannot accept any more changes

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EPUB Standard – Publishing to Mobile Devices

glenn — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:33:40 +0000

From the FrameMaker Blog: About the EPUB standard EPUB (an abbreviation for electronic publication) is a standard for digital publications and documents. It was first published in 2007 and is a format tailor-made for reading text over electronic devices. The founder and keeper of this standard is International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). Latest issued specifications for the standard is EPUB 3. The EPUB format has been adopted very quickly because of its ease to use and portability on multiple devices. It is mainly designed for reflowable content, i.e the text display is optimized for the particular display device being used.

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User Friendly Housing – the Quonset Hut

glenn — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:12:08 +0000

Perhaps you have heard of the famous Quonset Hut? It is a lightweight structure made of half-tube corrugated iron sheeting fixed together, supported by lightweight braces and attached to a concrete base. According to Wikipedia, these structures were developed by the US Navy as “an all-purpose, lightweight building that could be shipped anywhere and assembled without skilled labor”. They are a brilliant example of user-friendliness, at least in terms of assembly. Soldiers and sailors could with minimum tools setup these simple structures. Sounds like an IKEA Billy shelf unit. They were very user-friendly. This is the Royal Canadian Air Force

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Kindle 3G and 4G – Reviewed by EEVBlog

admin — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 12:43:55 +0000

I just received a Kindle 3G for Christmas. The jury is still out whether I like it or not. But this little video is helping me make up my mind. EEVBlog produced a great review of the Kindle 3G and the 4th generation Kindle. But as I use a Blackberry, I like devices with a QWERTY Keyboard. So – I guess my verdict is, for now, the 3rd Generation Kindle with Keyboard is suits my current needs. You can view this video and more at http://www.eevblog.com/

Evolution of the Web

admin — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:32:22 +0000

Got a few minutes to look at an amazing graphic? Take a look at this website: http://evolutionofweb.appspot.com/. It was made by the Chrome team at Google. According to the website: The web today is a growing universe of interlinked web pages and web apps, teeming with videos, photos, and interactive content. What the average user doesn’t see is the interplay of web technologies and browsers that makes all this possible. Over time web technologies have evolved to give web developers the ability to create new generations of useful and immersive web experiences. Today’s web is a result of the ongoing

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HomeMaker as Technical Writer

admin — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:48:38 +0000

I am impressed with a stay-at-home mom who blogs about little projects she does around the house. She calls her Blog Sutton and Grace. This blogger likes to fix up old items found at garage sales, or used items stores. Lots of people, of course, do this sort of thing privately without telling others how to do it. Even fewer people think about how to instruct others to put new cloth on old chairs, paint a tissue box red, or build a doll house. Even fewer write it down for other people to learn. This blogger may not know it,

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