To quote Van Halen, ‘everybody wants some.’ And what you want is traffic. Why write a blog if no-one visits, right? I have 17 technical writers’ blogs in my Google Reader & RSS feeds. Most are fine but… if they used some of the following tactics, they’d get more traffic, comments, money and Nobel prizes. Well, three out of four, anyway.

How To Get More Traffic To Your Technical Writing Blog

Apply five of these tactics and your traffic will double. No kidding, it will!

How To Get More Traffic #1: Add Your Photos

Look at your favorite technical writing blogs. How many faces do you see? Why are they all hiding? I dunno. Stick your mugshot on the page so we can see what you look like! Go on! None of us are Brad Pitt or Paris Hilton (OMG! Paris Hilton rebuilds career as technical writer shock!), so add a pic. Don’t be shy. People like to read about people they know. If they can’t see you…

How To Get More Traffic #2: Video

I’m no spring chicken, so if I can do it, you can. All of these video were taken on a Canon powershot.

Videos let people hear you, see your expression, feel what you’re trying to say in ways that words cannot. Making videos is easier that you think. I use Camtasia 6 for all its sins. (read my frustrated Camtasia 6 review here.)

How To Get More Traffic #3: Social Media Outposts

Use Social Media for maximum impact. With web content publishing tools like Posterous you can get the message out to all these channels with almost no effort. Posterous lets you post once, publish everywhere. Try it.

• Ivan: http://www.ivanwalsh.com
• Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ivanwalsh
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh
• Business Week http://bx.businessweek.com/profile/ivan-walsh/iwalsh905/
• And also on Disqus, Flickr, LinkedIn, Delicious and Google Reader

How To Get More Traffic #4: Quizzes

We all get tired of checking for split infinitives and looking for typos, so lighten things up. Add quizzes to get people involved… and try to be a little different.

• Did you ever download software illegally?
• What’s your manager’s most annoying habit?
• Would you let your boss friend you on Facebook?
• Do you know any technical writing who can reverse park? (I was going to say Women but then turned on my brain! That was so close!)
• Do you know any men who ask for directions when lost? One for the girls, no doubt.

How To Get More Traffic #5: Comics

May not work for all sites but comics are a nice break from technical documents and other heavy reading. Why do you think they are so popular? Every serious newspaper has them, why not you?

How To Get More Traffic #6: Reviews

If they come to your site, it’s your opinion they are after. So, why don’t you give it?

#1 cardinal sin of most blogs is that they have no opinion!

Don’t be scared! I’m with you! Give your honest opinion (try not to rant or swear) and you’ll see people will respond very quickly.

#2 cardinal sin of most blogs… bland!

If your blog echoes the rest of the crowd, well, why should I come back? Stick your neck out, even a little. Some people were upset that I dissed Camtasia but y’know I’d be lying if I said it worked!

How To Get More Traffic #7: Trends

Pssst! Did you know that… everyone wants to be in the know. Keep your readers up to date. Use graphs, charts and diagrams. See Brain Solis and Information in Beautiful for inspiration.

How To Get More Traffic #8: Lists

It doesn’t have to stop at 10. Here are a few list of get started:

• 21 Left Handed Technical Writers
• 7 Reasons Why Adobe FrameMaker Sucks But You Still Need to Buy It
• 12 Honest Ways to Get a Pay Rise
• 5 Ways To Give An Honest Appraisal
• 28 Ways to Proofred a Technical Documant
• 1 Good Reason to Join the STC
• 18 Mistakes Technical Writers Make Before Breakfast
• 9 Ways to Evaluate a Help Authoring Tool

How To Get More Traffic #9: How-to guides

Ok, the technical stuff comes last. If you’re going to offer technical advice (and you should!) identify the problem, explain how to fix it, and then ask for questions or comments.

#3 cardinal sin of blogging is… blogger doesn’t interact with readers. Ask for comments. If you have a Facebook page, give them the link and connect there. Use Twitter? Create lists for technical writers and add them. Like these lists I created for technical writers and creativity.

• Adobe FrameMaker list http://twitter.com/ihearttechdocs/adobeframemaker
• Creativity list http://twitter.com/ihearttechdocs/creativity
• Technical writing software http://twitter.com/ihearttechdocs/technicalwritingsoftware

Share, share, share!

What ya think! Fire away below.

Once the initial wave of enthusiasm wears off, where do you find the motivation to give yourself a kick start? What do you do to make your next video or blog post? Here’s what I do to get myself working again.

Video Blogging – How To Stay Motivated & Find Your Mojo

Making videos is not hard. But, the editing, testing, fine-tuning and uploading takes time. And once it becomes a grind, we tend to lose interest. That’s not just you – that’s all of us.

1. Be realistic — if you can’t make a video every day, try for every week.
2. Baby Steps — Don’t defeat yourself. Start small, work up.
3. Batch Shoot — Don’t do one. Stop. Start. Do another. Stop. Start. Work in batches.
4. Be Consistent — Shoot five videos at the same time and then edit in one go.
5. Batch Edit — Edit in batches. Once you get into a groove, it’s easier to run thru the videos.
6. Storyboard — Bullet point or diagram what you’re going to shot. Don’t wing it. You’ll lose time.
7. Shoot everywhere – Places you find boring, others will find fascinating. Instead of shooting in your office, go outside and shoot it on the street corner. These small details give your video (and you!) a more interesting edge.
8. Get creative – Is there anything more boring that a guy talking into his laptop, sitting at home? You can do better – give it a shot.
9. Rewards – once you’ve completed a nice piece of work, treat yourself to a book you wouldn’t usually buy, maybe too expensive, or some equipment that you’ve always wanted. I want a Canon Monopod 100 for SLR Cameras.
   

How about you?

How do you avoid defeating yourself? What do you do get back in the saddle when you’re going thru a down-phase?

What do you want people to do after they’ve watched your video? Most beginners forget to ‘close the sale’. Their efforts go into making the video, getting it up on YouTube, but forget its original purpose. It’s easy to do when you’re in a hurry or engrossed in the technology. But you want people to do something, right? Otherwise, the point of the exercise is lost.

Video Blogging – Creating a Call to Action

Here’s how to create a Call to Action with your videos. Use your video blogs to encourage viewers to take some action. One of the mistakes new video bloggers make is that they overlook this step and assume that viewers will take the next step. They won’t!

Remind your viewers to take the next step.

1. Encourage them to sign up to your newsletter
2. Subscribe to your YouTube channel or
3. Leave comments

Also, remind them who you are: ‘’Hi, I’m Ivan Walsh from IvanWalsh.com, visit my website”.

Keep it short, less than three minutes and ALWAYS encourage the viewer to add a comment. That’s the easiest thing for them to do. Don’t make it difficult for them to interact – just remind them.

What did you think of this video, by the way?

What’s the most common mistake people make when shooting their first video? Christopher Ming Ryan points out that most video-makers don’t get in close enough to the person talking. This lessens the impact of the message. Zoom in. Frame the face. Here’s some tips from Ivan.

#1 Mistake When Making Your First YouTube Video

I took this video in Beijing. Twice. In the second take, I’m closer to you and the impact is better. The first take was scrapped. Pointless.

But I still made mistakes:

• The sun is in my eyes, which is why I’m squinting
• The noise was louder that you’d think, making it harder to concentrate
• The camera was not stabilized, i.e. free-hand. Try to use a tripod if possible.

How to Make a Near Perfect YouTube Video

Ok, it’s not on YT, but you get the point. Seth Godin is the guy talking.

Try and beat this!

‘curiosity’ from Nic Askew on Vimeo.

What Other Mistakes Did You See?

This video is far from perfect. I know that. What else did I do wrong?

Fire away below!

What’s the fastest way to take a screenshot of a website, turn it into a thumbnail, and get it on your blog? How about if you could automate this?

Most of us hit print screen, take it into Snagit or PhotoShop, play with the size until it’s right and then save. Well, here’s a faster way.

Andy Wibbels was looking for API-based services that create thumbnails. He found PageGlimpse.

Instant Site Thumbnails for Your Blog with PageGlimpse

Here’s how to do it.

1. Get a PageGlimpse Developer Key.

2. Go to http://www.pageglimpse.com/signup and sign-up.

Once you activate your account you’ll get a developer key, i.e. random collection of letters and numbers.

3. Drag-and-drop the Create Thumbnail link to your Links toolbar in your browser.

NOTE: Don’t click it. Click-and-hold-and-drag-and-drop.

4. There is a Create Thumbnail is in your Links toolbar. Add your Developer Key to it.

5. Right-click on the Create Thumbnail link in your Links toolbar and select Properties.

The script will look something like this:

avascript:void((function(){location.href=location.href.replace(/^http\:\/\/([^\/\@]+)/,”http://images.pageglimpse.com/v1/thumbnails?devkey=YOUR-DEVELOPER-KEY&size=medium&url=”+”$1″);})())

6. Replace DEVELOPER-KEY-GOES-HERE with your PageGlimpse developer key and save.

7. Go to whatever site you want e.g. http://andywibbels.com/

8 Click on Create Thumbnail.

9. PageGlimpse will create a screen capture.

10. Save the image or Add it to a post.

Note: you can replace the size variable to small, medium or large.

This means that every time you take a screenshot with this tool, all the thumbnails will be the same size. No more time-wasting in Paint, Photoshop or whatever.

How it works behind the scenes

The PageGlimpse web service is a REST service, meaning that you can construct request URLs that will work in your code, in your browser or at the command line.

The REST access to the PageGlimpse service is simply an HTTP GET or POST request (RFC2616). The service parameters are passed as simple HTTP parameters.

All request URLs start with the host-name followed by the API version number and resemble the following code:

PageGlimpse http://images.pageglimpse.com/v1/

Andy Wilbbles: http://andywibbels.com/2009/07/instant-site-thumbnails-for-your-posts-using-pageglimpse/

If you know a better way to do this, please let me know. It takes about 5 min to get setup and then you’re flying. Let me know if you have any problems getting it working.

I’m thinking of updating the site and creating printer friendly pages. This seems like a good idea as we have lots of tutorials and such that people (like you!) might want to print out. So, how do you create printer friendly pages?

[ad#adc-2]

‘Providing separate stylesheets for printing a web page was good idea in theory, but in practice it all falls down.’

The idea here is to involve server-side script (PHP and ASP based systems) which will reload the target page and replace regular CSS file with stylesheet especially suitable for printing an article, entry, post or whatever.

To make stylesheet for printing, decide what parts of your layout are not likely to be printed (like various banners, navigation etc.). The simplest way to hide them is to define them as display: none;. If you are not familiar with stylesheets for print read more about it. Anyway, keep it simple—black text on the white background, with a font-size: 12pt; is a good start. When you’re done with it, continue reading.

Maratz.com seems to have the best solution. Here’s how it works:

Setting up the Query

Now that we have all client-side ingredients in place, we can put it all together. First, we have to add a link somewhere around the article, for example:

<h1>Title of the article</h1>

<p>Lorem ipsum…</p>

<a href=”?q=printme”>printer friendly version</a>

It literally means we are requesting this same page, but with a query q=printme. To make our page recognizes what we are asking it, we have to add somewhere in the <head> section some logic, something like:

“If i’m asked to ‘printme’—i’ll load my printing stylesheet, and if i’m not asked anything—i’ll load my default CSS file.”

Depending of your preferences there are two scripts—PHP and ASP. Backup your HTML file and replace the part where you called your CSS file with one of the following examples.

PHP print script

<?php if ($_GET['q'] == “printme”) { ?>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”print.css” />

<?php } else { ?>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”default.css” />

<?php } ?>

ASP print script

<% If Request.QueryString(“q”) = “printme” Then %>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”print.css” />

<% Else %>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”default.css” />

<% End if %>

You can read the full article over here:

http://www.maratz.com/blog/archives/2004/09/21/10-minutes-to-printer-friendly-page/

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh

Templates: http://www.klariti.com

Tips:  http://www.ivanwalsh.com

I’m thinking of updating the site and creating printer friendly pages. This seems like a good idea as we have lots of tutorials and such that people (like you!) might want to print out. So, how do you create printer friendly pages?

[ad#adc-2]

‘Providing separate stylesheets for printing a web page was good idea in theory, but in practice it all falls down.’

The idea here is to involve server-side script (PHP and ASP based systems) which will reload the target page and replace regular CSS file with stylesheet especially suitable for printing an article, entry, post or whatever.

To make stylesheet for printing, decide what parts of your layout are not likely to be printed (like various banners, navigation etc.). The simplest way to hide them is to define them as display: none;. If you are not familiar with stylesheets for print read more about it. Anyway, keep it simple—black text on the white background, with a font-size: 12pt; is a good start. When you’re done with it, continue reading.

Maratz.com seems to have the best solution. Here’s how it works:

Setting up the Query

Now that we have all client-side ingredients in place, we can put it all together. First, we have to add a link somewhere around the article, for example:

<h1>Title of the article</h1>

<p>Lorem ipsum…</p>

<a href=”?q=printme”>printer friendly version</a>

It literally means we are requesting this same page, but with a query q=printme. To make our page recognizes what we are asking it, we have to add somewhere in the <head> section some logic, something like:

“If i’m asked to ‘printme’—i’ll load my printing stylesheet, and if i’m not asked anything—i’ll load my default CSS file.”

Depending of your preferences there are two scripts—PHP and ASP. Backup your HTML file and replace the part where you called your CSS file with one of the following examples.

PHP print script

<?php if ($_GET['q'] == “printme”) { ?>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”print.css” />

<?php } else { ?>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”default.css” />

<?php } ?>

ASP print script

<% If Request.QueryString(“q”) = “printme” Then %>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”print.css” />

<% Else %>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”default.css” />

<% End if %>

You can read the full article over here:

http://www.maratz.com/blog/archives/2004/09/21/10-minutes-to-printer-friendly-page/

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh

Templates: http://www.klariti.com

Tips:  http://www.ivanwalsh.com

In this week’s process modeling tutorial, I’m going to look at what do I need to capture in my business process. Some of you have written in asking for more background on what you need to capture in your process maps. Needless to say, it depends on the complexity of the project, but, at a minimum, you’re looking to capture the following.

Business Process Design Template

So, let’s start at the top.

• You need to capture some of the following when developing your processes:
• Time to perform each task
• Time an individual or a resource is available to perform a task
• Cost of the individual/resource
• Probability of occurrence of certain events
• Frequency at which new incidents in the business process are initiated

This is just a starter of what you need to cover. If you need to know more please drop me a line of look under the Process Design section of the site.

FYI: Business Process Design Templates

You can download the completed version of these business process templates over here: http://www.klariti.com/business-process-design-template/.

As I mentioned above, we’ve partnered with Klariti Ltd (www.klariti.com) and released some very detailed Microsoft Word and Visio templates. These are on sale for only $9.99 until month end – it’s the promotional price – and after that they go back up to $29.99. They include process narratives (Word) process maps (Visio) and Excel spreadsheets for controlling your projects.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter / Facebook / Flickr / Templates / Tips

In this week’s process modeling tutorial, I’m going to look at what do I need to capture in my business process. Some of you have written in asking for more background on what you need to capture in your process maps. Needless to say, it depends on the complexity of the project, but, at a minimum, you’re looking to capture the following.

Business Process Design Template

So, let’s start at the top.

• You need to capture some of the following when developing your processes:
• Time to perform each task
• Time an individual or a resource is available to perform a task
• Cost of the individual/resource
• Probability of occurrence of certain events
• Frequency at which new incidents in the business process are initiated

This is just a starter of what you need to cover. If you need to know more please drop me a line of look under the Process Design section of the site.

FYI: Business Process Design Templates

You can download the completed version of these business process templates over here: http://www.klariti.com/business-process-design-template/.

As I mentioned above, we’ve partnered with Klariti Ltd (www.klariti.com) and released some very detailed Microsoft Word and Visio templates. These are on sale for only $9.99 until month end – it’s the promotional price – and after that they go back up to $29.99. They include process narratives (Word) process maps (Visio) and Excel spreadsheets for controlling your projects.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter / Facebook / Flickr / Templates / Tips

Charlene Li and her colleagues at Forrester Research report that companies often approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — ie a random assortment of blogs, communities etc— to achieve a marketing goal. Ms Li argues that “a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.”

You can use the tool here to get started. www.forrester.com/Groundswell

Features of this profile:

• For an explanation of these groups (Creators, Critics, etc.), see a presentation (8 slides)

• Bars indicate the percentage of the selected demographic that are in each Social Technographics group.

• The white marks indicate the same percentages for the whole population of the country selected.

• The index indicates how the demographic compares to the population — a score of 100 means the demographic is the same as the population average.

• The message “No data available” appears when you request a profile for which our survey samples are not large enough to provide a reliable answer. This occurs for age groups in Japan, Metro China, and South Korea. To see profiles in these countries, set the Age to “Not specified”.

Some really terrific material over here including free case studies, PDF downloads and extracts from the book.

If you’ve read it, please let me know what you think.

Regards,

Ivan

and you can Twitter me @ivanwalsh

Note: Any use of data and charts generated from this site must include the following citation: Data from Forrester Research Technographics® surveys, 2008. For further details on the Social Technographics profile, see groundswell.forrester.com.

Charlene Li and her colleagues at Forrester Research report that companies often approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — ie a random assortment of blogs, communities etc— to achieve a marketing goal. Ms Li argues that “a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.”

You can use the tool here to get started. www.forrester.com/Groundswell

Features of this profile:

• For an explanation of these groups (Creators, Critics, etc.), see a presentation (8 slides)

• Bars indicate the percentage of the selected demographic that are in each Social Technographics group.

• The white marks indicate the same percentages for the whole population of the country selected.

• The index indicates how the demographic compares to the population — a score of 100 means the demographic is the same as the population average.

• The message “No data available” appears when you request a profile for which our survey samples are not large enough to provide a reliable answer. This occurs for age groups in Japan, Metro China, and South Korea. To see profiles in these countries, set the Age to “Not specified”.

Some really terrific material over here including free case studies, PDF downloads and extracts from the book.

If you’ve read it, please let me know what you think.

Regards,

Ivan

and you can Twitter me @ivanwalsh

Note: Any use of data and charts generated from this site must include the following citation: Data from Forrester Research Technographics® surveys, 2008. For further details on the Social Technographics profile, see groundswell.forrester.com.

We reviewed PerfectIt last month and were impressed with its ability to edit and test our documents.

Daniel Heuman, the founder of Intelligent Editing Ltd has prepared this tutorial that goes into more detail and show some of the ways you can get more out of this editing product. Here’s Daniel.

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PerfectIt does not require any kind of configuration. Once you install it, you can use it straight away to find mistakes in any MS Word document.

This article is for users who want to get even more out of PerfectIt by fine-tuning it to search for particular errors or to enforce a style guide.

Fine-tuning PerfectIt

You can set your rules for how PerfectIt checks:

• Hyphenation
• Common typos
• Numbers in sentences
• Spelling variations
• Keywords left in the body of text
• Use of capital letters
• Punctuation of bullets and lists
• Capitals in bullets and lists

There are two ways to build your rules into PerfectIt, you can add them organically when PerfectIt runs or you can use the configuration screen.

Common Errors in English Usage

Organic fine-tuning

The easiest way to add rules for checking is to teach PerfectIt your preferences as you use it. When PerfectIt finds an error, just click the “Customise Test” menu to either exclude that from future searches or build a rule for checking it.

For example, if PerfectIt states that an abbreviation appears in two forms: “NASA” and “N.A.S.A.”, you can use the menus to specify that “NASA” is always preferred. After that, PerfectIt will prompt for any instance of “N.A.S.A.” with any document you test.

You can specify an even wider set of rules by using the configuration screen. To load the configuration screen, select “Advanced…” from the “Customise Test” menu. This will provide options for setting your own checking rules. For example, to specify that semi-colons are the preferred punctuation for short bullet points, choose “Settings for Lists, Numbers and Compounds”, then choose “Punctuate Short Items”, then select “A Semi-Colon” from the drop down menu. Save your changes and PerfectIt will notify you if it finds any bullet points with other types of punctuation.

The advantage of customised versions of PerfectIt

It is possible to share configurations between computers – just copy the files ‘CustomExclusionLists’ and ‘CustomFindLists’ from one computer to another. However, for organisations, the best way to ensure that rules are standardised across computers is to have Intelligent Editing prepare a customised version for you. Intelligent Editing will scan your library for inconsistencies and review those with you. Then we’ll build a version of PerfectIt that is custom-designed for your organisation. We’ll include all of your preferences and supply you with a version that is built for the specifics of your style guide.

Conclusion

Style guides are important documents that all too often go ignored. With PerfectIt, you can quickly and easily check that reports, articles, contracts and proposals are all aligned with your style guide. You can build in the checking that is most important to you and ensure that documents are reviewed completely for the mistakes that matter most. To try PerfectIt for free, download it now.

About the Author

Daniel Heuman, Founder, Intelligent Editing Ltd.

Intelligent Editing Ltd specializes in software solutions that deliver faster, more accurate editing for professionals. http://intelligentediting.com

I’ve been reading this book most of the weekend. It’s a terrific exploration of social media and how social media technologies are effecting corporations and companies from a business perspective. I thought you might want look at these links as these are the footnotes to the book and provide some very interesting material. Worth a look if you’re trying to get a handle on how twitter, facebook and the rest will impact your profit margin.

Another part of the process design package is the flowchart diagrams. One area where I’m getting a little stuck is deciding how many swim lanes to add to the Visio diagrams. To get things rolling I have created three Visio diagrams with 2, 3 and 4 swim lanes. Take a look here.

The question is: which one will be business analysts use the most?

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter @ivanwalsh

This morning I’ve been putting the finishing touches on some Process Design Template. The final step is the packaging, including the product shots and other marketing materials. Something I thought I’d share with you is how I take screenshots and especially tricks I use to add some nice effects.
The first image is the standard screenshot.

In the next I used Techsmith’s Snagit to modify the image so that it has this nice effect.

And then I flip it around in the other direction.

Let me know how you take screenshots and what tricks you’ve found to be most effective.

Regards,
Ivan
Twitter @ivanwalsh

I’ve been working on SEO (search engine optimization) code this weekend, mostly for my Word Tips site and also with a client.

I do some freelance WordPress work here in China where corporate blogging is now taking off.

During lunch we got talking about different SEO tricks, amongst which was the ‘no-follow’ attribute.

This was new to my colleagues, so I gathered some material from Wikipedia and sent it to them. FWIW here’s how it works.

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nofollow is an HTML attribute value used to instruct some
search engines that a hyperlink should not influence the link
target’s ranking in the search engine’s index. It is intended to
reduce the effectiveness of certain types of search engine spam,
thereby improving the quality of search engine results and
preventing spam-indexing from occurring.

Concept and specification

The concept for the specification of the attribute value
nofollow was designed by Matt Cutts (Google) and
Jason Shellen from Blogger.com in 2005. The specification for
nofollow is copyrighted 2005-2007 by the authors
and subject to a royalty free patent policy, e.g. per the W3C
Patent Policy 20040205

What nofollow is not for

The nofollow attribute value is not meant for
blocking access to content, or for preventing content to be
indexed by search engines. The proper methods for blocking
search engine spiders to access content on a website or for
preventing them to include the content of a page in their index
are the robots.txt for blocking access and on-page Meta Elements
that are designed to specify on an individual page level what a
search engine spider should or should not do with the content of
the crawled page.

Google Take Action

In 2005 Google announced that hyperlinks with rel="nofollow"
attribute would not influence the link target’s PageRank. In
addition, the Yahoo and Windows Live search engines also respect
this attribute.

How the attribute is being interpreted differs between the
search engines. While some take it literally and do not follow
the link to the page being linked to, others still “follow” the
link to find new web pages for indexing.

In the latter case rel="nofollow" actually tells
a search engine “Don’t score this link” rather than “Don’t
follow this link.” This differs from the meaning of
nofollow as used within a robots meta tag, which
does tell a search engine: “Do not follow any of the
hyperlinks in the body of this document.”.

Interpretation by the individual
search engines

While all engines that support the attribute exclude links
that use the attribute from their ranking calculation, the
details about the exact interpretation of the attribute vary
from search engine to search engine.

• Google states that their engine takes “nofollow” literally and does not “follow” the link at all. However, experiments conducted by SEOs show conflicting results. These studies reveal that Google does follow the link, but does not index the linked-to page, unless it was in Google’s
  index already for other reasons.
• Yahoo “follows it”, but excludes it from their ranking calculation.
• MSN respects “nofollow” as regards not counting the link in their ranking, but it is not proven whether or not MSN follows the link.
• Ask.com ignores the attribute altogether.

Other websites like

Slashdot, with high user participation, use improvised nofollow implementations like adding rel="nofollow" only for potentially misbehaving users.

Potential spammers posing as users can be determined through various heuristics like age of registered account and other factors. Slashdot also uses the poster’s karma as a determinant in attaching a nofollow tag to user submitted links.

Websites that don’t use the rel="nofollow" tag include Digg, Furl, and My Web 2.0.

Paid links

Search engines have attempted to repurpose the nofollow attribute for something different.

Google began suggesting the use of nofollow also as a machine-readable
disclosure for paid links, so that these links do not get credit in search engines’ results.

The growth of the link buying economy, where companies’ entire business models are based on paid links that affect search engine rankings, caused the debate about the use of nofollow in combination with paid links to move into the center of attention of the search engines, who started to take active steps against link buyers and sellers.

Control internal PageRank flow

Search engine optimization professionals started using the nofollow attribute to control the flow of PageRank within a website. This practice is known as PageRank sculpting. This is an entirely different use than it was
intended originally.

Nofollow was designed to control the flow of PageRank from one website to another.

However, some SEOs have suggested that a nofollow used for an internal link should work just like nofollow used for external links.

Several SEOs have suggested that pages such as “About Us”, ”Terms of Service”, “Contact Us”, and “Privacy Policy” pages are not important enough to earn PageRank, and so should have  nofollow on internal links pointing to them.

If you have any thoughts on this, please let me know.

Snagit has an eye dropper tool that makes it easy to match colors in your capture. Here’s how to use it:

Get more Snagit tips on Twitter @SnagitTips.

Here’s a roundup of some of this week’s news. Next week, I’ll add more info on upcoming XML authoring software releases and the new Google Wave platform.
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Adobe launches Flash Catalyst tool for rapid UI design

Adobe launched the beta release of Flash Catalyst, a new authoring tool that aims to accelerate the development of rich user interfaces with Flash. The authoring tool is a response to growing demand for more polished enterprise applications. It is intended to complement Adobe’s Flex development tool, which the company has rebranded as Flash Builder.

http://arstechnica.com

Google Docs now supports MS Office 2007 file formats

Google added support for Microsoft’s Word and Excel 2007 default file formats to its online Docs office suite. Support for PowerPoint 2007’s file format remains out in the cold. The firm has added .docx and .xlsx to the list of file formats Google Docs accepts for uploading documents.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/

How to Write Release Notes?
Our partners site, Klariti.com, released a series of articles on how to write release notes. “Release Notes cover what’s new, download and installation instructions, known issues and frequently asked questions. Creating Release Notes is fairly straightforward. Create a Release Notes template and re-use it on each release.”

http://www.klariti.com/release-notes-templates/how-to-create-release-notes.shtml

Jing Pro Released to mixed reviews
Techsmith, the makers of Snagit and Camtasia, two of my favorite technical writing tools, released a premium version of Jing, it’s online screen capture software. Feedback was mixed from the tech writing community.

Official Jing blog here: http://blog.jingproject.com and our review over
http://www.ivanwalsh.com/2009/06/review-jing-pro-–-record-hd-quality-videos-for-youtube/

5 Things I Want to Know about Project Natal

Microsoft released Project Natal, a motion sensing device that allows you to control video games and Xbox 360 menus with your body instead of a peripheral controller. Natal gives you voice and full-body motion control over your on-screen avatar using an RGB camera, depth sensor, multi-array microphone, and custom processor running proprietary software. Microsoft released the Project Natal software development kit to game makers who want to incorporate Natal functionality into their products.

http://www.pcworld.com

Hulu Desktop for Mac, PC

Hulu Labs lets you play with new products and services as they are almost ready for prime time. Among the new toys of everyone’s favorite piracy-busting online video service is Hulu Desktop, a bona fide client for the service running on both Mac OS X and Windows computers. Hulu Desktop delivers Hulu straight to your desktop with no browser required (though you will need Flash installed). Hulu Desktop is wrapped with a media-center-like bow, with a customized “lean-back” UI that can run full screen and even respond to Apple Remotes and Windows Media Center remotes.

Microsoft select St. Paul for Silverlight Offices

Gita Sitaramiah reports that Microsoft has leased space at Wells Fargo Place in St. Paul, for a software development office. The tech giant had also considered locating in Minneapolis, where it currently is operating in temporary quarters. Initially, Microsoft is leasing around 12,000 square feet of space on the 24th floor of the Wells Fargo tower, employing 26 people at the start. The St. Paul office is a key part of Microsoft’s intent to build around Silverlight, a Web browser application that competes with Adobe Flash.

http://www.twincities.com/ci_12511706?source=most_emailed

Review of Groundswell – Winning in a world transformed by social technologies

Groundswell was our book of the week and well worth a look if you want to get an insight into how social media works on a business level. In other words: how to make money from social media. Customers are writing about your products on blogs and recutting your commercials on YouTube.

They’re defining you on Wikipedia and ganging up on you in social networking sites like Facebook. These are all elements of a social phenomenon — the groundswell — that has created a permanent, long-lasting shift in the way the world works. Most companies see it as a threat. You can see it as an opportunity.”

http://www.ivanwalsh.com/2009/06/review-of-groundswell-winning-in-a-world-transformed-by-social-technologies/

Why Google Squared Makes Bing Look Good

Google Squared is a specialized search engine that creates meaningful data from large data sources and lets you compare this information by adding different attributes. Think Excel+Wikipedia+Search Engine = Google Squared. This is not Google’s finest hour by any means. Take a look at some of the results it produced.

http://www.ivanwalsh.com/2009/06/google-squared-confirm-that-richard-nixon-was-a-quaker-obama-is-a-zombie-president/

Linux/Java-based Android platform to the MIPS architecture

Technical writers with an interest in Android and open source may be interested in this. Embedded Alley completed its port of the Linux/Java-based Android platform to the MIPS architecture. The Embedded Alley Development System for Android-based Devices initially targets devices ranging from set-top boxes (STBs) to industrial equipment running the MIPS-based RMI Au1250 processor. The Embedded Alley Development System for Android-based Devices is available now. http://www.linuxdevices.com

DITA webinar
FierceContentManagement are putting on a webinar on Thursday June 11th at 2:00 pm ET called Using DITA to Streamline Your Workflow. The webinar is sponsored by Just Systems and features Gilbane Group analysts and DITA experts, Bill Trippe and Dale Waldt.

http://www.fiercecontentmanagement.com

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Jing Pro lets you take a screenshot or create a HD quality  screen recording of what you see on your PC.

You can then share it by pasting a link to the content in your email, post it on forums, tweet it on Twitter, publish to Facebook, Flickr, or YouTube.

This review looks at the new features in the professional version and how it compares against the free product. We liked everything except for 1 thing – and it wasn’t the price.
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Price

$15 per year

Pro v Free

There are 2 versions of Jing – Free and Pro. Today, we’re looking at the new Pro version which costs $15 per year.

What can you do with Jing Pro?

Tony Dunckel at Techsmith describes the differences between the Free and professional version, “you can provide a quick “in person” intro to your videos, send “video postcards” to your kids away at school, or even show off your latest big purchase to your friends by recording with your webcam.”

He then provides some interesting tips on how to use Jing.

Easy Region Selection

Hold down the Ctrl or Shift while selecting the area to record and the selector will maintain standard aspect ratios of 4:3 or 16:9 for widescreen.

This ‘easy region selection’ lets you choose any dimension you want while locked to the set aspect ratio. Or you can snap to a standard present dimension such as 320×240 or 640×480, etc.

Share to Different Screencast.com Folders

You can setup new folders on Screencast.com and create new buttons for each different folder (Jing allows up to 8 unique buttons). This helps organize your work and maintain projects in different folders.

Output to Snagit & Camtasia Studio

Use Jing Pro to take the screenshot and then send the image/video to Snagit or Camtasia Studio where you can edit it.

Aspect Ratio

You can stop wasting time resizing images. Instead Jing screen captures can be configured to automatically fit into your blog, website. Nice time-saving tool.

New folders in Screencast.com

After you have taken the video, you can save it on Screencast.com. This is what generates the URL that you then share with your colleagues

It now lets you organize things a bit better with online folders.

MPEG-4/H.264 format

Jing Pro uses MPEG-4/H.264 format, which should improve the quality of your videos on sites YouTube, Vimeo and Viddler.

Publish to YouTube

You can now automatically send your videos to YouTube.

No more Jing logos

Jing logos are no longer displayed at the start and end of videos.

Webcam

Add an introduction or show the object you’re discussing by switching between webcam and screen recording. The webcam feature is now available in Jing Pro 2.1

Othere Key features

• Screenshots directly to Snagit where you can edit the image.

• Publish it Screencast.com where you can store, file, organize and track the videos.

• Edit Jing created screencasts in Camtasia Studio. You can also combine multiple videos into a single video, or string several together with a table of contents.

• Create different Jing folders on Screencast.com, by topic/project/client.

• Adjust the video’s size to fit your blog or website.

• Centralize conversations and comments with the new commenting feature.

• Annotate captured images with arrows, callouts, text and highlights to add emphasis

• Narrate Jing-recorded screencast videos for even greater clarity before sharing

• Generate HTML code to so you can embed it on your blog or website

• Customize the sharing buttons so those they use most are only a click away.

• Screencasts are delivered in HD-quality video for the Web

• Jing logos and links are removed from the start and end of newly-recorded videos.

• Publish directly to YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler and MSN Video, Flickr

• Jing Pro produces MPEG-4 AVC video files for Flash delivery with H.264+AAC compression.

System Requirements

Windows – XP or Vista; Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0; 3.0GHz Pentium 4 processor; 1GB RAM

Mac – Mac OS X 10.4.11, or 10.5.5+; QuickTime 7.5.5+; 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor; 2GB RAM

Jing Pro comes with a free Screencast.com account that provides 2 GB of storage and 2 GB of bandwidth transfer monthly.

Limitations

There are some limitation and restrictions on Jing Pro.

Here’s a few to start with.

• It doesn’t let you edit proxy settings within the JING application. So, if you are behind a firewall or need to reconfigure on the road, it may get tricky.

• You can’t use it as a standalone app without connecting to Screencast.com.

• You need to be online as it’s web-based. Fine at work but not much good when you don’t have web access or if the web goes down.

• When it does go down, you need to re-enter your username and password again. This became such a pain for me that I stopped using it and went back to SnagIt.

• There is still a 5 minute limitation. So, if you’ve video is more than this, you’re out of luck.

The Pro version is fine if you don’t want to upgrade to Camtasia Studio but want an easy-to-use video-capturing software, for sharing videos on YouTube/Facebook.

Jing is very good at what it does and for $15 per year is not so expensive.

For light-weight users, the Free version should be fine. You can take nice screenshots, small videos and upload to Screencast.com which also offers 2 GB of storage space.

On the downside, the Free version support only SWF format while Jing Pro supports SWF ands MPEG-4 video, which is required for YouTube HD.

If you really want a powerful video-editing app, maybe look at Camtasia instead. This is the industry standard in video capturing and worth the money.

If this is all new to you, sign up for the free version and play around. If you still like it – and use it after a few months – then consider upgrading.

The bottom line – Should I buy the Pro version?

No.

Of all the limitations the 5 minute restriction is the biggest barrier. Actually, this is the main reason I have not signed up. If this was raised to 15 minutes, then yes, I’d signup. But 5 minutes is too short!

Simon makes this point on the blog:

“In the above “94 Comments” 5 min is mentioned over 50 times … I think that you should listen to the user group and as I stated before: “drop the time limit on the Pro version and you will make conversions of people from free version to Pro version, and at the end of the day some $$$”

Matt adds “great job with the Jing project. The idea for allowing users to cut down videos to 5 minutes is a good alternative. The problem you may face is losing the beauty of simplicity that Jing offers and still leaves the 5 minute constraint.”

Tony Dunckel and his team have done a terrific job on this application. Most all products from Techsmith are exceptional – Jing Pro is no different.

Don’t take my word for it.

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This case study describes how Applied Voice & Speech Technologies, Inc. (AVST) significantly streamlined its delivery of documentation and training materials with MadCap Flare.

Results of Case Study

AVST reduced documentation and training project time by 50% with MadCap Flare.

Using MadCap’s multi-channel publishing software, AVST no longer needs to use four applications to create the Administrator’s Guide, Online Help, and Training Guide.

Instead, Flare generates the content for all three AVST deliverables. The single-source publishing capabilities in Flare also have removed the need for AVST to purchase a content management system (CMS) costing tens of thousands of dollars more.

Aims of Case Study

"With MadCap, the output for all three deliverables is virtually flawless. Headings, the table of contents, cover page, and other elements all appear automatically without any manual manipulation after the fact," said Chris Sullivan, AVST director of training and documentation. "Moreover, because our content updates occur in a single project, rather than four separate projects, the resulting output is generated in just a few minutes – saving us hours of updates, edits, revisions, and formatting."

Reasons for Changing to MadCap Flare

For more than 25 years, AVST has produced a range of business communications applications, each of which requires administrator documentation, a training guide, and online Help system.

Prior to implementing Flare, Sullivan recalled, "It was tedious. Every time we had new information, we had to update the content fields in several applications. Compounding matters, some of our documentation was localized in 13 different languages, and those localizations had to be completed using these different applications. It was an extremely complex process."

"Now, by producing all three documentation deliverables in a single Flare project, we’re seeing immediate savings," Sullivan says. "We simply have reviewers provide their feedback in a Word document, and we incorporate the changes into Flare. Similarly, translations are now completed using a single Flare project. Not only are these processes faster, they’re also more accurate."

Cost Savings

AVST recently completed a cost savings analysis for producing single-sourced documentation with Flare.

• The Online Help, which provided the core content, took 190 hours to develop, review, revise and produce.
• Previously, completing the Administrator’s Guide and Administrator’s Training Guide would then require another 99.2 hours each (198.4 hours total).
• However, because AVST was able to repurpose 50 percent of the topics in Flare, the documents only took 8.3 hours each (16.6 hours total) to produce, resulting in a total savings of 181.8 hours.

With project-related labor costs averaging $50 per hour, AVST was able to save $9,088 producing one set of documentation.

The AVST analysis does not account for the added benefit of eliminating the need for a Content Management System (CMS), which would have added tens of thousands of dollars in license fees and hundreds of person-hours.

"The cost evaluation showed that our copies of MadCap Flare basically paid for themselves with just one set of single-sourced documentation," Sullivan said. "Equally important, our writers are achieving faster delivery to support the many tight turnaround situations we face each year."

Flare’s Most Valuable Features

Widely used features in Flare include variables and conditional tables of contents. Variables have significantly cut the time it takes to customize documentation for its OEM partner, changing all of the names in order to re-brand the materials. Meanwhile conditional tables of contents for topics mean AVST simply needs to hide topics that the company is not using for the print version or vice versa. AVST also makes extensive use of pop-ups to give readers the option of expanded in-line text.

Next Steps

AVST is now starting to use MadCap XEdit to further streamline the review process and keep all edits and comments in a single project. Following that, AVST also plans to implement the MadCap Team Server, which will facilitate collaboration among the company’s distributed team of writers.