10 Tips for Tech-WritersWritten by Glenn Murray
Tech-writing is a tricky business. It’s not a very high profile industry, so there’s not much support around. Follow these 10 quick tips, and you’ll be well on your way to a satisfying tech-writing career.Follow a sensible career path… STEP 1: Start in a team STEP 2: Stay only just long enough STEP 3: Manage yourself STEP 4: Manage a team STEP 5: Go contracting (depends on market) Knowledge is your lifeblood – learn politics of your company. Know who knows what. Find someone who consistently gives you timely, reliable, technically accurate answers, and get their name tattooed on your shoulder! Every company has at least one. And they may not be in project manager/product manager/customer/programmer roles. They are generally people who’ve used product in real world, and dealt with real world customers. Communicate WITH, not AT. Tech-writers don’t have enough power to get away with communicating at. Track stuff (take spreadsheet printout and write it up on board). Develop good product and domain knowledge – The more you can figure out for yourself, better off you’ll be (and more respect you’ll get from techies).
| | 10 Time Saving Keyboard ShortcutsWritten by Steve Robson
Time is money. And when you constantly have to divide your time between your mouse and your keyboard, your workflow rate really slows down.That's particularly true when you're working on a laptop, where pointing device is even slower. The answer - short of growing another arm - is to learn a few "handy" keyboard shortcuts. Here are 10 of best: 1. Make a quick exit: ALT - F4 will terminate any program immediately. 2. Flick - don't click: ALT - TAB to flick through open programs. 3. Make a quick selection: CTRL - SHIFT and move cursor with left / right / up / down arrows to quickly select areas of text. 4. Cut, copy and paste to chase: CTRL - X / C / V to cut, copy and paste selected text. 5. Undo what you've done:
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