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(Podcast: XSL, Flash, and Live Blogging — Interview with Sarah O’Keefe
May 17th, 2008 | Posted in Blogging, Tech Writer Voices, Technical Writing |
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Duration: 15 min.
In this podcast, Sarah O’Keefe talks about XSL, Flash, and live blogging. XSL (extensible stylesheet language) is a programming language that transforms XML content into a specific format, such as HTML. She explains what you can do with XSL, why it’s unique, and how the output is created.
Sarah also presented on Flash. Flash comes easier for people who are visual thinkers, she says. She recommends people learn Adobe Illustrator first, because many of the concepts transfer to Flash. Flash is basically Illustrator with a timeline — a collection of images that combine to form a motion. Flash can be good for animating conceptual topics you’re trying to clarify.
Sarah recently used Flash in a white paper she wrote titled “Friend of Foe: Web 2.0 in Technical Communication.” She embedded Flash videos in the PDF to illustrate concepts and engage readers (although some readers didn’t realize they were supposed to click the Play button).
Finally, Sarah talks about live blogging — the process of posting notes and writeups in almost real time from sessions you attend. Why live blog? She says it’s fun, keeps your attention, and helps you focus on the main point of the presentation.
She also relates some unexpected experiences of presenters who read her live blogs and confronted her about some of her observations.
Sara’s blog is at Palimpsest: http://scriptorium.com/palimpsest/. Her company is called Scriptorium.
Here are a few of Sarah’s latest posts from Doc Train:
- A Quarky new approach?
- In.Vision Xpress Author for Microsoft Word
- Document Engineering in User Experience Design
- Social Media 101 / Now Everyone’s a Technical Writer
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Tags: DITA, Flash, Live Blogging, Sarah O'Keefe, XML, XSL
May 18th, 2008 at 5:48 am
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May 18th, 2008 at 5:51 am
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May 18th, 2008 at 5:54 am
Podcast: XSL, Flash, and Live Blogging Interview with Sarah O Keefetom@idratherbewriting.com (Tom Johnson) BFGTechGeForce 9800 GTX OCX 512MB [Hardware] unknown Evergreen Links 3:Techtips, Blogging And Productivity Abhijeet CondeNast BuysTechNews Site Arstechnica
May 19th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
[...] asked me about the implications of Flash and XSL for technical writers. You can find that podcast here. It was an interesting session — Tom has a knack for asking questions that require (at least in my [...]
May 20th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
[...] Podcast: XSL, Flash, and Live Blogging — Interview with Sarah O’Keefe Sat, 2008-05-17 22:19 Download MP3 Duration: 15 min. [...]
May 24th, 2008 at 4:20 am
[...] Johnson interviews Sarah O’Keefe, Bob Glushko, Noz Urbina, Stewart Mader, David Holmes, and Alan [...]
August 3rd, 2008 at 4:02 am
Podcast: XSL, Flash, and Live Blogging Interview with Sarah O Keefetom@idratherbewriting.com (Tom Johnson) BFGTechGeForce 9800 GTX OCX 512MB [Hardware] unknown Evergreen Links 3:Techtips, Blogging And Productivity Abhijeet CondeNast BuysTechNews Site Arstechnica
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August 12th, 2008 at 11:33 am
thanks for interesting podcast
November 6th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Interesting podcast.There are a number of benefits to having your own blog and running it as a career.Many people are blogging for a living because of how easy it is and how beneficial it can be for you and any business or web sites you may have.
Tom Lindstroms last blog post..7 Ways To Get People To Link To Your Web Site