I’d Rather Be Writing - Tom Johnson

Podcast: Debunking the Boredom Myth of Technical Writing

Monday, November 3rd, 2008 Posted in Tech Writer Voices | 2 Comments »

[audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://idratherbewriting.com/podcasts/byuidaho.mp3] Download MP3 (to download, right-click and select Save Target As) Duration: 55 min. Several weeks ago I wrote about my trip to Brigham Young University-Idaho and the presentation I gave there titled ... Read more..

Seamlessly Integrating a Blog into Your Non-Blog Website

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 Posted in Web Design | 8 Comments »

Last weekend I was asked by someone to set up a WordPress blog that would integrate well with his existing site, familyinnewyork.com. I looked at the site and asked why ... Read more..

Caught in the Current of Writer River: Building and Participating in Community-Driven Websites

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 Posted in Web 2.0 | 3 Comments »

A couple of years ago I went through a Digg phase. I listened to the Diggnation podcast and set my home page to the most popular posts of the day ... Read more..

WordPress and Podcasting — Wordcamp Utah

Saturday, September 27th, 2008 Posted in WordPress | 2 Comments »

Thom Allen presented on WordPress and Podcasting at Wordcamp Utah. Below are my notes, which I mostly took from his slides. See Thom's full presentation here. Preparing Your Podcast Capture extensive metadata ... Read more..

WordPress 2.7 and Beyond – Keynote by Matt Mullenweg at Wordcamp Utah 2008

Saturday, September 27th, 2008 Posted in WordPress | 9 Comments »

(live blogged) During some preliminary technical issues … Jane says, "I can feel the nerdiness vibes increase …." And then checks her blog and sees that she just won another bloggy award. Someone ... Read more..

STC-Intermountain Meeting Tonight

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 Posted in STC, WordPress | No Comments »

After a summer hiatus, the Intermountain STC is gathering tonight (Thursday, Sept 18) for another meeting. The topic is on repurposing content for multi-channel publishing. See more details. Read more..

Watch What Happens When You Copy from Word into a Blog Post

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 Posted in Blogging | 6 Comments »

Watch what happens when you copy and paste two sentences from Word into a new blog post. Read more..

Thank You Silahsiz Kuvvetler for Showing Me the Light

Sunday, August 3rd, 2008 Posted in Web 2.0, WordPress | 6 Comments »

I would like to take a moment to publicly thank Silahsiz Kuvvetler, the Turkish Hacker, for bringing down my withering Pligg site, Writer River. Read more..

The Myth of Simplicity and Complexity in Help Authoring

Friday, August 1st, 2008 Posted in Technical Writing, WordPress | 11 Comments »

After my last post in which I criticized WordPress for not hiring a technical writer to make their documentation simpler and more accessible, two things dawned on me. First, I'm ... Read more..

WordPress Tip: Show the Latest Post in Full, Then Summaries of the Other Posts

Thursday, July 31st, 2008 Posted in WordPress | 19 Comments »

Jane has wanted to implement something like Dooce's Daily Chuck, where a new picture appears every day somewhere on the blog but not in the feed. The picture is usually ... Read more..

WordPress’ Biggest Mistake

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 Posted in WordPress | 28 Comments »

[caption id="attachment_1747" align="alignright" width="150" caption="WordPress's Biggest Mistake"][/caption] For a company that recently secured $29 million in funding, has grown from nonexistence to worldwide popularity in just four years, and which has ... Read more..

Organizing Large Photo Collections Online — Use the NextGen Gallery WordPress Plugin

Sunday, July 27th, 2008 Posted in WordPress | 3 Comments »

If you have a lot of photos that you want to organize online, like this site, don't manually embed them into individual html pages. You'll either go insane or your ... Read more..

WordPress Training This Saturday 9 am to Noon

Monday, July 14th, 2008 Posted in WordPress | 3 Comments »

[caption id="attachment_1687" align="alignright" width="150" caption="WordPress Training"][/caption] WordPress Training Course Date: Saturday, July 19 Time: 9 am to noon MST Cost: $99 If you're interested in WordPress training, I'm holding a course this Saturday from 9 ... Read more..

“How can I become a successful TECHNICAL WRITER?”

Sunday, June 15th, 2008 Posted in Answering Questions, Technical Writing | 7 Comments »

K. writes, Dear Mr. Tom Johnson, I am a Post Graduate in English. Recently I am working in a leading public house as writer. How can I become a successful TECHNICAL WRITER? Please ... Read more..

Using WordPress to Build Websites Instead of Blogs

Monday, May 5th, 2008 Posted in WordPress | 24 Comments »

One of the things I like about WordPress is its versatility. WordPress isn't just blogging software. With the right theme, you can build a website that doesn't resemble a blog ... Read more..

My WordPress Quick Start Guide — Now Available on the WordPress Codex

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 Posted in Blogging, WordPress | 16 Comments »

I wrote a WordPress Quick Start Guide in wiki format and posted it on the WordPress Codex. Check it out here: http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Quick_Start_Guide. This guide gives you a quick introduction to the ... Read more..

WordPress for Beginners Course — Wednesday Evening, April 30

Sunday, April 20th, 2008 Posted in Blogging | 9 Comments »

I'm giving a training course on WordPress this Wednesday. If you've been thinking about getting a blog or switching from Blogger to WordPress, this course will help you get up ... Read more..

The Right Way and Wrong Way to Teach People WordPress: Notes from a Wordcamp Utah Planning Meeting at Applebees

Friday, April 11th, 2008 Posted in Blogging, Technical Writing, social networks | 9 Comments »

Tonight I attended a WordCamp Utah planning meeting at Applebees with a group of blogging enthusiasts. Joseph Scott, one of the WordPress developers employed by Automattic, organized the event and is ... Read more..

Keep an Open Mind: Detention Without Amanda Jones Isn’t Necessarily Bad

Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 Posted in Technical Writing, creativity | 1 Comment »

This post is part of Jane's Blog Carnival. The theme this week is the movie Some Kind of Wonderful, a classic 80s high-school movie that my wife quotes from daily. In ... Read more..

Podcast — Transitioning from Technical Writing into Usability

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 Posted in Tech Writer Voices, usability | 5 Comments »

[audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://idratherbewriting.com/podcasts/putkey2.mp3 ] Download MP3 (right-click, select Save Target As) Duration: 30 min. In this podcast, I talk with Theresa Putkey, a usability consultant in Vancouver, about how she transitioned from technical writing into ... Read more..