Notice - Change of Venue

Find all future posts here:

http://applicationswhisperer.posterous.com/

And a cool new landing page:

http://appswhisperer.com/

Best New Application for Building your Personal Brand - Magntize

If you're interested in marketing yourself (and who isn't nowadays), but don't have the time/inclination/skills to build a website, check out http://magntize.com/  

In minutes, I set up a site that's attractive, easily navigated and personal. The result? It's all about me (my skills, contact information, photo, blog feed, twitter feed, links to sites), here: http://appswhisperer.com.  

It's a needed solution to a problem most of us have, and it's free. What's not to like?

Adventures in PC Repair

A few months ago, my faithful (six year-old) Sony VAIO TR3AP laptop started behaving badly. At first, it just shutdown without warning, and after a restart, it was just fine.


The problem progressed until the PC would stay up and running for only an hour, before shutting down. So, I ran through all the usual troubleshooting tricks:

• chkdsk
• defrag
• update MS Windows
• antivirus/spam/malware scan
• full backup
• reinstall MS Windows XP OS

Still no joy. Then, I noticed something. It was quiet. Too quiet. The fan wasn't running, and the base was toasty.

Ok, I thought, this is a problem I can fix. I opened the laptop, and 47 miniature phillips-head screws later, removed the culprit - the heatsink fan. With a model number in hand, I found a (refurbished) replacement part online. I could tell it was refurbished because, when it arrived, it was dusty and cobwebby. But, no matter, I was assured by the vendor that this was a functioning fan.

So, another hour and something less than 47 miniature phillips-head screws later, I had reassembled the laptop enough that I could plug it in and test the fan, but without the pesky cover, keyboard and bezel in place  (I needed to see that it worked). 

It didn't. The fan, I mean. But the laptop happily booted up. Then shut down. 

A scientist by training, I propose a theory, test it, refine, rinse and repeat until a solution is found. That said, the problem could only be heat-related.
What to do? Move the test lab to the kitchen, where I had access to a butter knife and two packages of frozen peas.



I placed the butter knife under the fan (under the printed circuit board) and against the metal heat sink, while balancing the handle between the bags of frozen peas.

Voila! The laptop happily booted up, I was able to connect to the wireless network and I had a functioning laptop again. The PC continues to work, so long as I keep the peas and butter knife configuration - without that, it's more of an art piece than anything else.

ESL and Functional Specifications: What Technical Writers Do, Part 2

Thank goodness for the  engineers I work with. Without them, there would be no specifications at  all. Then again, the functional specifications can take quite a while to  interpret:

"For the fields  which are created automatically when an object is created, the field property  will be the property configured in the Field Visibility if the Field Visibility  is other than Visible"

Welcome to my  world!

Upcoming posts

• Adventures in PC repair
• "I don't want to die in a car with you"
• Thoughtful articles:
  -  NY Times: Understanding the Anxious Mind
  -  Caring for Your Introvert
• Applications I can't live without:
  -  Gimp (open source photo capture/editor)
  -  threadsy
  -  twitter
  -  facebook
  -  hulu

This is What Technical Writers Do

I spent the better part of the afternoon converting engineering specs into a concise guide. See the Before and After: 

Before, wordy and unclear:

After, clear and concise with art and whitespace:

Everything is a Project

If there's one lesson to learn early in your career, it's that everything is a project.

Don't believe me? Consider something you need to do:

• Bake a cake
• Buy a computer
• Build a website, marketing program, API, CMS, HRIS, UX, SOA, etc.

Everything is a project, because to accomplish any of these things, we follow these steps:

1. Break it down into manageable parts
2. Do each bit in a reasonable time
3. Ask for help if you get stuck

These easy steps are the foundation of Project Management. Couple that with the Project Triangle (time, resources and work), and you know that:

• Time marches on
• Resources are people [, tools or $$$]
• Work hard, play hard

It's important to remember is that while Work and Resources may grow or shrink, Time, once spent, is gone forever. So, make it work!