Wednesday, October 27, 2010

I'm back...again...

Oh, my few loyal readers, did you think I had disappeared forever?

I'm back. Really, I am. Just took a bit of a break from my random nattering which is likely to be as boring as hell, and yet, according to my blog stats, SOMEONE out there is reading (or maybe it's just googlebot indexing my blog for some odd reason).

I was reading some "tips" about how to stay current as a technical writer. Mostly good advice. The problem is, I don't really want to be a modern day technical writer. I liked being the old fashioned kind. You know...the one that wrote the online help and administrator manuals. I liked putting chunks of content together, group huge, dense tracts of text into nice lists, tables, and diagrams.

Alas, that's not the wave of the future. Sigh. Alas, I find the topic of DITA to be a big, boring, blog of blather. Alright, I admit, it has a lot going for it regarding reuse and efficiency. And, perhaps if I had implemented it where I work today, I would be regarded as innovative (but expensive) and maybe I would have a nice content management system that allows me to use content in product documentation AND the web, instead of the crappy process I have to use today. I sort of regret that I took the inexpensive route. And, not using DITA could be a bit job limiting (yes, I'm sure I'll have to find another job within the next couple of years...more about that in another post).

I'm feeling nostalgic for the good, old days of technical writing. Social media, screen casts, video productions...sounds pretty cool and exciting, eh? And yet, I'm having trouble finding the motivation to be bothered with learning all the new stuff.

Perhaps I'm really ready to retire, eh? Too bad I can't afford to do so.

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