HamishBlunck.com

Plotting their Escape

Hamish — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:01:00 +0000

Looks like the plan has been foiled :)

Valley Fiesta Photographs

Hamish — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:44:00 +0000

Saw a few awesome sets at the Valley Fiesta: Ball Park Music, Hungry Kids of Hungary, and Madeleine Page. Here are some photos of the afternoon.

Colours of the Australian Bush

Hamish — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:03:00 +0000

Some photos I took on a recent trip just out of Brisbane to Mt Glorious, Somerset Dam, Mt Mee, and Daybro.

Author-it Certified Consultant

Hamish — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:50:00 +0000

I have been recognised by Author-it as an Author-it Certified Consultant.

I have been a technical writer since 1999 and have worked with Author-it since 2005. My first experience with Author-it was leading an implementation project for a 10, 000 page documentation suite. I specialise in customising output for Word, help, and HTML – pushing beyond Author-it’s out-of-the-box look and feel. Another area of interest is getting Author-it to work within the organisation by providing the right processes and procedures (including automating many aspects of authoring and publishing).

I currently provide Author-it consultancy on a freelance basis. If you have any questions about how I can help you, contact me.

Author-it Web Help Configuration Wizard

Hamish — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:31:00 +0000

I have been playing around with the new Author-it Web Help and thought it might be a good idea to have a wizard to do the configuration (instead of hacking the HTML and CSS files). So, I have developed the Author-it Web Help Configuration Wizard.

You will be asked a number of questions about how you want to configure the interface. After you have finished, your personalised configuration files are created for you, which you save into your Author-it templates directory.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Qld Tech Writers Event - Wednesday 2 September 2009

Hamish — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:22:00 +0000

Douglas Jensen is going to be giving an overview of working with Author-it at the next meeting. The following is an outline:

Introduction – general description of the product
Advantages – quick run down on the usefulness and advantages
Disadvantages – quick run down on the down side of the product
List of features and benefits
Quick description of Structured Authoring
Demonstration – import document, add to the document, establish publishing profile, publish to three different formats with one click
Quick discussion of Author-it Live and Author-it Aspect
Summary

Details:

Date: Wednesday, 2 September 2009
Time: 5.15pm for a 5.30pm start.
Venue: Runge, Level 12, 333 Ann Street, Brisbane 4000.
RSVP: Friday 28 August - http://tinyurl.com/mtm23v

Photos: Melbourne

Hamish — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:06:00 +0000

A few photos from our recent weekend in Melbourne.

Author-it User Wiki

Hamish — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 10:16:00 +0000

One of the strengths of the Author-it is the help and support that members of the Author-it User Group provide to each other. But it occurred to me a lot of this useful information is lost and buried in the mountain messages and not captured anywhere. I also thought that it would be useful to have a repository of this great information.

So I have created a wiki to try and capture this information.

The wiki is at http://aitwiki.hamishblunck.com/

I encourage you to add your tips and tricks, your how-to’s, or if you find a great post about Author-it on the web, link to it. Or if you ask a question on the list and you get a useful reply or solution, add it to the wiki.

You will need to register to add or edit content, but anyone can view it.

I guess it is also a bit of a social experiment. Can a group dominated by professional communicators create and maintain a useable wiki? :)

There are also only two guidelines that I would ask people to follow:

Do not post opinions of the product (praise or criticism).
Do keep the tone professional; treat it like your own documentation.

Get SnagIt 7.2.5 for Free

Hamish — Fri, 29 May 2009 10:16:00 +0000

Although not the latest version, you can get SnagIt 7.2.5 for free:

Download the trial version of v7.2.5 from here.
Get your key here.
After you install it and run it for the first time, click the Unlock link when the SnagIt Message Centre is displayed.

Thanks to Confessions of a freeware junkie for the tip off.

Medical Art

Hamish — Sun, 03 May 2009 22:55:00 +0000

The x-rays after Nick's car accident last year were pretty horrific. The x-rays after his operation to meccano his elbow and bones back together were both horrific and intriguing. Nick had an idea that the x-rays would make an interesting piece of art - and the results are below. I was a bit apprehensive before I saw the finished product, but it does look good, primarily because it is not immediately obvious what the image is. What do you think?