NewTlug Meetings:2004-04-27

From GTALUG

Apr 27th. NewTLUG meeting: Documentation: Reading, Writing and Publishing

This month's NewTLUG meeting will be held Tues Apr 27th., at Seneca College. more info below...

Date: Tue, Apr 27, Time: 7 - 10pm

Topic: "Documentation: Reading, Writing and Publishing" See Details below...

Presenter: Emma Jane Hogbin Emma is currently a technical reviewer (and author) for The Linux Documentation Project and a former instructor at Seneca College.

Location: room 1208 (SEQ building) Seneca College SEQ building belongs to Seneca College and is a part of the Seneca@York Campus, which is physically located just south of York University, at Keele/Steeles.

Directions: For detailed directions and info on public transit, please see: http://cs.senecac.on.ca/~scs/seneca-directions.html

Parking: Paid parking is available on campus.

Topic Details: As per Emma:

"It's a common misconception that newbies don't need to (or aren't qualified to) write documentation; however, newbies are actually BETTER at writing documentation because they take no steps for granted and record every little thing they do--they are also often starting with a system which is closer to a base install than more advanced users and therefore are able to more accurately capture software dependencies. At The LDP most of the documents we receive are from people who've needed to solve a specific problem that they couldn't solve at first glance. Some of our documents are newbie level problems, and some are more advanced.

Documentation is also critical in the workplace, or in any situation where there is more than one set of hands on a computer. Maintaining a detailed log of work that's been done on a machine makes it easier to (1) (re)-build a new machine with the same configuration and (2) diagnose problems including errors in configuration files, software conflicts, and missing modules.

Another common misconception is that documentation is too hard to write, takes too much time, or the tools are too difficult to use. As a result there are holes in knowledge transfer in organizations and important information is lost. The purpose of the presentation is to show how easy it can be to write documentation--including figuring out which tools will help save time."

Emma will include:

       - doccos: what makes a good technical documentation author, and why you should worship the ground they walk on (ahem)
       - writing a good HOWTO
       - markup languages (specifically DocBook XML 4.x)
       - system configuration for DocBook->HTML and DocBook->PDF transformations
       - submitting documents to The Linux Documentation Project
       - other tools your company may want to use for documenting internal processes (specifically Wikis and blogs)

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LPI, The Linux Professional Institute, http://www.lpi.org will be conducting lower cost LPI certification exams, levels 101, 102, 201 and 202 at the same time as the next NewTLUG meeting Apr 27th at the special price of $50.CDN discounted from the usual $100.US

For more information: http://newtlug.linux.ca/lpiexams.shtml

Note: You *must* be pre-registered before the exam and have your LPI ID: http://www.lpi.org/en/register.html

Time: Please plan to arrive 20 minutes before the exam start time of 7:20 pm.

Location: Steve Quinlan Building (SEQ), Seneca College SEQ building belongs to Seneca College and is a part of the Seneca@York Campus, which is physically located just south of York University, at Keele/Steeles. Go to the NewTLUG meeting room #1208 for directions to the exam room.

Directions: For detailed directions and info on public transit, please see: http://cs.senecac.on.ca/~scs/seneca-directions.html

Parking: Paid parking is available on campus.