Learning to Love Word
For the past two years I have been all about FrameMaker, it’s what I used day in and day out. I used Word at home, and casually at work, but I’ve never really put it through it’s paces. Well, with a new job all of that has changed. Now I am forced to use Word for everything. So I’m having to search the nooks and crannies of the program to emulate things I did in Frame. So far, I honestly can’t see the big value in Frame, seeing that Word can save to PDF as well. It takes some doing, but you can get Word to do most if not all of the same basic things that Frame does - so what gives? I probably wasn’t making the best use of Frame, that’s my guess anyway.
Apple Style Guide
Being a technical writer, I am always on the lookout for classy documentation. I am also an Apple user (for the past year). Today I Googled ‘Apple Style Guide’ and came up with the Ur document behind their documents:
I find Apple’s documents to be clean, functional, and easy to use. They are aesthetically pleasing to the eye. I also looked at some new and old IBM documents today, based on a remark that Edward Tuftee made about John Carroll and The Minimal Manual. The newer IBM manuas also look clean and pleasing, and incorporate some clever ways of hyperlinking.
The Pope on Sin
Benedict XVI says that the loss of the sense of sin in modern society has been followed by an increase in guilt complexes.
The Pope explained that this link shows the human being’s need for God’s forgiveness, which takes place through the sacrament of confession.
The Holy Father said this today when in an audience with recently ordained priests who are taking a course on the internal forum offered by the Apostolic Penitentiary. The internal forum deals with cases involving conscience.
The Pontiff said that in the modern world, one perceives “a humanity that would like to be self-sufficient, since many think they can live well without God.”
And yet, he observed, “how many seem to be sadly condemned to address tragic situations of existential emptiness, how much violence there is still on earth, how much loneliness weighs on the spirit of man of the age of communication!”
