Technical Writing Unveiled - part 2

This is a second post in a series of posts about Technical Writing and I guess it would be better if you read the episode number one  first.

Continuing from the set of questions I asked you in the last post, here comes the next set of questions.

Technical Writing Unveiled - part 1

While I was about to complete one year at the university as an English Instructor,  an IT company came to me with an offer for a new job as a Technical Writer. I did not apply for the opportunity, therefore, I had no idea what Technical Writing is and what they expect from me. So the first thing I did was to consult Sadeepa, the elder brother of one of my batch mates. I remembered him having a Technical Writer as the headline in LinkedIn. Then I did a search for Technical Writers in LinkedIn and tried to get in touch with them to know what the job is really like. Meanwhile, I found some interesting blogs and news articles about the job.

අනේ මගේ කොම්පියුටරේ ඔන් වෙන්නේ නැහැ! මොකද්ද මම කරන්න ඕනේ?

මම දන්නවද මොනවා කරන්නද කියලා?
මම දන්නේ නැහැ එයා ඉන්ස්ටෝල් කරපු වැඩසටහන්.
තව කොම්පියුටරේ වර්ගය, මෙහෙයුම් පද්ධතිය ඒවා දන්නෙත් නැහැ.
ඉතිං මං කොහොමද කියන්නේ මොකක්ද කරන්න ඕනේ කියලා?
අනික ඉතිං පොඩි පොඩි වැඩ ටිකක් දන්නවා වුණාට මම මීටරයක්‌  නෙවෙයි.
දන්න ටික දන්නෙත් ගූගල් ළඟ ඉන්නකොට විතරයි.

Facebook Like වැඩ නැද්ද? මෙන්න විසඳුම

ඊයේ රෑ ලියලා දාපු ලිපියට කමෙන්ට් එකක් වැටෙනකන් බලාගෙන ඉන්නකොට ඔන්න උදේ පාන්දරම එක්කෙනෙක් ඇවිල්ලා කිව්වා කතාවක්.

"FB Like on your blog is not clickable >_<"

Who use ICT in Sri Lanka and why?

Being a university student, I have had the opportunity to conduct researches on various topics. One of the most interesting researches I have done is a sociological analysis of the digital divide within Sri Lanka. This post is based on the research findings

Managing life in the Internet era

Friends are those who enjoy being with us. Out of them, there are special friends who enjoy being with us in both the happy and sad moment. During the days when there were no phones and internet, it was not a hard job to select those few special friends out of the handful of companions. Simple logic, if there are 5 candidates for 3 vacancies, selection is easy for the interviewer.

PowerPoint on the GO--Run PowerPoint eventhough you dont have it installed in the computer--

PowerPoint and Presentation, these two words mean almost the same for some people.

Well, it is reasonable as PowerPoint is an easy way to convince your ideas to an audience. But, PowerPoint can sometimes be a mess too. Specially,when it comes to the 'font' and 'version' problems.

But, the software itself has provided a solution for this headache

If you are using 2007 version, click on the Office Button-->Publish-->Package for CD
and if you are working on power point 2003, go to file menu-->package for CD


This option allows you to copy all the files into a folder or wrote a CD of the presentation with all the linked files to the presentation. For example, font files and audio clips that run within the presentation.

In the dialog box which appears next,select what you want to do.




1. Name of the CD
you can give a name for the CD which contains the presentation

2.Files to be copied
all the linked files are automatically included. for example, sound clips and movie clips. power point will identify the places where they are located in your computer, copy them into the CD and alter the paths in the presentation so that you don't have to worry about, missing paths, and cannot-be-found sound clips.
Any way, if you need any more files to be copied, use add files button

3. options Button



In the package type section, you can select the way you want the presentations to be played.
-Run all the presentations in the CD automatically
-Play only the first presentation automatically
-Let the use select which presentation to be played
-Don't play the CD automatically

In Include these files section, you can select whether you want to add embedded font files as well. (Linked files are automatically selected)

In the security and privacy section, you can password protect the editing and the opening of the presentation.

If you enable inspect the presentation for personal details, PowerPoint will check whether any personal data are hidden in the presentation.

When all the settings are done, you are left with two alternatives.

You can either burn a CD of the presentation or copy all the files into a folder so that you can later copy it to a pen drive.

If you copy to a folder/CD, the presentation folder looks like this.



There are lot of files to be sure...but don't worry.

Double click on the file which is named PPTVIEW

It will open the PowerPoint Viewer.

If it asks whether you accept the terms and conditions of the program, click accept and then, you'll be automatically forwarded into a dialog box, from where you can select the presentation you need.

Power point viewer is so intelligent that it shows me the place of the presentation that I have to run
.

So, you just have to select the presentation and click OK.

No more problems.

Whether you have PowerPoint or not, your presentation will run

Analyze the anatomy of your enemy's web site

This is about a site which can analyze any website that you want to. Just enter the web site you want to analyze and hit enter. If you entered my blog address, you might end up with something like this.

I think the tool is quite useful for people who are interested in web designing.

And on the other hand, if people start to use the site's technology for unethical purposes, it would be a curse for the whole world too!!

If you feel like interested, click here to visit the site.

Google search finds missing child

i thought it worth while to share this. this time, it was used for a good purpose. but who knows what will happen this Google tracking technology goes into the hands of terrorists and so forth?







A nine-year-old girl, allegedly kidnapped by her grandmother, has been found using a mobile phone signal and Google Street View.

A police officer and a firefighter in Athol, Massachusetts, joined forces after authorities were alerted that Natalie Maltais had been taken.

Officers used GPS in the girl's mobile phone to find her approximate location.

They fed the co-ordinates into Google Street View, pinpointing a hotel where the child was subsequently found.

The alarm was raised after grandmother Rose Maltais picked up Natalie from the child's legal guardians for what was supposed to be a weekend away.

She "said that she wasn't going to return Natalie and then left the state", Athol police chief Timothy Anderson told the BBC.

The police contacted Ms Maltais, but after she didn't return Natalie as promised, they decided to track them down using Natalie's mobile phone.

Since 2005, US law says that mobile phone providers must be able to locate 67% of callers within 100 metres and 95% of callers within 300 meters.

This requirement has led to GPS capability in most new mobile phones in the US.

"This is very useful, although we can only use it in emergency situations such as when a person is missing or lost, or a life is in danger," said chief Anderson.

Knowing this, police officer Todd Neale contacted the mobile phone provider, AT&T, which gave him GPS coordinates every time the phone was activated. Police must submit a compliance form to the phone provider to request location information.

Source :: BBC

Modem hunting in Senkadagala

I think I don't have to explain what is a modem. Any way, if even one of you dont knw what is a modem and what does it do, click here to find out.

So now all of you know what is a modem and how important it is. Let the hunting begin......arm yourselves with bows and arrows and off we go modem hunting in Kandy city

I was looking for a adsl modem because I have applied for a adsl connection from SLT . Teleshop people said that they also sell a modem.since I don't believe them much, had to look around the city.

Kandy shops basically have only one brand : US robotics. but this US thing doesn't have a router as the shop dealers said. So I opted for a Linksys AM300 one (available only in Neat Technologies in D.S. Senanayake Vidiya). It was expensive than the US Robotics and apparently it was powerful as the specifications showed. Lynksis also had a link with Cisco. so i was sure the modem would be of great quality as Cicso is listed as the leading supplier of networking equipment and network management for the Internet.

now, the modem is at home and no body knew how to set up the modem cz it had some advanced set of blanks to fill in the set up page. Had to call SLT several times to get the settings and finally I caught an engineer guy from the techno dept to solve the problem.

Set up done, I let some torrents download. Guys it was a real mystery. The modem would restart after each 30 minutes. And guess what if you spill a drop of water into the modem at the point it restarts it would would vaporize in seconds. My genius bro found a solution for that.

This is the solution:

Step 1: take a cooling fan off the system unit

step 2: keep it on the Modem for absorbing the extra heat

you think it is enough?? nope

here we go the step3. You should keep the modem on a stand like this to make sure that the air passes through the space between the bottom surface of the modem and the computer table. Earlier my modem was proudly standing on two pens laid parrel to two opposite edges of the modem but it proved to be dangerous. so guys this is the best and the safest option.

The heating problem thus solved with the help of a fan taken out from the system unit, I thought it was all and let U torrent do some downloading.

mmm i was wrong again...when the number of connections go high, the modem would stop all the connections. Believe me, it is terrible when you have to look into the monitor whetre the network is ok or not. and above all,this nices modem knows so many tricks that it wont re estblish the connection even after restarting the modem. It is so adamannt than you can imagine.

I have to turn off the computer, turn off the UPS and let some time pass before pushing the power button again to start the connection...mmmm terrible for a modem ha??

now I regert for choosing the best.. I should have bought Us Robotics or either the one offered by the SLT it self.

Above all Kandy sucks with regard to computer shops