I’d Rather Be Writing – Tom Johnson

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Duration: 24 minutes

Kevin Siegel, president of IconLogic, talks about show-me demos and Captivate. In this audio-visual age, technical writers need an easy way to deliver Flash-based, dynamic screen demos for their help content. Topics Kevin and I discuss in the podcast include:

• The effects of video games on learning styles
• The power of audio in show me demos
• The role of show me demos alongside written documentation
• New features in Captivate 3
• How Captivate 3 integrates with RoboHelp 7
• Techniques for recording screen demos when you’re pressed for time
• Best practices for show me demo length
• When and how to use voice talents

Additional Resources

Check out the following resources:

• Kevin’s blog, “I came, I saw, I learned,” is at http://iconlogic.blogs.com/.
• You can sign up for his newsletter here.
• IconLogic offers training for Captivate, RoboHelp, InDesign, and a host of other tools
• See details about his e-course on Captivate.
• Check out Captivate here.

About Kevin Siegel

“Kevin A. Siegel is the founder and president of IconLogic, Inc. He has written more than 100 step-by-step computer training books, including books on Adobe Captivate 2 and 3, RoboHelp 5, 6, 7, Macromedia Dreamweaver 8, QuarkXPress 7, Accelerated QuarkXPress 6, Adobe InDesign CS 2, Adobe PageMaker 7 and more.” (bio)

Podcast Sponsors

• MadCap Flare is the most versatile XML-based Help authoring tool on the market, with thousands of customers using MadCap products including Microsoft, Google, HP, GE, yahoo and the list goes on. Check out Flare version 3.1 and a host of other new tools at at madcapsoftware.com.
• Lunar Pages offers basic web hosting starting at $6.95. When you sign up for a basic hosting account, you get 350 GB of storage, 3500 GB of bandwidth per month, free tech support, Fantastico, and and dozens of other tools. If you’ve been thinking about starting your own self-hosted blog, contact Lunarpages.com to set it up.
• Adobe Captivate 3 software enables anyone to rapidly create powerful and engaging simulations, scenario-based training, and robust quizzes without programming knowledge or multimedia skills. Read more here.
• Intro music in this podcast is from Podshow.

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Tech Writer Voices features podcasts related to the field of technical communication. You can download and listen to these podcasts on the go, so that while driving to work or running on the gym treadmill, you can continue learning and expanding your knowledge of the rapidly changing, always interesting field of help authoring.

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