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If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll notice that I have changed my domain from paulpehrson.com to docguy.training. I made this change for several reasons.

• My old site was compromised and spam content and links had been injected into every page and every post (at the database level).
• I first created my old site using WordPress in about 2007. I’ve been using the same database and file structure since then. That meant that there were a lot of old files from old themes hanging around and a bunch of other junk. I think this is where my security was breached. It was time to clean ship.
• I decided to set up a brand new installation of WordPress with a new database. This should enhance the security of the site. I also wanted to start fresh with a new theme and new plugins.
• I wanted to easily switch to a secure HTTPS connection without confusing people with my old URL.

So, welcome to the new site, docguy.training!

I’d also like to thank several people who commented or contacted me to let me know that my old site had been compromised. Thank you.

Removing the spam comment from my posts is a manual process, so I’m having to go into each post and remove the links manually. I’m only including posts once I’ve cleaned them, so it may take some time for me to completely restore all old content. There are hundreds of posts. Currently, I’ve fixed about 5% of the posts.

I believe that there are a lot of broken links and broken images. I’m going to try to fix those as I encounter them. If there is one that is really frustrating you, please feel free to let me know.

Anyway, thanks for your patience! Onward and upward!

Hey all,

I’ve been talking with a good friend of mine about launching a Flare-specific podcast. We would include interviews with luminaries in the Flare community, tips and tricks in working with Flare, a broader discussion of technical writing in general, and other such topics.

To get started, though, I’m interested in hearing from you about what topics you would be interested in listening to. What kinds of questions would be best answered in a podcast format? Who are the people you’d like to hear from to learn their perspectives on help authoring, and on using MadCap products?

Feel free to submit comments to this thread, or you can use the comment form.

I look forward to hearing from you.

I was looking at my website analytics today and I found the following interesting things:

Here is the split on browsers used to access my site:

The other day I was on a conference call. I tend to doodle or something while I listen in on conference calls, and I was playing with a sticky note and turned it into a business card stand. Since I’m sure your Thursday is not complete until you’ve figured out how to do this as well, I’ve gone ahead and created these instructions for you.

1. Start with your sticky note with the sticky side facing up, and the sticky side at the bottom.
2. Fold the paper in half to form a crease in the middle, and then unfold it.
3. Now, fold in the top corners, like you were making a paper airplane. The stick side is still facing up and at the bottom.
4. Now, fold the bottom corners together. Yes, the paper will stick together. That’s okay.
5. Fold down the “wings” leaving space for what would be the “body” of the airplane, if this were going to be an airplane. If you did this correctly, the top of the “wings” is the sticky side of the sticky note.
6. Now, attach the sticky note to the back side of a business card, and stand it up on your desk.

My conference call wasn’t long enough for me to do too many experiments with different sizes of sticky notes, but I did notice that the larger you make the “body” of the airplane, the larger item it can support. But there does come a point of diminishing returns where you make the body too big, and the sticky note won’t stick to the object anymore. I suppose you could use tape at that point, but then, that kind of defeats the purpose.

This is kind of a unique way to leave a business card with somebody, if you visit them in their office.

What did you get to stand up using just a sticky note? Tell us in the comments.

Several years ago I was looking to license some royalty-free music that I could use for screen cast background music. I happened across the Digital Juice website, and started looking at their StackTraxx product.

Each StackTraxx DVD contains around 20 royalty-free music tracks, but the magic here is that they let you choose which layers of the song you want to use, and every track comes in five versions: full length, 1 minute, 30 seconds, 15 seconds, and 10 seconds. Since each track has at least four layers, and there are five versions of each track, and 20 tracks, that adds up to more than five hundred variations per DVD.

At the time, I was able get a package deal of five DVDs for $80, and I’ve loved using them. I was sad when, not long after I made my purchase, Digital Juice retired the StackTraxx product line. Today, randomly, I was searching for some license information on the StackTraxx DVD’s I already have, and I found that Digital Juice has temporarily pulled StackTraxx out of retirement. Currently you can get a package deal of five DVDs for just under $100, plus shipping.

Check out their website, and pick out a DVD, then you can listen to the various versions of each song. If you click the “STACK” option, you can even play around with turning on and off different layers in each track to see how the songs change as you mix different layers.

If you create screen casts, I encourage you to check out this deal while it lasts. They are also selling individual DVDs for about $30 each.

Please note: This is not a promotional plug for Digital Juice. I have not connection to the company. I’m just a happy customer who saw a deal, and wanted to share.

Have you heard of MagicJack? It is a company that provides phone service via the Internet. You purchase a device that you plug into either your computer or your Internet router, and you can use it to make unlimited phone calls across the US and Canada for free. I’ve had MagicJack for a couple of years and I love their service. However, I was taken aback when I visited their website and saw the following two promises (see screenshot on right, taken today at about 4:30PM MDT):

• “NOW GET PHONE SERVICE FOR LIFE – FREE PHONE CALLS WITH MAGICJACK PLUS”
• “Never Pay a Phone Bill Again”

If you read those statements, you might infer that if you purchased a MagicJack device, you’d “never pay a phone bill again.” If you inferred that, you would be incorrect.

See, it turns out that there is an annual fee to use the device. Granted, the annual fee is small, compared to a regular phone line, but in my opinion, it is a bit disingenuous to claim that you will “never pay a phone bill again” when in fact, there is an annual fee to use the device.

I contacted their support chat to ask about the discrepancy. Here is how it went:

You are now chatting with ‘[MJ Cust Service name REDACTED]’
Your Issue ID for this chat is [REDACTED] MJ: Hello, how may I help you?
Paul: Just curious about the statement on your website that says “Now get phone service for life — free phone calls with MagicJack plus”.
Paul: Does that mean we don’t have to pay an annual fee any more?
MJ: Hi, Paul.
MJ: There is an annual fee.
Paul: On the right side of the screen it says “Never pay a phone bill again”
Paul: So I just wanted clarification.
Paul: Why does the website say “never pay a phone bill again” if there is an annual fee? That seems a bit misleading, to tell the truth.
MJ: There is an annual fee, for the license of the device.
MJ: MagicJack offers free calls with in US and Canada, that means that you can call local and long distance number with out any cost but require prepaid purchase and/or we may charge you for calls to conference lines, platforms and certain non-ILEC area calls, or any call wherein we incur a cost from another carrier. We may provide for a fee, premium prepaid services, which may be powered by YMAX Communications Corp. (YMAX), and may include some inbound, international, conference, platform and outbound calls that receive a recording and certain calls to non-ILEC areas, and the rates for those services will be governed by listed price lists or tariffs. International calling purchases expire six months after purchase. magicJack, YMAX Communications Corp. (YMAX), and/or Vocal Tec may make available to you.
Paul: Huh. Maybe you can pass along that the statements on the website are misleading (at best), as they imply that you will “never pay a phone bill again”, yet you are going to charge an annual “fee” to use the phone, which is kind of a lot like a phone bill.
MJ: You will not pay a monthly bill for your phone calls as you will only renew the license of the device.
MJ: The annual fee is for the device and not for the cost of each of the calls that you have made.
Paul: Interesting. I doubt most of your customers see it that clearly.
Paul: A bill to use the phone (whether an annual bill or a monthly bill) would technically still be a “phone bill” even if it is significantly cheaper than a standard phone bill.
MJ: Paul, that renewal is for the device to be active and not for the phone calls that you have made.
Paul: Just trying to pass that along before somebody sues you for false advertising.
Paul: I could say the same thing about my cell phone bill. I have unlimited calls. So I’m paying for the “service to the device”, rather than for the individual phone calls I make, yet I still consider the bill to be a cell phone bill.
Paul: But whatever. Just trying to help.

So there you have it. The fee you pay annually is NOT a phone bill after all (even though it is a bill you have to pay to use your phone). It is a licensing fee to make the phone device be “active”.

Sounds suspiciously like a phone bill to me. But whatever. Tomay-to, Tomah-to. Nevada, Nevah-da. (Though you all know it really IS Nevada, right? I mean, Nevadan’s know how to pronounce their own state name, wouldn’t you agree? [SQUIRREL!])

Last month I had the opportunity to attend the WriterUA Conference in Memphis, TN. This was my first time attending WritersUA, so I was excited, but not entirely sure what to expect. I thought I’d share my experience to help some people who may be trying to decide on a conference to attend for 2013.

Overall Impression  –  I loved this conference. I loved the tight focus on user assistance (UA) information. The vendors in the exhibition were all relevant to the work I’m doing every day. The sessions were tightly focused into three tracks, all UA related. The presentations were interesting, and while there were only three concurrent presentations, I often found myself forced to choose between two great options. This was possibly the best professional conference I’ve attended in my career.

What I liked  –  Here is a list of the things I liked about WritersUA in Memphis (in no particular order):

• Free WiFi in the hotel rooms and in the conference area. There are other technical conferences I attend (and not just STC’s) that don’t provide WiFi access to participants, which is a serious flaw in our day and age. It was nice knowing I’d have some WiFi connectivity during the conference, both in the conference space and in my room. (Though see below for my WiFi complaint.)
• The Venue. The Peabody Hotel in Memphis was a delightful old-style hotel. Built in the 1920’s, the hotel features a beautiful lobby with a second-floor mezzanine supported by square stone pillars. The lobby features stained-glass windows set in the ceiling, and a beautiful indoor fountain which serves as the daytime home for the Peabody Ducks.
• Conference Staff. The WritersUA conference is staffed by great people. They were always available, and very helpful.
• Relevant Sessions. I’ve been to conferences where there are six to ten choices in a given hour, but I’m not particularly interested in any of the topics. At WritersUA I didn’t have a single hour where I wasn’t interested in one of the topics. During most session slots, I wished I could be in at least two of them. This is pretty impressive since most of the time there are only three concurrent sessions.
• ProBooster Certificate Program. I think it is cool that you can turn in a sheet of presentations you attended and receive a “ProBooster” certificate. This isn’t a big deal, but it is nice to show the boss that I attended sessions in an area that is related to my current work. While it isn’t a huge deal, it is a tangible piece of paper that says “this conference provided value”. Now I can use the next 12 months SHOWING the value I got from the conference.
• Food. The food at WritersUA is great. They provide a continental breakfast every morning, and a full lunch on two days during the conference. The lunch tables are each assigned a topic, so if you get through the line quickly enough, you can choose to sit at a table where the topic of conversation should be interesting for you. Because food was provided at the conference, most of the days I was there, I only had to purchase my own dinner (which made my expense account very happy).
• People. The attendees at the conference were interesting and fun. I knew many of them from other conferences or from the online techcomm community. Several others I met and had a great time exchanging ideas and solutions to problems we each face.
• Focus. As I mentioned before, the tight focus on user assistance topics makes this conference directly relevant and interesting to my work. Some conferences are so broad that they have a sort of shotgun-style approach to picking topics. WritersUA is more sniper-style, with carefully selected topics from proven presenters. I felt this increased the quality of the sessions and thus increased the value I got from the sessions.

What I didn’t like  –

• Poor WiFi coverage in my hotel room. This isn’t the conference’s fault, but the WiFi in my hotel room was terrible. Luckily I have a 4G phone with tethering, so I was able to use that to connect to the Internet in my hotel room. Other hotel guests didn’t seem to have the same issue, so maybe it was localized to my area of the building.
• Other assorted hotel issues. Again, not the conference’s fault, but the hotel didn’t guarantee room types, and didn’t have the room I registered for when I checked in, but failed to give me any kind of discount or conciliation when I checked in. The rooms were small and the bathrooms seemed designed for a cruise ship, not a luxury hotel. I thought the hotel was slightly overrated at 4-stars (or diamonds, or whatever rating scale you follow). I also thought it wasn’t a great value (again, which is generally true of conference hotels). Someday I’ll learn my lesson and stay at a hotel that is 1/3 the price with free parking, free breakfast, free wifi (that works).
• Mixup on the Peer Showcase. This is a minor nit, but I was a Peer Showcase presenter, and we had been promised that we would have 17-inch screens to display our work to the showcase visitors. For some reason, the monitors weren’t available, so we had to just use our laptops instead. (Though, I actually brought a projector, but I had planned to use both the projector (for a repeating slide show) and my computer (with the 17″ monitor) to show the actual work.) We muddled through, though.
• Closing session. I actually didn’t attend the closing session, as I was trying to catch an evening flight back home, but I talked to several people who attended who felt like the closing session didn’t have a lot of “meat”. I heard at least two people say that they wouldn’t have stayed if they had know the closing session was going to be like that. A better closing session, in my opinion, would be one that has a keynote speaker that draws in the audience and makes them want to stay until the very last seconds of the conference.

What I’d love to see  –

• A conference mobile app for iPhone and Android-based phones. This app would let me:
• See the current schedule (including late updates, if they are on the conference site)
• Pre-register for classes and show me my schedule
• Write online reviews of the presentations I’ve attended
• Give me a link to view the session material (the same content that was on the flash stick)
• Allow me to easily connect with other people I met at the conference (maybe a QR code on the back of each attendee’s badge to act as a virtual business card)
• Recorded sessions, similar to STC’s “Summit @ a Click” program. An investment in a tool like Camtasia Relay could provide a lot of value to conference participants, but it may take a couple of conferences to make it profitable. (I’d have even paid an extra fee to have this option, especially after I saw the value in the sessions at the conference.)
• A nice hotel that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. I know that I’m dreaming, and in fairness, the conference rate was about $100/night off the normal hotel rates.

Wrap-up  –

I’m already planning on attending this conference in 2013, wherever it is going to be held. If I could only attend a single conference each year, this just might be the one I’d pick due to the relevance of the information, the great conference staff, and the helpful presentations.

Thanks to Joe and the other folks at WritersUA for a great conference. I look forward to seeing you next year.

For a year now I’ve been the proud owner of an Apple iPad. In that year I’ve become addicted to being online. My iPad is a 3G iPad, and I take it with me practically everywhere including church, work, to visit family, or to do the grocery shopping.

About five months ago, I got a work-provided Android phone, and that has replaced some of my need to carry my iPad with me wherever I go, but I still love the iPad’s superior screen, it’s interface, and functionality.

Last week we traveled to Canada for my cousin’s wedding. I knew that my work-provided phone wouldn’t work in Canada. (OK, technically it WORKED, but was exceptionally expensive to use). Before we left, I was doing some research to see how much it was going to cost me to use my AT&T data plan internationally. I was astounded to learn that AT&T charges $1.00 per MEGAbyte of data when roaming internationally. I checked the page size of CNN.com today, and it is 1.2 MB. That means to just view the CNN.com home page would cost $1.20. Ouch. My local news site is .78 MB, so loading the page would cost me more than a can of soda.

I quickly decided I needed to find another source for my data addiction while in Canada.

I searched the web and found that several Canadian iPad owners had success coming to the US, obtaining AT&T SIM cards, and setting up a data plan with AT&T. The Canadian Roger’s (the iPad’s GSM carrier in Canada) customer would come to the US and obtain an AT&T SIM card either from AT&T, the Apple store, or another provider. Then they would insert the AT&T SIM card in the iPad and sign up for cellular data service. They would have to create a new account with AT&T, provide a credit card, and they could set up an account.

Some Canadians reported that they had to have a US address, and a US-based credit card account. Others reported that they could use their Canadian American Express cards, if they input a valid US address (which obviously wouldn’t be their actual billing address).

I decided to try that same plan, but in reverse. Upon entering Canada, I obtained a Roger’s SIM card that was purchased at a Canadian Best Buy store. (The cost of the card was $10.00, but Best Buy had some promotion, so there was no charge for the card at all for us.) I removed my AT&T SIM card and inserted my Roger’s SIM card in my iPad.

I turned the iPad back on and in Settings, created a new Roger’s data account. I used my US American Express card, but I used my grandmother’s Canadian billing address and phone number. I signed up for Roger’s 5GB data plan for CN$35 per month, and the request was successful.

Here’s the beauty of this plan: Since AT&T and Roger’s both have non-contract iPad data plans, you can sign up for service for one month at a time. I signed up for Roger’s service as I entered Canada, and just before we crossed the border back home, I terminated my Roger’s plan with no penalty. The same is true if you are a Canadian visiting the US. You sing up for AT&T’s service when you arrive in the US, then you terminate your AT&T plan when you leave with no penalty. There is no recurring billing because you cancelled your account. You got data, at the local price, for the time you were travelling internationally.

My service in Canada was great. We used the iPad for games, Internet surfing, GPS and maps for driving through Canada, and we even used Skype on the iPad (well, it’s an iPhone app, but it works fine on the iPad) to make calls to the US and Canada using either the built-in microphone, or using a headset with a microphone. Because we used Skype, those calls cost me only US$.02 per minute. (Compare that to the $.59 per minute Sprint would charge me on my mobile phone, if I signed up for their International add-on service.)

I checked my data usage before I returned home. We had been in Canada for five days. With the phone calls, the maps, the e-mail, the general web surfing and everything, we actually used less than 200MB of data. Had I used my AT&T card, all that data would have cost me $200. Since I used my Roger’s card, it cost me CN$35. (And if I’d known my usage would actually be under 200MB, I could have opted for the cheaper Roger’s plan: 250MB for CN$15. I’ll remember that next time I’m there.)

Here are my tips and tricks, and these should work regardless of whether you are an AT&T customer visiting Canada, or a Roger’s customer visiting the US:

• Determine how much data you expect to use, based on past data usage at home.
• Obtain a local SIM card from the wireless provider, Apple’s stores, or from a retailer like Best Buy.
• Be careful not to lose your permanent (home) SIM card. Those things are tiny and can get lost VERY easily.
• If you have an American Express card, use that to set up your “visiting” account; reports are that they work both directions (TO and FROM Canada). If you don’t have an American Express card, you can try purchasing a reloadable VISA or MasterCard in the country where the service will be used.
• You must input an address that is in the country where the service will be used. I used a relative’s address. Other people report success using the address of an Apple store in that country. (If you are not visiting family, you may want to obtain this address BEFORE you travel, and bring it with you, so you have it on-hand.)
• If you are visiting Canada, and you expect to be there less than one month, you can actually deactivate your Roger’s account withing a couple of days. Your Roger’s service will continue working for the full 30-day period, or until the allotted data is consumed. (I don’t know how AT&T does in this regard.)
• Be sure to deactivate your account while you still have service, before you leave the country. If you are driving and are in a rural location, you may not have cell coverage at the border, so you either want to check availability along your route, or deactivate when you leave the last city on your way towards the border.

I loved having my iPad to use when I was in Canada. Obtaining a Roger’s SIM card and using Roger’s service was super easy, and I recommend it to anybody.

P.S.: A note to my US friends traveling in Canada — remember that there are services like Pandora (and possibly Hulu) that won’t let you access their content outside of the US. Even though you have a US Pandora account, when you are in Canada, you will have an Canadian IP address, and you will not be able to visit those sites, so don’t be frustrated if that happens to you. It’s just the way some things go.

Enjoy your data access for a reasonable price while you are travelling!

Disclaimer: I clearly can’t guarantee this will work for you. I don’t even guarantee it will work for ME next time I cross the 49th parallel. But it worked for me in June 2011. It can’t hurt for you to try it as well.

As you can tell, I’ve decided to change the theme on my blog. I’m still tweaking bits and pieces of it, but it was time to take advantage of some of the newer features available in WordPress. My last theme update was back in 2007, and lots has changed in WordPress in the mean time.

I’m working to implement new features on the blog, and fix things that worked on the old site, but are broken with the new theme. I could use your help, though. Please let me know what you like or dislike about the new theme. Also, if you have suggestions for WordPress plugins you’d like to see, or if you see some other functionality you’d like to see, please let me know in the comments.

I hope you like the changes I’ve made, and I look forward to seeing your feedback and suggestions.

Craig Haiss from HelpScribe published an article yesterday where 11 of the top tech comm bloggers were asked to provide advice to newbie technical writers. I was out of town last week and missed his message, so I missed my opportunity to contribute, so I decided to do it here.

My advice to new technical writers falls into the following three general categories:

• Tools and Technology
• Networking
• Skill Development