Month: September 2008

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So You Want to Run Your Own Business…

by Quinn McDonald

 
Part II of III: Disadvantages
 
Last week, we began to look at the possibilities of opening your own consulting business. Whether you chose it, or it was chosen for you by corporate downsizing, there are great advantages and tough problems to owning a business.
Last time we looked at the advantages.  Now, the three biggest problems in being a consultant:
  1. You have to find the work. In a corporation, your work is piled on your desk. When you own the business, you have to go out and find it. Word of mouth doesn't kick in for three years or so. Finding work doesn't come naturally to everyone.

    Experience tip: join a group of people who do what you do. A good group will help you learn how to market yourself.

  2. The pay doesn't come in till the work is done. Or later. Before you make your first client call, decide how much you will charge and how you want to be paid. You will have to negotiate your price and how you get paid. Companies will tell you their "policy" which is another word for "what we do," but it is rarely set in stone. Waiting for a client to pay you is hard. Making calls to clients who haven't paid you yet is even harder. But it has to be done or the money won't appear.

    Experience tip: If it's a long-term project, ask to be paid every two weeks. That way, the client won't have a big surprise bill at the end of a time-consuming project, and you have a regular income while the job is running.

  3. You have to keep finding work. Finding new work is a continuous process-you need to do it while you are busy. If you wait till you aren't busy, you won't be working for long gaps.  That comes down to doing the most work while you are busy doing the project and don't want to think about new work. If you want steady work, you will have to market yourself all the time.

    Experience tip: develop a plan to market yourself and set time limits. That way, you can follow a process while you are busy, without the pressure of marketing development. 


About the Author: Quinn McDonald is a writer and nationally-known speaker who has achieved the "Professional" designation from the National Speakers Association. Contact Quinn through her website, QuinnCreative.com.
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Grammar Workshop: How to Present a Numbered List in a Sentence

 
There are several ways to give an enumerated (numbered) list in sentence form. One way is to put the number (not the number word) in parentheses, like this:
  • I came up with three reasons: (1) this is my first reason, (2) this is my second reason, and (3) this is my third reason.
Notice that the numbers are inside a pair of parentheses. It is not considered correct to use just one parenthesis after the number. If the introduction of the reasons is not a complete sentence, do not use a colon to introduce the list. Instead, do this:
  • My reasons are (1) this is my first reason, (2) this is my second reason, and (3) this is my third reason.
If the text of any of the reasons contains a comma, then you use semicolons between the items-but if that happens, you should consider making it a vertical list, like this:
 
I came up with three reasons:
  1. This is my first reason, which contains a comma.
  2. This is my second reason.
  3. This is my third reason.
Another way to list reasons would be in separate sentences, using the ordinal forms of the number words, like this:
  • I came up with three reasons. First, this is my first reason. Second, this is my second reason. Third, this is my third reason.
Combining these into one big sentence with semicolons is not recommended, because if you are putting an enumerated list into one sentence, you use the numbers in parentheses as in my first example.
 
You can, of course, choose to use letters instead of numbers in all but the last situation.  
 
About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Essentials of Access 2000" and "Editing with MS Word 2003 and Adobe Acrobat 7" to her credit. Jennie specializes in electronic editing. At the American Psychological Association, she was manager of electronic publishing and manager of technical editing and journal production. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer (Chauncey Group). She is a publishing professional with 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.

Want help with a grammar issue? Email us your troubles and we'll turn Jennie loose!
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Questions of the Week

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: Can I Make My Own LMS?
 
I am thinking about purchasing Captivate 3. I have ordered your books to learn about it. I can't afford a LMS system to run this on, however I have 20+ years experience programming and am an expert in ASP.net, Visual Studio, VB.net etc. Is there any way for me to get the file format that Captivate sends to a LMS and I just create my own simplified LMS system? If not, do you know if any open source ASP.net LMS software out there?
 
Answer:  
 
Excellent question. You can certainly create a project with Captivate, enable eLearning and publish a manifest. I suppose you could create an LMS that would work with the manifest. I am not a programmer; however, I cannot imagine that creating an LMS with the minimal features you need would be a particularly fast process. You might find that it is cheaper to rent an LMS (like the one we use at http://inquisiq.com) than trying to create your own. However, perhaps some of your fellow "skills & drills" readers have created a basic LMS and would care to share their stories.

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: Why Am I Only Seeing the Playbar? 

I am using Captivate 3. I published the project and gave the files to a co-worker to post on our company intranet. When accessed by our customers, the only thing that displays is the playbar. I have tried re-publishing the project several times. I also created a new project and imported all of the slides then published it again. When I insert a Captivate SWF file into RoboHelp, it works fine. When I generate an EXE, it works fine. My co-worker said that she copies the files to the Web server and links to the skin file from an HTML page. What are we doing wrong? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
 
Answer:
 
The problem is likely in the link your co-worker is using to start the lesson. Point the link to the HTML file created when you published (your published assets should include at least two SWFs, one HTML and a JavaScript). Assuming everything is on the server, and in the same folder, the lesson should play after a customer clicks the link to the HTML file.
 
 
Adobe RoboHelp Question: Can I Receive User Feedback Reports?
 
Is it possible for RoboHelp to give us, or produce, statistics about the number of times our customers use the Help System? Is it possible to learn which topics they use and which they don't?  
 
Answer:
 
Yes and No. RoboHelp doesn't include the ability to generate reports that include user statistics, but RoboHelp Server does (RoboHelp Server is an enhancement to the standard RoboHelp package and costs more). You can learn more about RoboServer here.
 
Adobe Captivate Question: How Do I Stop the Lesson From Continuing When Linking?
 
I am working on an eLearning module and have both Back/Next buttons on the slide.  I have them paused after 3 seconds or so.  Within the slide I also have a click box over a URL to open our Web page and it is set to open in a new window.  What I am finding is that when the user clicks on the click box and opens the new page the original slide is no longer paused and advances on its own.  How can I make it stay paused until the user clicks Back/Next regardless of what else they are doing within the slide? 
 
Answer:
 
Show the Properties of the click box. To the right of the URL, there's a drop-down menu. Deselect Continue Playing Project and you'll be all set.
Adobe Captivate Question: Where Are My Asian Characters?
 
I just recorded a project using Captivate that was supposed to include Japanese. When I played the project back, I saw white boxes instead of Asian symbols. What did I do wrong?
 
Answer:
 
You don't have the Asian fonts installed on your computer (they come with Windows). The Asian symbols are there but will show up as white boxes until you install the fonts. If you need help installing the fonts, click here.
 

Got a question you'd like answered? Email me.
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Accessing Diacritics in Adobe FrameMaker 8

 
According to Wikipedia, a diacritic (also called a diacritical mark, point, or sign), is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or distinguish between similar words.
 
To put it simply, I'm talking about inserting the accents over the letters found in so many foreign languages. (i.e., café or crêpe ).
 
For those of us working primarily in English, we don't have to worry too much about accents. But if you publish documents with French or Spanish words and phrases, you better know how to add the accent marks.
 
There are two ways to add accent marks to your FrameMaker documents: Windows ANSI Codes or Escape Key Sequence.
 
Windows ANSI Codes
 
The Windows operating system comes with numeric ANSI codes that you enter into any Windows program by holding down the ALT key while typing in a four digit code on the numeric keypad. For example:
  • ALT 0233 results in é
  • ALT 0232 results in è
When you release the ALT key after typing in the four digits, the requested character appears. What I like about the ANSI codes is that I can memorize the ones I use the most, and then can enter them into any Windows program: FrameMaker, Photoshop, InDesign, MS Word, etc.

Escape Key Sequence
 
The Escape Key sequence produces the exact same results, but while I find them easier to work with, unfortunately, they only work in FrameMaker. They work by tapping and releasing a series of keys, in sequence (NOT all at the same time).
 
For example, to get the same accented é, tap and release ESC, apostrophe, e:
  • ESC ' e results in é
  • ESC ` e results in è
  • ESC : e results in ë 
  • ESC ^ e results in ê
This technique puts these four accents over all five vowels. But Spanish uses the ñ: Can you figure it out on your own?
  • ESC ~ n results in ñ 

And how about the French cedilla?

  • ESC , c results in ç 
Pretty cool, don't you think? I love this trick because I can look at the keyboard and figure out what I need in just a few seconds. Sure beats memorizing all the ANSI codes!
 

Want to learn more about Adobe FrameMaker? Come to our upcoming Introduction to FrameMaker 8 classes on October 7-8 or November 3-4. Both classes will be held in a virtual classroom–so you can attend this live, interactive class from anywhere in the country. All you need is a computer with fast Internet access, a headset and the current version of the FrameMaker (the 30-day trial version of the software works fine). You can ask all the questions you like because all virtual classes are led by a live instructor–this is not pre-recorded content. 

 

About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and was recently recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide for 2007.