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Subject:RE: What does it mean to be technical? From:"Sharon Burton-Hardin" <sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 23 May 2003 11:11:18 -0700
You may not need to know how to repair your computer, but diagnosing is and
should be part of our job and part of your skill set. How else will you know
when the product is having a problem or it is you?
For example, I am working on the docs for a cool software product that polls
all the hardware on my network for information and inventory. It is also
polling all docked PDAs. I have all this stuff on my network, including
several PDAs. 1 PDA is attached to my server for historical reasons.
After installing the software, I asked it to poll the hardware and come up
with an inventory. It happily did and all was well. Later in the day, I
pressed the little button to synch my PDA. All I got was errors. The PDA
could not talk to the PC. Uh, oh. Their product broke something. Or maybe my
PDA is broken. Or maybe my USB hub is acting up.
If I didn't have a good grasp of hardware and software, I would have to call
the client and ask them to help fix this, wasting their time and perhaps
looking dumb, assuming I understood that their product might be the problem.
But I understand enough about what I am doing that I could do diagnostics -
like reboot the PC to let the USB rethink itself. Which I did. Didn't fix
it. So I reset the PDA, resynched it. All is well.
I asked the client if we are recommending a PC reboot and a PDA reset after
install. Turns out I found a bug that only happens if the PDA is attached to
the server, which they never thought of. I got to look good, they did not
have to waste a lot of time helping me fix it and we are all happy.
-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-techwr-l-71429 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
[mailto:bounce-techwr-l-71429 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com]On Behalf Of Jan Henning
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2003 10:34 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: What does it mean to be technical?
> This is a rant of mine. I don't expect to have this understood or even
> considered seriously. Every time I bring this topic with tech writers,
> I am told that I am being a pain and unreasonable. Perhaps I am.
No, you're being entirely reasonable: A tech writer, like every other
professional, must know how to use his or her tools.
- snip-
But in my opinion, this is a different set of skills from being able to
repair your PC. It's the difference between being able to
professionally use your tools and being able to fix them. If you can do
the latter, more power to you. But I think you can still be a good tech
writer thout this skill, whereas you cannot if you do not know how to
adequately use your chosen tools.
---
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