Copywriter, technical writer, translator (FR>EN, ES>EN, IT>EN), journalist

TechnoZen

Fixing file associations

Months ago, a fellow writer downloaded an office suite that she wanted to try. After she installed it, though, the new office suite started every time she opened a document it recognized. It seemed as though the new office software she installed told her computer to open

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Don’t become a zombie!

Ever wondered how to speed up a slow computer? For starters, you can try a few tools in the operating system. You might want to: defragment your hard disk (Windows) check it for errors (Windows and Mac) repair disk permissions (Mac) If these fail, you might want

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Tabling your prose

Want to make data-dense text more understandable in your document? Consider putting the information in a table instead of straight text. And when you do so, create the table the easy way.

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Reuse your own genius

Have you completed a document using Microsoft Word (or another word processor) and made it look exactly right? Did you hone the styles so that formatting is practically automated? Congratulations! You accomplished a grand feat, one that likely took lots of learning, work and revision. Here’s the

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How Facebook helps lawyers achieve their goals

By the time you read this, Facebook may count 700 million active members. More people use Facebook than most countries have citizens. It inspired a Hollywood blockbuster. Facebook is a massive phenomenon. Are lawyers taking part? Should they?

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Tracking plagiarism on the web

Back in May, a magazine assigned me an article on electronic trials (the effective use of modern technology during trials). I mentioned an article on the same topic I recently wrote for my column in another magazine. The editor then emailed me a link to that very

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Creating new Word styles – the easy way

While you’re drafting a document, you might want to create a new character style or paragraph style. (The difference? You can apply character styles to words, even individual characters, while paragraph styles apply from one pilcrow to the next.) Chances are the style you want to create

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Dear Livescribe: a letter from Canada

Almost two months ago, I reviewed technology new to me that blew me away in less than half an hour. But (and maybe this is just my nature), I have a minor gripe or two. I tried to tweet this particular gripe (and a recommended solution) to

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Find (and create) the look you want for your document

Good artists copy. Great artists steal. How does this apply to you? If you’re working on a Word document that has to impress somebody and you’re daunted by the blank canvas Word presents you with when you create a new document, worry not. Become a great artist

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Pencasting professional development

Livescribe recently sent me an Echo smartpen to try out for an article I wrote on digital pens. I’ve been geeking out on the thing ever since. As part of my geeking out, I’ve been creating “pencasts” and this blog post contains one.

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