Newsletter re do

Sep./Oct. 2006

Hillbilly Newsletter of the Arkansas Chapter of the
Society for Technical Communication
TechTalk
Congratulations! Our Next Meeting
October 14, 2006

P atrick Moore, the Arkansas
chapter
treasurer, has received an award
Making the Most of
Adobe Acrobat
University of Arkansas
at Little Rock
Year at a Glance for Distinguished Technical SUA 106C
October 25, 2006 Communication in the 2005 2801 S. University Ave.,
» STC Web-telephone Frank R. Smith Outstanding Journal Little Rock, Arkansas 72204
seminar Article competition for “Froam » Multimedia designer
November 2-4, 2006 Wordsmith to Communication Fredie Smith will guide
» Region 5 Conference participants through
Strategist: Heresthetic and the following hands-on
November 3-8, 2006 Political Maneuvering in Technical activities:
» ASIS&T
Communication,” an essay he co- » Adding metadata to your
November 8, 2006 PDFs
» Tax Tips for Writers
authored with Melinda Kreth. You can read their
» Creating professional
November 11, 2006
award-winning essay in the August 2005 issue of and portable PDF forms
» STC Web-telephone Technical Communication. » Preparing your PDF for
seminar professional printing
December 6, 2006 For more information, see
» Holiday Party
Officers Selected to Serve the Arkansas our Web site:
December 9, 2006
Chapter of STC www.stc-arkansas.org
» STC Web-telephone 2006-2007
seminar
Keith Dover, of Washington in
January 13, 2007
President support of “Operation
» Business and Planning
Meeting George (Keith) Dover Noble Eagle,” and the
February 10, 2007 received his degree homeland defense of
» Documentation Project in Professional and America. There he was
Management Technical .) in 2000 assigned to the Center
March 10, 2007 from the University of of Military History,
» Meeting and possible Arkansas at Little Rock Fort Lesley J. McNair,
attendance of new (UALR). He has served DC as the executive
National Chapter
tours of duty in the officer of the “Operation
Director
U.S. Army, U.S. Army Noble Eagle” MHD
April 14, 2007
» Topic TBD National Guard, and the Task Force to document
U.S. Army Reserve from and record the attacks Civitan Club, Little
May 13-16, 2007
» Ascend June 1979 to July 2004 of 9-11-01 on the Rock, Arkansas; public
when he recently retired Pentagon. He returned relations chairman,
Get more details about these
events and more online: as a major. home on June 30, 2002 American Legion
www.stc-arkansas.org after a nine-month Department of AR;
Dover’s writing credits deployment working in lifetime member of

STC
include numerous the Washington, DC area the American Legion
military essays and and inside the Pentagon. [Post #1]- Little Rock,
articles. A significant Arkansas; member of
recent work of his was to His civilian affiliations the Arkansas Veterans
assist in the production include: past president Coalition; past president
SOCIETY FOR of the UALR Public
TECHNICAL of a written monograph and public relations
COMMUNICATION for the Military District chairman, Little Rock Continued on page 2

Hillbilly TechTalk | www.stc-arkansas.org Page 1 September/October 2006

Relations Student Society of America; and founding
member of the Phi Chi Sigma National Veterans Moore was a technical writer for several corporations
Fraternity at UALR. in the Minneapolis area from 1980 to 1986, where
he wrote manuals documenting various hardware
Recently, the Little Rock Civitan Newsletter Dover and software products. Since the fall of 1986, he
edits was selected as the First Place Winner in the has worked as an English professor at several
Civitan International Newsletter Competition. universities, most recently at the University of
Arkansas at Little Rock, where he teaches world
He is serving his first term as president of the literature, grammatical analysis, and history of
Arkansas chapter of the Society for Technical the English language, and where he studies how
Communication, and is a Senior Member of STC. cultural capitalists, tenured radicals, and totalizing
rhetoricians dominate other workers.
Mary Corder, Vice President
Mary Corder is a senior member of the STC. She Besides his many essays on William Carlos
received her her M.A. in Professional and Technical Williams, Gestalt Psychology, the Challenger
Writing from the University of Arkansas at Little Accident, and other subjects, Moore has published
Rock and her B.A. in English from the University of these three articles in the STC journal Technical
Central Arkansas. Communication: (1) “When Persuasion Fails:
Coping with Power Struggles.” Volume 46.3 (August
For nearly the past six years, Corder has worked as 1999): 351-359. (2) “Rhetorical vs. Instrumental
a technical writer with Acxiom Corporation, where Approaches to Teaching Technical Communication.”
she writes primarily developer-oriented technical Volume 44.2 (May 1997): 163- 173. (3) “From
documentation for a software engineering team. Wordsmith to Communication Strategist:
She has extensive experience creating online and Heresthetic and Political Maneuvering in Technical
print documentation for a variety of audiences and Communication,” coauthored with Melinda Kreth,
has designed and administered numerous internal Volume 52.3 (August 2005): 302-322.
product Web sites.
This last essay received an award for Distinguished
She has published several book reviews in Technical Technical Communication in the 2005 Frank R.
Communication and is a member of Sigma Tau Chi, Smith Outstanding Journal Article competition.
the STC academic honor society.
Moore has been president of the Arkansas chapter
Previously, Corder has served the Arkansas chapter of the Society for Technical Communication four
as secretary and newsletter editor. times, vice president vtwice, newsletter editor for
three years, and treasurer more times than he can
Patrick Moore, Treasurer remember. He has received the STC’s Distinguished
Patrick Moore received degrees in Linguistics (B.A.), Chapter Service Award.
Comparative Literature (M.A.), and English (Ph.D.)
Please Note: Due to other obligations, the secretary elected
from the University of Minnesota. He served in the
for this year’s term has resigned. Stay tuned to the chapter
U. S. Army from February 1968 to February 1970 e-mail list and Web site for information on a special election.
when he was given an honorable discharge as a
sergeant.


Review: Adobe PhotoShop Elements
By Guy Ball, STC Senior Member
Reprinted from TechniScribe, the Orange County (CA) STC chapter’s newsletter.

T here is no question. Adobe PhotoShop is the
industry standard for graphic professionals. But
at $600 a pop, it’s a bit pricey for technical writers
of where they are on your
computer. I’m currently
using it to track the
who only on occasion need to use the software to edit hundreds of photos I’ve
or fine-tune a photo, or who use only a limited subset taken at different times
of the features. I’ve always enjoyed PhotoShop’s clear of a complex machine so
menu and tool bar functions, so when I’ve tried other I can pull out a smaller,
photo programs, I’ve always found myself coming focused selection when I
back (often to an earlier version that I had purchased need them.
long ago). I don’t pretend to know all the advanced
PhotoShop features – don’t need to. So spending that Another feature I like
kind of money for my limited usage was never cost- a lot is the automatic
effective. downloading of my digital photos into the Elements
photo organizer.All the images are automatically
Fortunately, Adobe has taken the most useful included in their organizer, ready for me to tag. And
features for low-to-medium-level users and then it asks if I want to delete them off my memory
packaged them as Photoshop Elements. In the card. Saves me time and effort—and I love it. (I know
past, this program was delivered free with other my camera has a program to do this—but I love it
Adobe products, like Premiere, and offered only built into my photo editor.)
a few PhotoShop features. The latest versions of
this software offer virtually every feature technical Other features of the program you may find useful
writers would need and more. And priced at under include burning a dynamic slide show to CD or DVD
$100, you can’t beat the value. and automatically creating a photo album that you
can print. You can apply text effects and add frames
PhotoShop Elements 3 and the most recently around your pictures. You can build panoramic
released version 4 offer all the standard editing photos with their Photomerge function.
tools you would expect in any photo program. You
can crop and save to other formats. You have the I was very happy with PhotoShop Elements 3 and
ability to easily change the quality level if file size is I am basing my review on that version. Adobe
an issue. You have a full range of options with tonal has just released a new version – 4. My employer
changes—simple adjustments like lighting/levels, purchased it and I’m trying to determine if it’s worth
and the more complex requiring a practiced eye like the upgrade at home. It has a few new features, but
Shadows/Highlights or Adjust Hue/Saturation. Need nothing I can’t live without.
to get rid of a person? That’s easy. Just use your
Clone/Rubber Stamp tool to cover them with copies So if you’re looking for power and great photoediting
of the wall next to them. Presto. What person? (I features in a very inexpensive package– and
also like to use this tool to slim up people or remove something that stays in the Adobe and PhotoShop
blemishes.) families, give PhotoShop Elements a try. You won’t
be sorry.
With recent versions of Elements, Adobe folded in
the Photo Album software they had been selling Guy Ball has written on a variety of technology
separately. This is a great product that allows you to and multimedia topics for Intercom and various
easily organize your photos. You can automatically STC chapter newsletters. He works for EADSNorth
catalog every image on your hard drive, which America Defense as a senior technical writer. His
helps you find “missing” photos that you know are next book, Images of America: Santa Ana, will be
on your hard drive “somewhere.” By adding “tags” published by in Summer 2006. He can be reached at
(keywords) to your photos, you can search and find guyball@pacbell.net.
certain images at the click of a button – regardless


STC Scholarships Available
The Society for Technical Communication offers scholarships to assist
students who are pursuing established degree programs in some area of
technical communication.
Eligibility
Applicants must have completed at least one year of post-secondary education.
» Applicants must be full-time students.
» They may be either graduate students working toward a Master’s or Doctor’s degree, or undergraduate students working
toward a Bachelor’s degree.
» Students should have at least one full year of academic work remaining to complete their degree programs, although under
exceptional circumstances an award may be granted to a student for the final half-year.
» They should be studying communication of information about technical subjects. Other majors, such as general journalism,
electronic communication engineering, computer programming, creative writing, or entertainment, are not eligible.
Awards
Awards of $1,500 each will be granted toward school tuition and expenses. Two awards are granted to
graduate students, and two to undergraduates.

Schedule
Completed application forms must be received by February 15 of the year in which the scholarship is to be
given.

Graduate students must notify the committee of acceptance in a graduate program
by March 20. (Students enrolling in a graduate program may not know their status
by February 16. They will be evaluated like accepted students, but their eligibility
is contingent upon acceptance and notification by March 20.) Applicants will be
notified by mail of committee decisions by April 15.

Arkansas STC Chapter Contacts
President Keith Dover 501.614.3288 kdover@spp.org
Vice President Mary Corder 501.548.0472 mcorder@gmail.com
Treasurer Patrick Moore 501.663.8153 epmoore@att.net
Secretary TBD
Immediate Past President Karen Kuralt 501.569.8334 kmkuralt@ualr.edu
Webmaster Tommy Trussell 501.336.0889 webmaster@stc-arkansas.org
STC Region 5 Director Sherry Michaels 480.614.8440 sherry.michaels@docntrain.com

Hillbilly TechTalk Letters, comments, and Technically Speaking as long the information provided is
Hillbilly TechTalk is published articles are welcome. Articles as you acknowledge the source correct, complete, or up-to-
for members and friends must address topics of interest and send the editor a copy of date.
of the Arkansas Chapter of to technical communicators, the article.
the Society for Technical especially those in Arkansas. For more information about
Communication. It serves Contact the editor for Disclaimer the Arkansas Chapter of STC,
as a communication link for guidelines. Letters and articles The opinions expressed by visit the web site at www.stc-
members of the chapter. may be edited to fit available contributors to Technically arkansas.org.
space. Speaking are solely those of
Editor the individual writers and do Copyright “ 2006. The Arkansas
Mary Corder Reprints not reflect the opinions of the Chapter of the Society for Technical
mcorder@gmail.com Communication. All rights reserved.
You may reprint original Arkansas chapter or the STC. Printed in the USA.
Submissions material appearing in No guarantee is given that

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