Recently in Authoring Category

... was announced yesterday, and is available now as a public beta. By all means, check it out. I have been playing with Buzzword, and like it. I did manage to break it trying an Export to Word 2003 XML, but it is a Beta after all.

I do wonder about the export choices, which, apart from Acrobat, zipped XML, and plain text, are all Microsoft--Word 2003, Word 2007, and Word 2003 XML. This makes perfect sense if Adobe sees Buzzword as the Web interface in a Microsoft-centric document workflow. But I can see other use cases, especially ones where the content is destined for a Web CMS (or is already in a Web CMS and is being updated. In these cases, the Web CMS would likely not want the overhead of the complex Microsoft file structures.

I think we are getting a briefing on Acrobat.com shortly. I will see what Adobe has in mind.

I've been intrigued by MadCap Software and their aggressive push into the documentation tools space. We just got an in-depth series of presentations on their products, and I certainly came away impressed. Mary Laplante is quoted in a related article over at EContent Magazine.

Click here to find out.

White papers on W3C standards in practice and component content management in practice are now available in the Gilbane white paper library.

Using XML and Databases: W3C Standards in Practice serves as a handy reference guide to the current status of the major XML standards.

Component Content Management in Practice: Meeting the Demands of the Most Complex Content Applications provides an overview of the requirements for technology that manages content at a granular level. To quote the executive summary:

[The paper] compares the requirements of component content management with the capabilities of more general content management technologies, notably web content management and document management. It then looks at the technology behind CCMS in depth, and concludes with example applications where CCMS can have the most impact on an enterprise.

No registration is required to read or download the papers.

• Over at eWeek, Jim Rapoza looks at the most overhyped technologies of the century, and XML isn't one of them.
• At IBM developerWorks, Elliotte Rusty Harold speculates on the future of XML. He's bullish on XQuery and Atom, and he declares the end of markup-centric editors.
• Speaking of being bullish on Atom, check out Mochilla's Atom-based API for premium content.
• Geoff Bock sends along news that Microsoft's push to get OOXML as a standard is being scrutinized by the EU.
• Also on the OOXML front, IBM and Microsoft seem ready to go toe to toe. More perspective here and here.
• Have you ever thought you should be able to take DITA-encoded content and pump it through InDesign? You are not alone.
• If you follow the Apache Software Foundation or other technical listservs at any level of interest, you just have to try Mark Logic's MarkMail application where you can ask questions like, "Who from Microsoft chimes in on the XML schema list at the W3C?".
• I'm not the only one to think that part of Microsoft's interest in Yahoo is driven by Yahoo's impressive efforts in wireless technology, which have XML at their core.