Ever since I became a technical writer back in the mid 1990s I have been impressed by the friendly and helpful attitude of almost every single person I’ve met in this profession. I have always benefited from the experiences of my colleagues, and I hope I now do my bit to help other professionals by contributing to various mailing lists and being active in the STC. (By the way, the new STC Europe SIG now has its own web page.)
One of the people I worked with in those early days was a particularly helpful, friendly, and good-natured colleague. He is now writing a blog about free and low-priced tools and utilities that can make your computing life that much easier. I am delighted to recommend Jonathan’s Tool Bar & Grill.
(Now is that one word or two? “tool bar” or “toolbar”? or should it be capitalised as “Toolbar”, or even “Tool Bar”? Answers, on a postcard please, to Tech Writing Pedants Anonymous…)
Thanks very much for your compliments and for recommending my blog, David. (Sorry it took me so long to comment.) I will be delighted if it helps a few more people get through their computing days a bit easier.
As for your grammatical question, I decided on “tool bar” as two words when writing the Amdocs corporate style guide, because I didn’t want to fall into a morass of “menubar,” “statusbar,” etc. In general, I curmudgeonly oppose the popular trend of smashing two words together into one. Maybe that’s a holder from my columnist days when I was paid by the word?
–Jonathan Plutchok