Plain Words eLetter
2004 issue 5
The Power of Plain Words
Zap Stress by Following the Way of the Zen Warrior
Extra
Save Time & Money – Using the Right Words
E-Business news
Public Sector on IT Outsourcing Spending Frenzy
British Library to Archive all UK Web Sites
Technology news
Off-beat news
Lead stories
The Power of Plain Words
July 13th, 2004, Plain Words editorial
With only a shoestring budget and a plastic garden chair to sit on, Janet Basdell created a thriving technical writing company with top clients and a £2.2M turnover. In a frank and informative interview she reveals how it was done.
More: Success Secrets >
Zap Stress by Following the Way of the Zen Warrior
July 13th, 2004, Plain Words editorial
Workplace stress in the Western world is on the rise, but you can beat it by following meditation and martial arts practises from the East. Plain Words reports.
More: Zen warrior >
Extra
Learn How to Save Time & Money by Using the Right Words
Writing is a basic skill we all learn in school. We take it for granted. But there’s more to communicating business or technical information than correct grammar and spelling. Time is wasted and business is lost if you don’t get your message across efficiently and effectively. The bottom line is: using the right words saves you time and money.
Plain Words can show you how to do this. Whether you are writing letters, reports, proposals, procedures, manuals, training material, on-line material or other technical documents we can show you how to communicate expertly every time.
Our writing skills training courses are designed around you – to fit your needs as an individual. We offer both public courses and courses delivered at your premises at times to suit you. And, remember, you learn from leading experts in the field. Our trainers are full time writers. They “walk the talk”.
Would you like to take advantage of this real world experience … right now … today? If so, please call +44 (0)1635 202013 or email us at
Alternatively, visit our Writing Skills Training pages to discover more: http://www.plainwords.co.uk/training.html
E-Business news
Government Should Post More Forms Online
Government departments need to show more commitment to making official forms available on the web by setting out clear strategies and targets, according to a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report published at the end of June.
Filling in forms is one of the most common ways in which citizens interact with government. Making them available electronically would minimise the burden of form-filling needed to access benefits such as pension credit to attendance allowance. What’s more, electronic forms could be pre-populated with data, cutting down the need for people to enter the same details more than once and enabling departments to share information.
Edward Leigh, chair of the PAC, said: “Government departments and other bodies have an obligation to make sure that their forms are quick and easy for members of the public to fill in, and minimise the need for people to supply the same information more than once. Improvements would reduce the burden of bureaucracy on the citizen, and lead to greater administrative efficiency and savings for the taxpayer.”
The report, Difficult Forms: How Government Departments Interact with Citizens, however, reveals that not all departments are confident of meeting the government-wide target for all their forms to be available online by the end of 2005.
More: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/0,39020645,39158939,00.htm
End of Dotcom Backlash?
Online shopping sales figures in the UK for the first quarter this year were 123% up on the same period in 2003, according to Visa. UK consumers spent £2.4bn and dotcom icons such as Amazon, eBay and the UK’s LastMinute.com have all reported profits, albeit inconsistently. What’s more, business-to-business marketplaces, one of the biggest disappointments of the dotcom era, are now confidently pulling in new members.
It may be too optimistic to talk about a revival, but many successful online businesses agree that the end of the dotcom backlash is in sight
“[The new dotcom revolution] has been a very quiet revolution,” said Steve Russell, manager at BT Transact, an electronic B2B exchange that links firms such as Cap Gemini and Dairy Crest to suppliers. “It might be less interesting than before, but really it’s just about network economics. The return on investment comes simply from getting more and more suppliers on your system.”
More: http://www.vnunet.com/analysis/1155723
Public Sector on IT Outsourcing Spending Frenzy
New research from Kable.com reveals that public-sector outsourcing is concentrated more on IT than business processes. The report, Public Sector Outsourcing 2000-06, reveals that by 2005-06, the total value of all UK public sector IT and business outsourcing will reach £46.5bn. This represents a growth of 228% in the market since 2000-01.
In 2003-04, IT accounted for 56% of the total market, followed by communications outsourcing and business process outsourcing, each of which account for 19% of the market. Managed services has the lowest proportion of spending, at just over £2bn.
Karen Swinden, Kable’s head of forecasting, says: “There seems to be a general consensus that BPO is fuelling the outsourcing market, but Kable’s analysis of public sector contracts clearly demonstrates that IT is playing the leading role. This is forecast to continue for the next few years.”
More: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/employment/0,39020648,39158907,00.htm
British Library Plans to Archive all UK Web Sites
A trial project to archive 6,000 of Britain’s web sites was announced in June by the UK Web Archiving Consortium. The consortium, led by the British Library, includes the Wellcome Trust, the National Archives and the Scottish and Welsh national libraries. Each member of the consortium will choose content relevant to its subject.
Richard Boulderstone, director of e-strategy at the British Library, says that all types of material will be collected from government documents to “informal material” such as discussion forums and blogs. “Only a limited number of sites will be archived initially, but ultimately, we would like to archive the whole UK Web,” he says.
More: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39158517,00.htm
Berners-Lee finally gets some Loot for Inventing the Web
Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee has finally received some money for inventing the Internet. He is the first recipient of the $1.2 million Millennium Technology Prize awarded by the Finnish Technology Award Foundation, which is the world’s largest science prize. This comes in the wake of him receiving a knighthood last December. He said that if he had patented his idea for the web – cashed in on it – it would have stopped the system from developing as quickly as it had.
Professor Pekka Tarjanne, chairman of the awards committee, said in a statement: “The prize is a biannual award for an outstanding innovation that directly promotes people’s quality of life, is based on humane values, and encourages sustainable economic development globally. This is just like a definition of the web.”
In his acceptance speech, Berners-Lee laid out his vision for what he calls the “semantic web.” He said: “The XML code, the basis of today’s www, is about document structure, while the semantic web is about real things.” He added: “It’s a pain doing things with a computer manually, when you know a piece of software could do it for you automatically.”
More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5217598/
Technology news
Pen Mightier than the Mouse?
Experts at Sony’s Computer Science Laboratories in Tokyo have come up with a pen that can move files between computers. It means that people on different computers in the same room can transfer files without using email, discs or a shared file server.
Dr Jun Rekimoto extended the drag and drop technique used in most PC software to create a “pick and drop” technique. This lets handheld computer users pick up a file from their device, using a special pen, and drop it onto the screen of another computer by placing the pen on its screen.
The technique would make it easier for colleagues to exchange files between computers, new acquaintances to swap electronic business cards, or friends to swap links to websites or music tracks.
More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3774747.stm
Broadband Speeds Electrified
Mains adapters, allowing home power lines to act as network links passing 200Mbps, could be available within months, according to Packard Bell. This follows indications from the government that it may start to encourage builders to hardwire homes rather than use Wi-Fi as a distribution medium.
Net2plug, as it is called, could offer a compromise solution for people who cannot run cable round their homes, although experts say fibre optics would offer a faster and more robust link.
The Homeplug organisation, which promotes the technology in the US, is working on its AV specification. This will increase data rates from the current 14Mbps. Panasonic unveiled a 144Mbps system at CeBIT, but said that it faced regulatory problems in Europe. Graham Hopper, European vice president of sales at Packard Bell, however, maintained that the problems are restricted to Holland.
Last month Packard Bell showed a home that had been networked over the mains using simple 14Mbps plug-in adapters . The demonstration used IP over USB-to-USB links, but the company will also sell Ethernet versions.
More: http://nl2.vnunet.com/news/1156121
Off-beat news
A Prickly Cure for Hangovers?
Hangover cures are as old as the distilling process itself. Most have little effect on the pounding head and queasy stomach. But now scientists claim extracts from the prickly cactus can help beat a hangover. American researchers say volunteers who took an extract of the prickly pear cactus before a binge had fewer hangover symptoms than those who took a placebo.
Dr Jeff Wiese and colleagues from Tulane University, New Orleans, had already noticed that extracts from the plant helped to reduce inflammation from injuries. So they decided to see if they could also reduce inflammations caused by the impurities in drinks and by-products from the liver breaking down alcohol that are thought to cause hangovers.
Writing in The Archives of Internal Medicine, they said “the prickly cactus produces a moderate reduction in suffering.” Mix it with a stiff hair-of-the-dog and it might just be a complete cure.
More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3846957.stm
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