Author: John

John Mueller is a freelance author and technical editor. He has writing in his blood, having produced 123 books and over 600 articles to date. The topics range from networking to artificial intelligence and from database management to heads-down programming. Some of his current offerings include topics on machine learning, AI, Python programming, Android programming, and C++ programming. His technical editing skills have helped over more than 70 authors refine the content of their manuscripts. John also provides a wealth of other services, such as writing certification exams, performing technical edits, and writing articles to custom specifications. You can reach John on the Internet at [email protected].

Defining the Benefits of Failure

In a society that values success above anything else, it seems a bit odd to talk about one’s failures as being beneficial. Even so, failure is beneficial because it helps define what is possible and what is not. Failure helps shape the expectations of those who experience and use it in a positive way to produce a better result the next time. In fact, failure is the greatest teacher of all and something to be embraced rather than shunned. Of course, this sounds quite counterintuitive and perhaps even a bit bizarre, but it’s a fact. All true success comes through a path strewn with failure.

When you consider the role of a technical writer, part of that role is to fail. Readers pay me to play with various technologies—to try to perform various tasks using a variety of techniques. When I find something that works, it’s time to put it into words that the reader can understand and absorb quickly. Failures almost never appear in books except in the form of Notes, Tips, and Warnings (just in case you wondering about the sources of those bits of text). A technical writer fails until a success is achieved and then documents the success so the reader need not fail. So, when you think about it, at least part of the requirement for my occupation is the ability to fail gracefully and to keep trying until a success is achieved.

Failure has even shaped my writing and the techniques employed to produce useful books. Previous posts such as, Methods of Learning and Developing the Reader Profile, are based on failures to communicate in my earliest books. Discovering these techniques and how to apply them specifically to computer texts is an example of failure applied to produce a positive result. Of course, my technique continually evolves as I learn more through my failures.

There are many professions where failure is essential, even mandatory. For example, scientists fail constantly. In fact, Thomas Edison is reputed to have failed around 1,000 times when inventing the lightbulb. Of course, Edison turned the whole idea of failure around and simply stated that he had found 1,000 ways not to make a lightbulb. Even so, he failed. However, it’s important not to miss the significance of the failures. People actually paid Edison to fail when you think about it. They realized that he had the expertise required to eventually succeed and that the failures were simply the road to that success. The people who believed in Edison took his failures in stride, much as the man himself did.

It may surprise you to discover that many of the greatest people in history were equally robust in their failures. Abraham Lincoln is often viewed as our greatest president, and for good reason, his record speaks for itself. Yet, his record is replete with an astonishing number of failures. Viewing the record and then viewing the man makes you wonder whether Lincoln would have ultimately succeeded without that incredible list of failures.

Marie Curie also experienced more than a few failures, yet everyone knows about her because of the successes garnered after working incredibly hard to overcome obstacles that would send most people reeling. Without her work, we might not have many of the medical and other scientific advances we take for granted today. It was failure that shaped Curie, but we focus on the end of the path—the ultimate success of her experiments.

The list of famous failures goes on and I can’t even begin to scratch the surface of that list in this post. The point is that failure, not success, is the teacher of us all. Success is simply the conclusion to any particular course of education by failure. Because of my unique view of failure, it concerns me that our society has taken a course that values success over failure and uses every method possible to avoid it. Our children are taught that they’ll succeed no matter what, that failure is best avoided. The overemphasis on success to avoid the potential pain of failure is seriously hurting everyone and reduces the chance of success in the future. Failure, discover it—embrace it. What is your view of failure. Let me know at [email protected].

 

Piracy and the Reader

There are many articles written about the effects of piracy—the stealing of intellectual property—on artists and the businesses that work with them. The situation has gotten so out of hand that some people don’t even realize they’re stealing anything. I’ve talked with any number of people who admit to using a free copy of one of my books. When I point out that neither my publisher nor I have issued free copies of anything, they look a bit surprised. After all, why would Joe or Sally give them stolen property, or why would a Web site say material is free when it actually isn’t? It’s human nature to attempt to get everything for the lowest possible price, with free being the best price of all. Some people even think it’s simply wrong to pay for intellectual material; that it should be freely available to everyone. The reason products such as books have been successful so far is that the source of the material has been controlled through the use of paper media. The Internet has changed all that. As described in “Authors and Book Piracy” the losses from piracy to content owners are immense—on the order of $58 billion every year.

I was recently pointed to an article entitled, “The Slow Death of the American Author” by several people. In this case, we’re not talking about outright theft of intellectual property. The party in question is importing foreign copies of books and reselling them to students over eBay at a reduced cost. Foreign editions of books often sell for less for simple reasons, such as the use of lower quality materials and sweat shop labor. In some cases, it boils down to the domestic publisher not having a presence in that country and making a deal with a publisher in another country to distribute the book there at a reduced cost in order to make the book more widely available, but with the limitation that distribution will be kept to that country. There are also situations where a foreign entity has simply stolen the book content and printed copies without paying anyone. The point is that these foreign editions usually end up putting little or no money in the pocket of the author that produced the work and the author is already hard pressed to earn a living from domestic sales.

These and other stories simply point out what we have all known for a long time—eventually it will become impossible for artists of all stripes, including authors of technical books, to make a living through the expression of their artistic skill given the current environment. Of course, I’ll continue to write, as will many other people, but what does this change in the business environment really mean to the reader? No one has really thought about it. At least, I haven’t read any articles by anyone who has contemplated what happens to the people who consume intellectual property as part of their daily lives when the quantity or quality of that material is reduced because the practitioner of the required art must do something different in order to eat.

For some artists, such as musicians, it means a change in business plan. Many more musicians look to concerts or other activities to make a living today given that their recorded music earnings have dropped dramatically. A few artists, such as painters and sculptors, are pretty much unaffected by digital media and will continue working as before. However, for authors such as myself, it may mean a change in occupation. My technical writing could go from something I do for a living to something I do for pleasure when I have leisure time (which probably won’t be very often). There will likely be people who will continue to have leisure time to write, but the overall effect of piracy will be a reduction in both quality and quantity of material available to readers in technical fields. Technical writing pays poorly. The people who actually have the knowledge required to do a good job usually have far better things to do with their time than to write material that someone else will simply steal.

I’m actually looking at a number of ways to stay in business—much as smart musicians have done. What will likely occur in my case is that I’ll find a new way to present my ideas in a form that isn’t quite so easy to pirate or uses piracy in some way to actually earn money. You may see my site filled with ads, for example, or I may put a stronger emphasis on new ways of presenting information, such as interactive books. The idea is that I’m looking for ways to get around the whole issue of piracy because I know there is no way to put the genie back into the bottle at this point and no amount of legislation will cause people to change their basic nature. However, I do appreciate any support you can provide in the meantime through the purchase of my books from locations such as Amazon and by not sharing your digital copies with others.

Of course, I’m always looking for your input. If you have read my blog for a while, you know that I’m in this business because I genuinely enjoy helping others, so it’s important to me to continue serving your needs in whatever way I can. I have already received a few interesting ideas from readers on how to turn this whole situation around, but I can always use more. Given that the publishing industry is slowly dying and that I must somehow continue to pay my bills, how would you approach the problem? Let me know your ideas at [email protected].

 

Cleaning Substitute

I’ve received a number of positive comments about the Using a Bleach Substitute post I provided a little over a month ago. The bleach substitute is somewhat potent and there are some negative issues with paracetic acid (although, far fewer than when using bleach). The main reason to use the bleach substitute is as an antibacterial. You use it on surfaces that you must keep bacteria free and are subject to contamination from various sources. The actual amount of paracetic acid in the bleach substitute I provided is quite small, but still, any amount does present hazards, so one of the most commonly asked questions is whether there is an alternative.

You can create a simple relatively non-toxic cleaner using 2 cups of water, 2 tsp of borax, and 2 tsp of white vinegar. However, enough borax (a naturally occurring mineral) will still cause some level of respiratory problems. Theoretically, you could eat enough of it to cause a number of negative symptoms or even cause death, but you’d have to eat quite a lot of it. In fact, borax is used as a food preservative in many countries (albeit, not in the United States). Borax is relatively benign as far as cleaning agents are concerned, but you must still treat it with respect.

This cleaning agent can be kept in a spray bottle beneath the sink because the amount of problematic agents is so small. You’ll find that it does an admirable job of cleaning surfaces and won’t cause any damage to metal surfaces. However, you’ll have to deal with the after effects of the vinegar smell, which does go away relatively fast. Some people recommend using essential oils to control the smell. However, if you add 6 or 7 drops of essential oil to the mixture, it may smell better, but now you have to consider the toxicity of the essential oil. If you choose to add an essential oil, make sure that you obtain a pure oil from a non-toxic source such as peppermint or orange.

Never mix the bleach substitute that I told you about with this cleaning substitute. In fact, mixing cleaners of any sort can cause all sorts of woe (up to and including death). Just as you would never mix bleach with ammonia (the resulting gas will kill you), you shouldn’t mix anything else unless you have a recipe for doing so. Let me know if you have any other questions regarding cleaning substitutes at [email protected].

 

Review of Olympus Has Fallen

Tensions are currently high with North Korea, so it’s hardly surprising that Hollywood has played on those fears with a movie. Olympus Has Fallen presents a unique view of what would happen if terrorists managed to take over the White House. A number of people have compared this movie with Red Dawn. Although the two movies do feature foreign invaders, the plots are completely different and I would say that Olympus Has Fallen is definitely more compelling. It draws you in. However, in order for either movie to work, you have to be willing to suspend a bit of critical thinking and allow yourself to be entertained. Both movies are pure fantasy.

In Olympus Has Fallen, a former US Army Ranger, Mike Banning (played by Gerard Butler) faces off against a North Korean terrorist, Kang Yeonsak (played by Rick Yune). Kang has managed to take the President, Benjamin Asher (played by Aaron Eckhart) hostage, along with a number of members of his staff. They’re actually in the presidential bunker in the White House.  I’ll leave it to you to discover just how this happens. The two characters face off against each other in an extremely calculated manner—there are no cheap shots in this movie. I think that it’s the way the two men seem to think through absolutely every move that makes this movie so good. The two are chess masters in a dangerous game of life and death.

Kang is trying his best to get the self-destruct codes for the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal from the President and plans to use his son, Connor Asher (played by Finley Jacobsen), as the means to do it. Meanwhile, an ineffective Speaker of the House, Allan Trumbull (played by Morgan Freeman), hopes that Mike Banning will rescue the president and set things right. Trumbull really is ineffectual and portrays a calm desire to let Banning do all of the heavy lifting despite the insistence of nearly everyone else that Banning isn’t up to the task (it’s the people who vote for Banning that make the movie interesting). There is a dynamic between the various actors that provides nearly constant tension throughout the movie. Finley Jacobsen also manages to add a cute factor that endears him to the audience.

While this movie isn’t even a little realistic, it’s extremely entertaining. Riveting would be a better word for it. I noted that my wife actually sat on the edge of her seat throughout most of the movie. Any movie can rely on special effects to provide entertainment value and there are some special effects in this movie, but it goes much further. The acting is great, the plot is good, and there is nearly constant non-repetitive action. The varied action is a strong point in this movie (so many action movies repeat the same actions over and over again).

There are a few down sides to the movie. It could have been made a little more realistic without denting the movie’s entertainment value. Morgan Freeman does play the part of an ineffectual Speaker of the House well, but to the point of being inept. The role could have been spiced up a little without any problem. There is also an incredibly large plot hole in the movie that should have been addressed (just how did the terrorists manage to secure all of those US weapons, especially the plane). Even so, Olympus Has Fallen makes for great viewing.

 

Pruning the Grapes (Part 2)

It has been a while since I wrote Pruning the Grapes (Part 1). Of course, the grapes were actually pruned long ago. In fact, the biggest impediment to my pruning the grapes was the knee deep snow in many areas of the orchard. We still have some snow, but it has greatly diminished since then. In that first post I described some of the conclusions I had reached from pruning our own grapes and watching others work with their canes. I also mentioned that we use a four-cane Kniffin system for pruning purposes. I decided to grab a few pictures of the pruning process, in part, because the pictures in books sometimes make it hard to see precisely what you should do. This is just one method of how to prune grapes, but there are several other ways of doing so. If you’re wanting to learn to prune grapes, then carry on reading for my version –

There are actually two kinds of buds on a grape cane. The first is sharp and pointy like the one shown here.

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This bud type produces the leaves later in the season. The second is rounder, almost globular like the one shown here.

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This bud type produces the flowers that will eventually produce the grapes. The concept that completely eluded me at the outset was that a grape won’t produce any more buds for the current year after the previous year’s growing season. In other words, the buds you grow this summer are for next year’s fruit. When you prune, you must prune with the idea that the buds you have now are the only buds you’re going to get, so you need to prune carefully. A lot of the books also fail to point out that you want to keep the buds nearest the main branch so that the grapes receive sufficient water and nutrients. Finally, each spur should have only two or three fruiting buds-the globular ones. The spur can have any number of leaf buds-more is better in this case.

Some of these pictures are a bit hard to see because the light was intolerably harsh on the day I worked on the vines. However, there are a few things you should notice in this picture:

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Notice that the spurs coming off the main cane don’t necessarily point down as it always seems to show in the pictures in books. The spurs will eventually point in the right direction because the grapes will pull them down. Don’t worry about spur direction-look instead for the spurs that have the nicest fruiting buds.

Also notice that the canes are tied to the steel cable. You need to put the canes in contact with the cable to promote attachment to it. Those curlicues coming from the cane are actually quite strong and will hold it in place, but only if they actually curl around the steel cable. You can’t use anything harsh to tie the canes in place. We actually use old pairs of pantyhose that have been cut up into usable pieces. The pantyhose are quite inexpensive and last several years (as many as five) before they start to disintegrate too badly. The most important part though is that they hold well without causing damage to the cane. Using a steel cable manufacturer you can trust is important to make sure your machinery is working properly and efficiently for you.

When you get done, your cane won’t look quite as pretty as the ones in the book. In fact, grape vines tend to look a bit gnarled. Here is how the pruned vine looked this year when I got done with it.

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You can see the trunk, the four fruiting canes, and the spurs coming from the canes. The canes are looped or tied to the steel wire as needed. I’ll actually retie the lower left cane when the season progresses. At the time I pruned the cane, I was a bit worried about breaking it, so I left it as is. The upper right cane will also require a bit more support. Again, I chose to wait until it warms up a bit and the cane is more flexible. This grape vine will likely produce sixteen nice sized clusters of medium-sized grapes that I’ll eventually use to make wine or Rebecca will use for jelly or juice.

This is my approach to pruning grapes. Of course, there are many schools of thought on the issue. However, what I do hope is that the combination of pictures and some insights will help you get better grapes out of your vines. Let me know your thoughts on grape pruning at [email protected].

Get Ready…Get Set…Garden! 2013

This year’s trip to Baraboo for Get Ready…Get Set…Garden! is part of our continuing education. I talked about this particular educational opportunity in last year’s Get Ready…Get Set…Garden! post. The sessions are hosted by the Sauk County UW Extension, which actually puts on a substantial number of events during the year. Our itinerary for this year consisted of container bag gardening techniques, growing small fruits (strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries), and gardening with aches and pains (essentially a session on dealing with accessibility needs for gardeners).

The first session discussed container bag gardening and the advantages it offers over using buckets or over-sized pots to hold your garden on the patio. Every year Rebecca puts together a wonderful salad garden for me. Of special interest are the cherry and salad tomatoes. If I need a snack, I simply go outside, enjoy the flower garden she has put together for me, and munch a few tomatoes-nothing could be better than that. However, we had always wondered whether there might be something more that we could do. This year’s sessions shows that we can. However, instead of using the really expensive gardening bags that the instructor promoted as part of her business, we plan to use feed sacks. They’ll perform the same function and only cost a fraction of the amount (a bag large enough to grow tomatoes costs $22.00 if you go the garden bag route, the same size feed bag is free since we get them as part of buying feed for our animals). I’ll post again sometime later this year to let you know how the garden bags work.

We have also had a lot of problems growing blueberries, despite ensuring the ground is acid enough for them. It turns out that we have been doing a few things wrong-the most important of which is that we haven’t been watering our blueberries enough. It seems that they require almost boggy conditions to grow acceptably. Equipped with our new knowledge, we’re going to give blueberries another try this summer. One of the problems with gardening is that you aren’t likely to get the technique right on the first try, or the second, or the third. There are some people who think gardening is science. Well, that’s partially correct, but it’s also part art. Sometimes you just need to feel your way through a growing experience. The garden is looking great at the minute and I’m currently looking at storage buildings in PA as I need somewhere to store my tools and to put my feet up at the end of a rough day! I’m thinking of putting the building next to my allotment so that it’s looking out onto a nice view. I’m not 100% sure yet though!

Unfortunately, our instructor didn’t arrive for the third session. Someone with the UW Extension did fill in, but I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed because I was really looking forward to getting quite a lot out of this third class. As Rebecca and I get older, it would be nice to know about a few of the things we could do to make our gardening experience better. Even so, I must applaud the UW Extension instructor for getting up and giving an impromptu discussion on a topic that she hadn’t prepared for without any preparation time. To simply get up and start talking would be one thing-to do it exceptionally well given the circumstances is nothing short of amazing. I also plan to post again on some thoughts I garnered on meeting accessibility requirements for gardening.

There are some benighted people who think that education ends when you leave high school or college. Education is a lifelong endeavor. Gaining new knowledge and then turning it into wisdom adds spice and keeps our minds fit. Whether your intellectual love is technical, natural, or in some other realm, take time to embrace it by furthering your education. Let me know your thoughts on continuing education at [email protected].

 

Review of Darby O’Gill and the Little People

This past weekend we had a good time celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. We aren’t Catholic or Irish, but getting caught up in a celebratory event of this sort is fun despite the fact we don’t participate fully. Of course, we had to have corned beef and cabbage for dinner on Sunday. Rebecca adds a few items of her own including carrots, onions, potatoes, and (interestingly enough) parsnips. Corned bread completes the dinner in most cases, but this year we decided to have some of her delicious homemade bread instead.

Part of our celebration has always involves watching Darby O’Gill and the Little People. Yes, the movie came out in 1959, so many people will likely think that it’s had its day and no one should really bother with it anymore. However, this is a G rated movie that really is quite a lot of fun and it has some amazing special effects considering when it was made. The part I like best about this movie is that it can have a lot of fun without an overpowering script or any of the other baggage that seems necessary in movies today. Some movies are meant solely to entertain and this is one of them. There truly isn’t anything to think about—just enjoy the ride.

The movie takes place in old Ireland. Of course, there is a lord of the manor and Darby works for him. Even though the movie doesn’t apparently have any sort of specific time in mind, people are still moving around by horseback and butter is churned, not purchased at a store. The tavern is a place for exchanging the gossip of the day and it isn’t unusual to find the priest there enjoying a glass of stout. It’s a carefree sort of a movie and I’m sure that the scenery is a caricature of Ireland, rather than the real thing. It presents a idyllic scene of what we think things might have been like.

Don’t get the idea that the movie is lacking in the plot area though. This movie does have an interesting plot that includes dealings with the leprechauns, of course. (These leprechauns are a fun sort, not the dark sort found in some other movies.) There is a certain amount of drama, part of which includes a lost girl and a dark, stormy night. One of the action scenes shows two young bucks fighting over the same girl. Perhaps some of the ideas are a bit clichéd, but they’re done in a way that doesn’t make them feel old or tired.

The movie does include some scenes where it is obvious that people are drinking. In fact, there are drunken people in a few places. The drinking and drunks are portrayed in a way that a few people will find unappealing today (remember that the movie was made in 1959 and attitudes were different at that time). If you really want to keep your kids away from all mention of alcohol, this is probably one movie to skip. Otherwise, you can probably discuss the matter afterward and leave things go at that. I doubt very much that most children will even notice the drunken adults as being drunken.

Overall, Darby O’Gill is the right sort of movie to watch on St. Patrick’s Day, whether you’re Irish or not. It’s a lot of fun and the good guys win, of course. What’s not quite so obvious at times is who is good and who is not. You only truly find out the details at the end of the movie.

 

Using a Bleach Substitute

I have become a label commando in recent years. People actually become quite disturbed waiting for me to finish my latest epic reading of a cleaning product or food label. I read everything, including the list of ingredients when I can find one. More importantly, I look for what’s missing on the label. For example, I’m surprised at how many margarine labels refuse to tell me that they don’t contain any cholesterol. Lest you think this is one of those odd fetish requirements-some fish oil tablets actually contain cholesterol. We pay the extra to buy a product that’s labeled cholesterol free (and yes, it does make a difference when the doctor tests your cholesterol).

So I was taken by surprise recently when I read a bleach label. The stuff should be labeled toxic waste and left go at that. The label told me about the dire consequences of using the product, such as permanent damage to my esophagus. Bleach is also a terrible product to use in a house with a septic system because it kills off all of the helpful bacteria in the septic tank and causes the waste to just sit there (possibly flooding your house with a really smelly mess). However, the part about not putting the empty container in the trash or in the recycle bin is what got me most. Just where was I supposed to dispose of the container? It turns out that you’re supposed to take it to a hazardous waste disposal site, at least that is according to the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) regulation. A product labeled hazardous waste has no place in my house. (Just consider the fact that many of the foods you buy in the store have been soaked in bleach and you don’t have to think very long about why your food is making you sick.) It made me think about what other hazardous materials around my house needed special disposal procedures and the COSHH meaning regarding these materials.

Of course, country homes require some means of keeping things clean and getting rid of bacteria, just like anyone else does. It turns out that there is a really good solution and it actually works better than bleach. Most importantly, this solution is pretty much harmless to everyone and everything. You fill up two bottles: one with vinegar and another with hydrogen peroxide. Spray a surface first with the vinegar and second with the hydrogen peroxide and you create a really effective cleaning agent called peracetic acid. The point is to keep the two components separate until you actually need to use them in order to gain a highly effective cleaner that’s a whole lot less harmful than bleach.

What impressed me most is that the combination actually works well on carpets as a stain remover. It’s also much more effective than bleach at getting bathroom grout clean and it works especially well on surfaces with small crevices. Some people do mix the two and add water for use in laundry, but keeping the two chemicals separate is the best way to avoid the potentially toxic qualities of the peracetic acid. As with any cleaner, you do want to use this one with care, but it’s frankly a lot better than using bleach. Let me know your thoughts about this interesting cleaning aid at [email protected].

 

Keeping Things Clean

Not a lot of time is spent in discussing cleanliness in many self-sufficiency texts except to say that it’s important to maintain the cleanliness of the animal enclosures to improve overall animal health and to reap the monetary benefits of doing so. It’s true, keeping the animal enclosures clean does provide these benefits. No matter what sort of animal is in your care, dog, cat, chicken, or rabbit, cleanliness is a requirement if you want to maintain their health. Unhealthy animals are a lot more expensive to keep and you won’t obtain much financial benefit from them.

A few texts will stress that animal cleanliness also produces happier animals. Animals tend not to express happiness or unhappiness in the same way that humans do. However, each of our animals does express happiness or displeasure in specific ways. Anyone can see these emotional conditions if they care to look. Animals do feel things and the need to be clean (after a certain manner) is a characteristic that they have in common with us.

However, I’ve never encountered a text that stresses that animals have a preference for being clean or that they even have the intellectual resources to determine the difference between clean and dirty. Over the years, we’ve worked hard to keep the environment our animals live in as clean as possible. During that time we’ve also noticed that the animals definitely have a desire to be clean and that they do, in fact, have the intelligence to tell the difference.

For example, one rabbit purposely chewed a hole in the side of it’s enclosure to gain access to the middle enclosure of a three rabbit hutch. It was only after I discovered an air leak in the side of the rabbit’s current enclosure and fixed the leak that the rabbit was happy to stay in the enclosure I chose for it. The rabbit was uncomfortable and determined a method for overcoming that discomfort. It’s method of addressing the problem showed a certain level of intelligence.

As another example, in cleaning the chicken’s nest box enclosure, some of the bedding gets tromped down, but is still dry and clean. We fluffed up the bedding and added a bit more to ensure the chickens comfort and to keep the eggs from breaking. Other bedding was soiled, and so we put it into the compost heap to decompose. New bedding was put in the nest boxes that had soiled bedding in them. The chickens unerringly chose the nest boxes with new bedding in which to lay their eggs. Since the chickens were outside in their run and didn’t see which nest boxes received the new bedding, we can only assume that they can smell or somehow see the difference between the new and old bedding. However, it’s important to note that they knew the difference and made a choice to use the new bedding, rather than the old, even though the old bedding is still clean and usable.

We had three cats at one point. One of the cats had become enfeebled due to old age and was sick. The other two cats would refuse to use the potty pan after the sick cat until we cleaned the potty pan up. The odor left behind by the sick cat signaled disease and the other two didn’t want to pick up. Even if the potty pan had just been cleaned, the other two would refuse to go into after the sick cat. The cats made a choice. Keeping your animal’s environment clean is, therefore, more than simply a matter of health or monetary gain. Animals are happier when you keep their environment clean and they do have the intelligence to make choices about their environment, given the chance to do so. That’s why it’s important that a pet carpet cleaner is always on hand for those pets who live inside. If they are sick or have an accident, it’s easy to use a carpet cleaner to just ensure that any stains or odors are removed from the area. This can benefit both owners and animals alike. Animals know when their environment isn’t up to par and you should too. Providing your animals with a clean environment is a responsibility that you should take seriously.

However, it’s also important to remember that animals don’t use human standards of cleanliness. The essentials are to keep the environment clean and comfortable. A rabbit or chicken is unlikely to want, need, or even accept room deodorizer or other human niceties in their environment. In fact, some human niceties (such as scents) are actually detrimental to animal health in some cases. Make sure you take an animal eye view of environment when you setup, maintain, and clean their equipment. Let me know your thoughts on animal environments at [email protected].

 

Procedures in Technical Writing

A great technical book contains all sorts of content types because different readers learn in various ways. If everyone learned in the same way, technical books would be easier to write, albeit, a bit boring. Procedures are part of the hands-on content that turns a “how” book into a “how to” book. A how book simply shows how something is done. For example, you might see a coding example that shows how to perform a technique. However, unless you actually work with that technique, it’s unlikely that you’ll truly grasp the methodology behind it.

Writing good procedures that actually work is hard. I think the point was driven home to me at an early age by a teacher who seemed to have way too much fun in class. I learned quite a bit from her simply because she made learning fun. When it came time to write a procedure, she chose making toast, which seems to be a typical example. However, when it came time to check our procedure, we each handed our papers to another student who read them aloud while the instructor performed the steps precisely as written. Many of us forgot to mention taking the bread out of the wrapper, so she’d politely try to stuff the pieces, wrapping and all, into the toaster. It was a hoot, but also a great lesson.

All authors have an issue with assuming that the person viewing the procedure knows something that doesn’t appear in the write-up. The person ends up trying to stuff the bread into the toaster without taking it out of the wrapper first. Even though the example was quite humorous in that teacher’s classroom, in real life the omission of important material is frustrating for everyone because the author truly doesn’t understand why the reader is having a problem with the procedure. I’ve gone through the process myself—many times. As I’ve matured as an author, I’ve come to realize that I need to draw the answer to the problem with my procedure out of the reader without getting the reader any more frustrated than he or she is at the moment.

Good procedures, like good newspaper articles, answer who, what, where, when, why, and how. Even that requirement seems counterintuitive. Most authors seem quite pleased when they can accomplish the “how” part of the equation. The who part of the equation is often the hardest part of the procedure. Who is performing the task? It seems like an easy question to answer, but often I need to go back through a procedure and decide who is doing what and at what time. Doing something at the wrong time is often just as bad as not doing it at all. The question of where comes into play because modern computer systems have applications that interact with each other. Deciding where the person performing the procedure is at any given moment is essential to making the procedure work as expected.

Of all the questions though, the question of why is the easiest to answer, yet the most often missed. If a person does something like an automaton, there is no feeling of accomplishment—no sense of gratification. The reader goes through the motions without understanding anything about the procedure. As a result, the information doesn’t sink in and the reader is reduced to using the procedure precisely as written to perform only the task the procedure is designed to address. The best procedures answer the question of why so that the reader can use the procedure in various ways to address a wide range of problems that the author hadn’t even considered when writing the procedure.

Procedures are important. As a hands-on tool for interacting with the user, procedures present the opportunity for the author to extend the meaningful use of a book well beyond its intended purpose. An author truly can’t aspire to do more than that! Let me know your thoughts on writing procedures at [email protected].