Every so often, I clean up old working branches I don’t need any more. After I’ve written or revised content, and the pull request has been merged from my fork of the repo into the main branch of the organization’s repo, it’s time to get rid of the old working branches. TLDR/Copy and paste Here’s […]
Read moreJob aid: Git cherry-pick a commit and manually resolve a conflict
This post is short version of Git: Cherry-pick a commit into a branch and resolve a merge conflict. Replace `upstream/enterprise-4.8` with whatever your target branch is. I copy/paste these commands into my terminal. Verify that “Your branch is up to date with ‘upstream/enterprise-4.8’.” Go to the pull request that has the merge failure (e.g., like this […]
Read moreSaving Lives With Checklists | Heroic Technical Writing: Advice and Insights on the Business of Technical Communication
checklists serve the following functions. Act as memory guide. Ensure that all critical actions are taken. Reduce variability between pilots. Enhance coordination during high workload and stressful conditions. Saving Lives With Checklists | Heroic Technical Writing: Advice and Insights on the Business of Technical Communication
Read moreGit: Cherry-pick a commit into a branch and resolve a merge conflict
Here’s the merge conflict message our merge master got when she tried to cherry pick my pull request (PR) to version 4.7 of the published OpenShift docs (lines , below). Here, I start by deleting the enterprise-4.7 branch (line ) because it had a previous unmerged commit sitting at the top of the pile. (In […]
Read moreWordPress bug with highlighting lines in a code block
I discovered a bug. When you use the highlight lines property for code blocks as shown here… …the highlighting for the higher line numbers gets confused, as shown with lines 27, 39, 60 in the following screenshot. I’ve reached out to WordPress support and will let you know how it goes. I’ll try to file […]
Read moreJust as wild animals follow patterns that allow them to find adequate nutrition with the minimum expenditure of calories, information seekers follow patterns that allow them to find adequate information with the minimum expenditure of mental energy.
Mark baker, Every Page is Page One

How I create my to-do list in todoist
Recently, I wrote about zero inbox, my hack for getting rid of email stress and mess. I also mentioned that it depends on having a to-do list that can link back to your email messages. A few years ago, I started using the free version of Todoist, an elegant and dependable app developed by a Germany-based […]
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Make it SIMPLE
Il semble que la perfection soit atteinte non quand il n’y a plus rien à ajouter, mais quand il n’y a plus rien à retrancher. …perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away… ANTOINE DE SAINT EXUPERY, Terre des Hommes, […]
Read moreHow to make your ideas stick. Part 1/7: Introduction
This is the first in a series of posts on my journey as a technical writer to improve how I deliver ideas to readers’ minds and make them stick there. You never know where you’ll discover a gold nugget. I found Chip and Dan Heath’s work by chance in a Google docs slide template called Making […]
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Overview: Write the Docs, Portland 2020
This year’s WTD conference was online/virtual only. This shift to virtual conferences make them more inclusive and accessible to attendees whose work, personal responsibilities, finances, or other constraints would normally discourage them from participating. Although this conference was well-attended by folks on the West Coast, by my estimate, half of the attendees were from other […]
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