Just a word about us -- so that you know who the "we" is that we refer to throughout this book.
We are
Deborah and
Eric Ray, owners of RayComm, Inc., a technical communication consulting company. For the most part, we write computer books, including
Dummies 101: HTML and
Netscape Composer For Dummies, to name a couple. In fact (if you can pardon a little bragging),
HTML For Dummies Quick Reference (this book's first edition) and
Dummies 101: HTML won international awards at the 1997 Society for Technical Communication Technical Publications Competition. And when we're not trapped under mounds of book drafts, we also give occasional seminars on HTML and Internet-related topics, and we take on other technojargonese-into-English translation projects.
I, Deborah Ray (my friends call me Deb), have been a technical communicator for the past four years and have been involved with the Internet for the past three years. I taught technical writing to students at Utah State University and Oklahoma State University. I also have a variety of technical experiences, including creating various computer and engineering documents for sundry purposes. My areas of emphasis include writing, designing, and illustrating documents to meet various audiences' information needs.
I, Eric Ray (my friends call me, well, Eric), have been involved with the Internet for five years and have made numerous presentations and written several papers about HTML and online information. (I like to hear myself write.) My technical experience includes creating and maintaining the TECHWR-L listserv list (a discussion forum for technical communications) as well as implementing and running Web servers. I guess you'd say that I'm a Webmaster. As a technical communicator, I focus on making "techie" information easy for normal people to understand.
Thanks to our combined skills, we've reached stereotypical
geek status, having side-by-side home computer workstations at which we work hours and hours every day. Our cats perch on the monitors, stare at us, and attempt to supervise our work. (Actually, we think they're just keeping their tummies warm.)
