We're looking for an intelligent, self-motivated, adaptable technical author with experience of Java, Python, or C#.

In particular, we’re looking for candidates with some of the following:

• Experience in on- or off-line documentation authoring or technical illustration, using relevant tools.
• An understanding of the software development and technical publications processes.
• Ability and inclination to write your own sample code.
• Ability to read source code in languages such as Java, C# and Python.
• Logical and analytical approach to problem-solving.
• Exceptional communication skills.

The role involves working within the development team developing new and maintaining existing end-user documentation for our product range, including “How To” guides, reference manuals, user guides, and more. The successful applicant will also be an integral part of the Vamosa user community. We strongly believe in writing all our documentation in plain English and value the ability to explain complex subjects in simple language.

If you've got what it takes to work in a hectic environment like ours, we would love to hear from you. Please send your CV to jobs@vamosa.com, putting "Tech Author 2007" in the subject line.

Following on from the previous installment where I discussed the Mozilla Firefox browser and it's various plug-ins and extensions, this time I thought I'd give a quick run-down of the other tools I frequently use in debugging content and migration issues.

First of all, there's trusty old Textpad. Textpad is a plain-text editor and really excels at performing regular expression search as well as find-and-replace. And, with the appropriate syntax files in place, it will also do syntax highlighting of HTML, JSP, JavaScript, Python, Java files and others. (On a side note, my personal preference is to set the Textpad editor "keystroke compatability" to "Microsoft applications", but you can also select others. No vi or emacs bindings as far as I can see, though!)

Speaking of regular expressions, you can't get much better than RegexBuddy. This tool lets to edit and test your regular expressions, and even provides a visual builder to create new expressions. With it instant feedback through highlighting your test-data to match your regular expression, RegexBuddy is an invaluable tool in both teaching yourself regular expressions as well as a tweaking guide for the more experienced user.

To solve character set issues, I use SC UniPad. This allows you to quickly and easily identify the encoding type of a file as well as the Unicode id for any character contained within it. This is useful to detecting content where the encoding header doesn't match the content.

For XML and XSL work, I use Altova XMLSpy. This is a powerful XSL editor with a full XSLT Engine built in so you can perform your transformations with a simple key-press.

For comparing files (and folders) I prefer CS Diff. This visual diff tool has a handy single-pane view of the differences between the files which I find much easier to read than the traditional diff/patch output.

And finally, for viewing the Vamosa log-files while the program is running, I use BareMetalSoft BareTail. (BareMetalSoft site appears to be down at the moment, alternative download site is here.) This is a powerful Windows implementation of the standard Unix 'tail' utility, with added functionality for highlighting based on simple searches.

And there you have it - my Content Migrator's Toolbox.

Now over to you - have I misses any of your favourite tools? Do you disagree with my choices? Please add your comments below.

Sometimes we come across content that resists migration for some reason or another. I've tried to pull together a list of the tools I frequently use to view and check content whenever I see a problem. I hope this list is useful, and hope everybody will post links to THEIR favourite tools below. But for now - here's my starter for ten (all links open in a new window).

First of all, check out the excellent Content Migrator's Cookbook for "recipes" for performing common tasks on content already added to Vamosa. This includes useful Jython scripts and XSL transforms as well as suggestions on connecting to external datasources and more.

Secondly, for viewing content before it's added to Vamosa, consider using the Firefox browser (along with the extensions below). Use Firefox's browser tabs to view and compare pages.

To determine potential Identify issues, use a Firefox User Agent Switcher extension to retrieve pages under a different guise. This allows you to quickly determine if the source server is returning different content based on the connecting browser. (Vamosa identifies itself as "Jakarta Commons-HttpClient/2.0", but we may allow this to be set as a Project setting in the future).

To determine potential content issues, use Firefox Web Developer and Firebug extensions to inspect the content. Also consider using the Firefox HTML Validator extension to review the content, and try the Firefox View Source Chart extension to quickly review the structure of the content. The Live HTTP Headers extension lets you view the headers returned by the server, which is useful for determining character set issues and so on.

Phew.

I've just spent the past six hours publishing the full documentation pack for VCE 2.8 on this very portal. We've got PDF versions for printing and HTML versions for searching and indexing. All that remains is to spruce up the HTML versions a little with some more linkage, but it's all online now.

Go fill yer boots!