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Subject:Re: Tech Writing and Relational Theory From:David Blyth <dblyth -at- QUALCOMM -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 11 Apr 1996 12:34:19 -0700
Hi all;
I sent a response to Sally only and forgot to post a response....
>I am very interested in the product you mentioned on database publishing
>on the Web. I tried the URL from zoomsd, but it didn't work. Can you
>check it and repost? Can you share any more you learn about the topic?
Zoom Searchlight isn't working very well from here either. Some
categories seem completely blank well but others were OK. Try "Sports".
What I did get to work behaves pretty much like Yahoo or other Web search
engines. Once you specify a topic in the database, the Searchlight returns
a list of links, plus a synopsis of the material at each link.
But is Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) a document? Here's the Webster's definition:
"Document (noun): a writing conveying information."
OK. So the Searchlight and Yahoo are documents. They're writings and
they convey information. Searchlight is probably not a good example,
but Yahoo is a bit better. Still, the best example I know is a database
here at QUALCOMM - behind the firewall, of course.
So... I can't talk about it much. What's key is that the database displays
all sorts of interesting stuff. And it's automatically updated once-a-day
by a computer program written (once) by a QUALCOMM engineer.
Technical Writers did not partcipate in the design or building of the
document. The engineers did a lovely job all by themselves.
I'll attend the SIG meeting on database documents if possible and report
further. See also Netscape's April 10 Press Release.