Indexing on the edgeFred Brown We've been under a state of emergency for three days here in Ottawa, Canada, as a non-stop ice storm blankets everything—a good inch thick. Power is going on and off, and, on and off again in different parts of the city. So far O.K. in our house. I've an associate assisting me enter index markers in FrameMaker. The lights blink, the UPS clicks away, but the hydro (electricity), as we call it, stays on. Looking out the window, one fallen branch has pulled the hydro lines off a neighbour's house—crews won't be able to get there for a week. Another large icy branch rests on the main telephone cable running between the back yards. The next street has a couple of hydro lines down across the road. We've been beavering away at a set of four computer manuals. They were scheduled to be completed mid-December. But software and technical writing schedules slipped. Bye bye Christmas holidays. Still more rain, changing to ice pellets, then flurries. Back to rain again. Branches at the front now rest gently on the hydro cables running into our house. Looks O.K. Keep typing. Before Christmas, the technical writers headed off on holidays. I arranged with the Publications Manager to index the Beta versions over the Christmas break. She sent me hard copies for the first three manuals—so I can get started indexing them in Macrex. A couple of days later, with the two technical writers on holiday, she tried to locate the proper FrameMaker files, but wasn't sure which files on the server are for the Beta release. She does her best and emails me what she is able to find. We keep a close ear to the radio. My wife's parents live an hour's drive south in Brockville. Power has been out in the whole city since 1:00 a.m. yesterday. Seven electrical towers going into the city collapsed; the cables snapped back wrapping around the towers, now entombed in ice. Power might be restored by Sunday. My wife talks to my father-in-law on the phone—tries to convince him not to try to dig his car out of the driveway. He's 75, no spring chicken! They are still warm enough, but the house temperature is starting to drop. Highways and roads are closed, trains stopped, airplanes grounded. We're over half way entering the index markers into the third index. The FrameMaker file doesn't match the printed Beta release. The last modified date on the FrameMaker files is five days after the Beta release date. Look around for moved text and new stuff. Do the best we can. Keep moving along. At last we're done. Email in the files while the going's good. Time to call it a day. Hot cookies coming out of the oven. Kids need stories. Got some warm air and sunshine? Please send it north. We've lots of icicles to melt. Over and out. posted on INDEX-L
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