At secondary school after years and years

Dear
Have you been at your secondary school after several years?
Have you met your professors since then?
I was finished with my studies at the secondary school about seven years ago.
I attended a school for technicians, you develop some technical skills in a particular field,
in my case I studied mainly electronics for telecommunication systems.
It means that mostly, during my last years, I focused on subjects like telecommunications, electronics, electrical systems and so on. It was my first time that I dealt with those topics.
At the end of my studies I also was a lecture in that school. Yes you read correctly.
For teaching to some courses you are not supposed to hold a master degree. Actually there are two kinds of professors, one of them is a "support teacher" who works during the lab sessions.
I was one of them :). It was fantastic, so young and already on the other side of the desk :)
My professors were my colleagues, some friends of mine were my students... so funny!
Well, after this experience that lasted some months (it wasn't a full time position) I have never
been there. Last week I decided to go there and get back in contact with my old teachers, longing to drive me?
I do not know it.
However a lot of my previous teachers were very proud of me, my achievements and my next adventure. One of them (that I've always considered to be a good and thorough teacher) enjoyed my choice.
He also wants to keep in touch and immediately involved me in a scholar competition as judge...
It is something that went beyond my expectation, they were really welcoming and nice.
Now that the "channel is open" as my teacher and me say :) we want to do more for the future. If I have time I want to submit them some ideas and to become the man in the middle between them and the university... many ideas in my mind... I love this :)
Now again, have you met your old teachers ? if so what was your feeling ? I'm prying to know ...

First week after leaving Rome

This is my first week in Naples since I definitely left Rome.

I still do not know exactly what I'm supposed to do during my PhD, I'm going to meet m y advisor tomorrow and then I'll be able to tell you more.

I want to speak about some things that came into my mind during this week.

1) My friend M. I met her for the first time in Rome, we stroke up our friendship on that semi-virtual world called Facebook. She was one of the most kind people with whom I spent my time in Rome. Together we went visiting museums, doing shopping and so on. She literally introduced me to the "glamor of Rome". Like me she is exploring new options for her future, I wish her all the best.

2)Sinelli girls. These three girls (among them there is M.) were very kind and nice to me.

With them I got used to spending our English Sunday afternoon. We generally met at Pompi (the best pastry store in Rome, renowned for their yummy tiramisù) on Sunday at 6 pm.

It was just an excuse to get together and talk about how was our last week and plan something for the next one. I hope to meet all them soon. I'm going to miss you :(

3)My previous work. I've been on good terms with my boss. He was more than a chief.

He was always available to give you a sound and heartfelt advice, you could ask him suggestions about everything from "how to behave with clients" to "where to find a car battery seller". Someone you can trust.. really hard to find in this lousy world especially in the job market.

3)My colleagues: S., L., R. They were good guys with whom I shared the pains of our job, the crazy laugh (when we were under pressure) and some nights.

L. is an extraordinary girls, she adds a bit of joy and freshness that are necessary in a typical male office.

S. a good colleague. I reengineered with him entire piece of codes, compared solutions and had good dinners. He is a really good cook. It might be a viable solution to become a cook if you need a new job :)

R. I dedicated an entire post to you... there is no other word to say :)

4)Rome. It's a buzzing, lively city that can offer you a lot of things to do and see.

It's an international city that gradually is getting multinational. Some examples, when I took the subway I could hear people talking in English (American mostly), French, German and so on.... in Naples I can't have all that :(

Moreover I missed the snow! if you don't know yet, two days ago it was snowing in Rome, you must see the wonderful pictures of a white Rome. Awesome!

5)The other guys. Again thanks to M. I came across with many people, some Italians with whom I had nice night-party and have been in fashion places.

Some foreigners coming from France, Ireland, Turkey... fantastic I had a great time with all of them by talking about our countries, traditions.. who knows if I ever meet them again.

Stop listing. There is no time to regret.. the show must go on

Back with news

Hi readers and lurkers

How are you ? I haven' t posted a blog for a long time...
Well, maybe you were wondering what happened to me. In January I made an important decision, I wanted to go back to university and keep on studying, definitely.

Maybe you remember that after my studies, my mentor asked to me if I wanted to study at university as a PhD student. At that time I turned down his offer.
In this year, many things have changed in my life: new friends, new habits, the first salary

and so on. But I didn't feel satisfied with that way of life, I started to miss the university, the time dedicated to study books (and not manuals!), to cooperate and challenge myself in an international environment..

Then, I dedicated the entire Christmas holiday to study and prepare myself for the PhD competition in my native city (yes, now I'm back in Naples).
On Jan 18th I sat the first exam, one day after, the second exam.
The final result was that.... I have passed the exams and the university will support my studies
for three years with a student grant! (not so much, actually, but better than nothing!)
I will be living in Naples by next week. There are other news linked to this new challenge,

I'll tell you later

The pleasure of clearity

I've been sending my resume abroad, to be more specific to Swedish companies. I run into some job offers that, in my mind, seemed to match my current qualifications. Unfortunately, they, politely sent me back an email saying my qualifications do not meet our needs/profile. What a bummer!! . Anyway, aside from these dismal responses :( what I want to empathize here it's their efficiency. Even if they are not interested in my application they reply to my job submission. In this way you don't fuel faint hopes, make pipe dreams and I think it's the correct and serious behaviour that a company should have. In Italy, generally, the human resource managers contact you only if they want to interview you...

Stop writring guide, it's time for Video Guide !

In my role as IT consultant, one of my tasks is to write user guides for our products. It' s really boring, useless and it sucks definitely! at least when my chief says to me: please write the guide, I brace myself !

Why is it boring ?
Because you have to spell out every step that you take in order to make things run. You can't omit anything, to write it as comprehensible as it is possible is an asset , otherwise the end-user can't make it out!
You have to care about the details, take several snapshots hopefully none of your colleagues change the front-end in the meantime.
Why is it useless?
In my brief experience, I've run into several users that simply ignore the guide or skim through it. The final result is that they will contact you in anyway is possible and ask you for an explanation. Please do not ask them have you read the guide ? the obvious answer is no or they stammer to say something " I didn't find it".
Why does it suck?
if the reader has never written any guide, please try it just once and I'm pretty sure you'll agree with me.
Then what can we do ? I realized that we might pin down on video-guide. People have changed the way they interact with media over last years, generally there is no time to read a paragraph, sometimes the instructions are not clear, misleading and not up to date.
Why not use video-guides? End users, nowadays, are familiar with Youtube, they are accustomed to see short movies and probably they can get the information in much easier, more quickly and funnier way !!
With a video-guide it's very hard that they do not understand, images and voices can drive them to explore all the features of your products.
To produce a video-guide is simpler than writing one, I suppose it saves time (therefore it implies your company saves $$$). Some problems arise, of course. You shall guarantee that the user has installed on his computer a video-player, but it's not a big problem because you can provide it with your user guides. Maybe the toughest thing is to keep your video-guide up to date. Sometimes we need to update only a few lines or change some screenshot, how can we do it with a video ? I do not think it's easy to replace a frame with a new one.
Now I want to read your comments.
As user guide do you find a video-guide more handy than a written one?
As technical writer would you replace the traditional user-guide with a video guide ?