Freelance Technical Writer, computer software and hardware
Portland, Oregon Area
- Past
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- technical writer (freelance) at D. E. Shaw Research
- technical publications manager (freelance) at Engineering Design Team
- technical writer (freelance) at Saltire Software
- technical writer (freelance) at Galois Connections
- technical writer (freelance) at Proteome Software
- freelance technical writer at Fast-Talk Communications, Inc.
- freelance technical writer at Computas AS
- freelance technical writer at GemStone Systems, Inc.
- freelance technical writer at Caterpillar Corp.
- technical writer (freelance) at Instantiations
- technical writer, technical publications manager at Tektronix
- technical writer at Graphic Software Systems
- Education
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- Univ. of Pennsylvania
- Reed College
- Putney School
- Recommended
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3 people have recommended Lauren - Connections
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94
connections
- Industry
- Computer Software
- Websites
Lauren Wiener’s Summary
I'm a technical writer and document designer with 24 years of experience writing manuals, online help, tutorials, computer-based training, reports, design documentation, and books. I design and help set up documentation sets. I've used a wide variety of applications and mark-up languages and am always learning more. I work quickly.
See my website at http://www.verbing.com.
Lauren Wiener’s Experience
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technical writer (freelance)
D. E. Shaw Research
(Computer Hardware industry)
February 2008 — May 2009 (1 year 4 months)
Wrote the Anton Hardware Guide, a document describing a supercomputer specialized for molecular dynamics simulations, and companion pieces. In ten months, wrote fifteen chapters describing first the underlying concepts and architecture, then each subsystem in detail; identified, organized, and wrote ten appendixes providing additional reference information; compiled and wrote three instruction set references for special-purpose processors; designed and wrote Part 1 of a memory configuration document; and specified and produced illustrations as necessary.
Wrote the Desmond User Guide, a manual for a suite of parallelizable molecular dynamics simulation applications. In two months, I wrote one "basic concepts" chapter; extensively reorganized and rewrote 3 other chapters; produced five appendixes, a preface, and an index; and reformatted, edited, and reorganized the rest (5 more chapters) as necessary to produce one coherent manual. -
technical publications manager (freelance)
Engineering Design Team
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Hardware industry)
March 2006 — February 2008 (2 years)
Interview engineers and conduct research on new products for manuals and technical reports. Write and edit firmware reference guides, user guides, technical reports, and other technical documents as needed. Assist in creating spec sheets for new products. Design and implement documentation standards, both graphic and editorial. Design documents and implement designs as templates. Specify illustrations and manage illustration process as needed.
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technical writer (freelance)
Saltire Software
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Computer Software industry)
February 2006 — February 2006 (1 month)
In two weeks, learned the use of an application to teach geometry, collaborated on the design of two tutorials, and wrote two tutorials and a user’s guide including an overview of the basic concepts and the way in which the application differs from others in its field.
Also consulted on the user interface and the user interface reference, included in the manual. This manual is available from www.geometryexpressions.com — though it will have been edited since my work. (Original available at www.verbing.com.) -
technical writer (freelance)
Galois Connections
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry)
September 2005 — February 2006 (6 months)
Gathered requirements, designed and wrote the Trusted Services Engine Administrator’s Guide and the Trusted Services Engine User’s Guide, manuals for a secure multilevel web server with integrated read-down, including:
• an overview of the basic concepts and security features,
• mission-critical installation and configuration instructions,
• instructions for various administration tasks,
• a wide array of reference information
• a thorough index.
Also specified illustrations as necessary, worked with QA to identify and characterize bugs, and wrote three white papers on security and functional programming concepts. -
technical writer (freelance)
Proteome Software
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Computer Software industry)
April 2005 — May 2005 (2 months)
In four weeks, learned about protein identification using mass spectrometry samples and wrote a 54-page uer’s guide (available at www.verbing.com) for an application that facilitates and enhances this process, including:
• installation and setup instructions,
• a discussion of the basic concepts,
• five tutorials (which I helped to design), and
• reference information.
I also edited marketing material and researched trademark issues. -
freelance technical writer
Fast-Talk Communications, Inc.
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry)
September 2002 — December 2002 (4 months)
Wrote a documentation set for software that allows one to search or monitor an audio stream for words or phrases of interest. The set included:
• an installation guide;
• a guide to effective querying;
• a template for describing a variety of language models, and three specific language model documents using the template;
• quick-start and user guides for the demo and various utilities;
• a programmer’s guide for two different platforms, using a single-source document.
I also edited various user interfaces for spelling, clarity, and professionalism. -
freelance technical writer
Computas AS
(Public Company; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)
November 2001 — May 2002 (7 months)
Wrote a programmer’s guide for a suite of interoperating frameworks one can use to program a workflow application, while laying the foundation for a multiplatform single-source document. The guide included:
• a conceptual overview;
• a chapter for each of the workflow, process modeling, and inferencing frameworks;
• a chapter describing how a three-tier application manages distributed data and execution;
• a chapter describing a few extra utilities, but by no means all;
• a bibliography, a glossary, additional reference information, and a two-level index to make it all accessible. -
freelance technical writer
GemStone Systems, Inc.
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)
January 2000 — April 2001 (1 year 4 months)
Rewrote eleven manuals describing a large, complex object server and its interfaces:
• Closed five years of bugs against the manuals.
• Added new functions to C interface reference.
• Added descriptions of new features to CORBA interface manual.
• Identified and corrected problems in build process for two manuals.
• Reorganized and rewrote significant parts of Smalltalk interface and system administrator’s manuals, adding additional information.
• With an engineer, wrote a tutorial for novice users of the GemStone/S Smalltalk interface.
• Improved formatting and clarity in server programmer’s guide, added new performance tuning material.
• Corrected numerous problems with indexes and added significant new material to indexes.
• Wrote release notes and installation and upgrade instructions.
• Updated product data sheets, wrote marketing success story.
• Also wrote an introduction to the Java-based application server. -
freelance technical writer
Caterpillar Corp.
(Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; Machinery industry)
September 1998 — December 1999 (1 year 4 months)
Wrote online manual for mechanical engineers’ modeling tool.
• Interviewed developers and users to learn key concepts.
• Designed HTML templates for title page, table of contents, chapters, tutorial, glossary, and index.
• Wrote introduction, installation instructions, guided tutorial for six basic tasks, and an illustrated chapter explaining in detail the associated concepts, glossary, and index.
• Added illustrated user interface reference.
• Designed HTML templates for function reference.
• With engineer, designed HTML output for source code, produced function reference from specified output.
• Added troubleshooting chapter and appendix on translating between file formats. -
technical writer (freelance)
Instantiations
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry)
1990 — 1992 (2 years)
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technical writer, technical publications manager
Tektronix
(Public Company; Computer Software industry)
1987 — 1989 (2 years)
Worked in Tek Labs with the Smalltalk group, writing the Tektronix Smalltalk User's Guide and various other manuals for applications written in Smalltalk.
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technical writer
Graphic Software Systems
(Computer Software industry)
1985 — 1986 (1 year)
Lauren Wiener’s Education
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Univ. of Pennsylvania
M.S. , Applied Linguistics , January 1977 — June 1978
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Reed College
B.A. , Psychology (Linguistics) , September 1971 — May 1975
- Activities and Societies:
- Phi Beta Kappa, commendation for academic excellence, thesis: Biological Bases for Language
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Putney School
1967 — 1971
Additional Information
Lauren Wiener’s Websites:
Lauren Wiener’s Interests:
Continuing education: Italian grammar and conversation (2003) Graphic design seminar (Edward R. Tufte) – 1996 Spoken Language Systems, Oregon Graduate Insititute – 1995 Indexing seminar – 1991 User Interface Design, Portland State University – 1989 Assembler and Computer Architecture, Portland State University – 1985 Pascal, Portland State University – 1984 accomplished digital photographer (http://www.verbing.com)
Lauren Wiener’s Groups:
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Reed College Alumni -
Reed Alumni -
PDX Technology Professionals - Portland Oregon -
The Putney School Network
Lauren Wiener’s Honors:
Phi Beta Kappa
Commendation for academic excellence (Reed College)
Society for Technical Communication Award of Merit, Award of Excellence
Co-author, Designing Object-Oriented Software (Prentice-Hall, 1990)
Author, Digital Woes: Why We Should Not Depend on Software (Addison-Wesley, 1993)
Lauren Wiener’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- career opportunities
- consulting offers
- new ventures
- job inquiries
- expertise requests
- business deals
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
