About Dee-Ann

Dee-Ann LeBlanc

My career generating technology content started while I was a student at Penn State. That’s also when I started doing work for people I only knew through the Internet. My first private client hired me through Usenet to do product and technology research on solid state storage technology, then write reports on the topic. After graduating and making the type of huge life changes one often does when thrust into the real world (in my case moving to BC, Canada and getting married) I was contracted to write my first computer book, which then turned into two, and three, and eventually more than a dozen.

Each type of content creation skill enhances the other

Along the way I also began writing technical how-to articles and technology journalism pieces, speaking at conferences, teaching workshops and courses, editing technical books and articles, working as part of an editorial team to provide content to a web site and print magazine, and developing courses. Rather than these skills creating a scattered set, they in fact fit together like pieces of a puzzle. Teaching a class lets me practice various ways to explain complex technical topics in a live setting, immediately seeing how effective or obtuse a particular explanation might work out. Editing and finding issues or ways to improve other people’s writing helps me improve my own. And writing articles often gives me an excuse to go out and learn something new, not to mention providing good practice in explaining things in short form rather than having a whole book’s worth of room.

Since there’s no way to know everything there is to know about technology (no matter what anyone tells you), most technology content developers have a specialty, and I’m no exception. While my career began with writing about the Eudora email program on Windows and the Mac, general Internet topics, and Microsoft Word, the UNIX experience I gained in college suddenly became useful again when I encountered this thing called Linux. In 1996 I wrote my first Linux book, and from there the new operating system became my primary focus.

Over time, such work bleeds into other areas as well. Often when writing about Linux, it’s common to cover topics such as computer networking, standards ranging from Web standards to lower-level networking protocols, open source, and a wide variety of software. As you add to your body of work people start coming to you for coverage of things they know that you know, and of course your own interests ebb and flow as you learn and research.

Life also has a way of expanding your horizons as well. For a couple of years I worked full-time in an actual job (my parents were so pleased). As a side effect of that job, I was immersed into the world of OS X, which was both a familiar and new experience: familiar because OS X is a UNIX variant and a cousin of Linux in many ways, and different because the GUI is Apple’s own beast and there are many individual differences between UNIX variants. Given that one of my early computers was an Apple and I had previous professional experience administering machines on Apple networks, it felt natural to embrace OS X as another area to cover. That, and after a while, variety becomes a necessary spice of life.

Another area that I was immersed in through my stint with gainful employment was that of Content Management Systems (CMS’s) and how to best organize and present content. Having a bit of an organizational fetish made this topic a natural area of interest. When I returned to freelancing, I brought that new interest along for the ride.

So, today my specialty areas are Linux, open source, open standards, OS X, and CMS’s. Specifically, open source CMS’s. In another fifteen years or so I’m sure that my focus will have shifted again, maybe dropping some topics and adding others.

For more on the professional front, see my LinkedIn profile, or contact me at dee (at) renaissoft (dot) com for a resume/CV or with questions.

On the personal front, I live in beautiful British Columbia, Canada in the area where the 2010 Winter Olympics will occur. I’m still married and we have three Alaskan Klee Kai that keep us on our toes and highly entertained. I’m also a bit of a serial hobbyist, who’s cycled between interests like dance, yoga, making stained glass products, tiled mosaics, writing fiction (something I’ve done on and off through my whole life), and am currently into making jewelry. Often I’m working with the theoretical or at least intangible. It can be a nice change to make physical things or simply be physical.