About the Authors Just a word about us - so that you know who the "we" is that we refer to throughout this book. We are Deborah and Eric Ray, owners of RayComm, Inc., a technical communication consulting company. For the most part, we write computer books, including Dummies 101: HTML and Netscape Composer For Dummies, to name a couple. In fact (if you can pardon a little bragging), HTML For Dummies Quick Reference (this book's 1st edition) and Dummies 101: HTML won international awards at the 1997 Society for Technical Communication Technical Publications Competition. And, when we're not trapped under mounds of book drafts, we also give occasional seminars on HTML and Internet-related topics, and we take on other techno-jargon-ese-into-English translation projects. I, Deborah Ray (my friends call me Deb), have been a technical communicator for the past seven years and, among other projects, work on developing The Official TECHWR-L Web site - the Web site supporting the technical communication community. I taught technical writing to students at Utah State University and Oklahoma State University. I also have a variety of technical experiences, including creating various computer and engineering documents for sundry purposes. My areas of emphasis include writing, designing, and illustrating documents to meet various audiences' information needs. I, Eric Ray (my friends call me, well, Eric), have been involved with the Internet for eight years and have made numerous presentations and written several papers about HTML and online information. (I like to hear myself write.) My technical experience includes creating and maintaining the TECHWR-L listserv list (the oldest and largest discussion forum for technical communicators) as well as implementing and running Internet servers. I guess you'd say that I'm a Webmaster. As a technical communicator, I focus on making "techie" information easy for normal people to understand. Thanks to our combined skills, we've reached stereotypical geek status, having side-by-side home computer workstations at which we work hours and hours every day. Our cats perch on the monitors, stare at us, and attempt to supervise our work. (Actually, we think they're just keeping their tummies warm.)
