I’ve expressed dissatisfaction in the past with the traditional tri-pane help format. I think it’s outdated and has gotten such a bad reputation with computer users that it’s too late to change that. So I think it’s time to find other ways to provide user assistance.

A few weeks ago, I got an email stating I was now being followed on Twitter by @helpburner. I thought this could be another technical writer, and I usually check the tweets of people who follow me anyway. Imagine my interest when Mike Stokes, the owner of this account, had tweets mentioning the beta test of a product called HelpBurner.

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You may have noticed that Gryphon Mountain has been silent lately.

I realize that the pro bloggers tell you not to write posts about how you’re not going to be writing posts, but this one’s different. It’s about why I’m not going to be writing AND why I haven’t been writing.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a big change come into my life in the form of a baby girl whose mother decided that her situation wasn’t ideal for the infant and decided to place her for adoption where she would have both a mother and a father. And she selected me and my wife as those parents.

We are extremely grateful to her, and we love that little girl.

She was born several weeks premature, so she’ll be in the hospital for a little while longer. And I’m sure you’ll acknowledge that she needs my attention more than the blog does. She’s doing so well that she’ll be home in no time anyway.

I’m not sounding a death knell for my blog. Far from it. I know that many bloggers are parents, and they still make the time to post. I’ll do likewise once my daughter comes home from the hospital.

I’ll get back into a regular posting rhythm again soon. (And for those of you who read the Tales, there’s a tale nearly ready for the press. I’ll try to get that posted within the next few days. You’ve already waited long enough.) Don’t go away.

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I know, I sound like a commercial. But this week, someone asked for an option to subscribe by email, and it was the first time someone has done so. It’s just something I hadn’t really thought about doing. (“Get with the times…!”) Fortunately, Google has a help page that helped me set it up within about 15 minutes. And that length of time was partly because I had to set up a new email address and add it to my Google account so Feedburner would use it.

So if you prefer to subscribe to my posts by email, the option is in the sidebar: “Journals by Email.” Have fun with it!

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