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"From
Complexity To Clarity"®
Testimonials |
| NOTE: Contact information for all
references below is available on my resume. |
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| Neil Diener, Director of Software Engineering, Cognio,
Inc. |
Our company, Cognio, Inc., has developed
advanced technologies to optimize the performance of wireless
(802.11) communications
networks. Our technology is targeted mainly towards sophisticated
end-users -- both network engineers who will put our technology
into application, and computer scientists and electronic
engineers who will integrate our software and hardware into
their own network support offerings.
Steve Oppenheimer came
into our offices, and with minimal hand-holding from our
engineers was able to rapidly grasp some very difficult
subject matter material. He worked well with limited or raw
reference materials (such as raw C header files as a basis
for understanding our spectrum management data structures). His work product,
that is, his user guides and related materials (such as
marketing brochures), were easy to understand, yet thorough
enough
for our demanding end-users, well organized, and very professional
in their layout and presentation. Mr. Oppenheimer worked
quickly and efficiently, and we are happy to recommend
him to other potential clients. |
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| Karl Miller, Programmer (Contract), Cognio, Inc. |
My role as a programmer
at Cognio, Inc., was to develop a set of low-level software
drivers that collected and
processed data from an ASIC (SAgE) that performed rapid
spectrum analysis
on the ambient radio frequency environment. The software
drivers delivered a data stream containing comprehensive
RF spectrum information. In turn, Steve's role was
to take the data stream that came from my drivers, and
document
it for use by RF engineers; and also to explain how
to control
and fine-tune the SAgE ASIC's performance via various commands.
Stevens work was exemplary. Beyond
documenting the pure data structures themselves, his
documents introduced contextual
and background material, both in terms of
understanding RF spectrum physics, and in terms of "wiring" my code
into larger software modules. In addition to creating documents that communicate
well, he would point out technical inaccuracies or inconsistencies. In some
cases he would propose changes to the interfaces to improve the usability for
3rd party
users.
I particularly appreciated Steven's ability to document
new technologies which were under development and
not well defined. Typically provided with a bare outline,
Steven would proactively pursue engineers (both myself and other colleagues)
to get the necessary technical information to build the documentation. I would highly recommend Steven for any tech writing project. His technical background is of particular advantage during the development of new technologies. |
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| Bernadette Harmon,
Senior Manager, Logistics Solutions Development,
Manugistics, Inc. |
| Steven Oppenheimer worked for me as a
contractor, documenting supply chain management software
(specifically the efficient
utilization and routing of tractor-trailer equipment) under
development by my team of software engineers. The documentation
included functional specifications to define the software,
and a reference manual and online help for the finished product. In
every significant respect, Steve delivered. He worked
well with the developers and his documentation was both accurate
and thorough. Transportation Routing (our software
product) was already a sophisticated tool when Steve joined
the team
to help document a major upgrade. Steve's professionalism
enabled him to join an established development team, learn
the product and quickly add value, using the resources available
to him to gather required information. |
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| Beverly Markels, Writer and Trainer, NPRI |
| I met Steven Oppenheimer
years ago when I was a technical writer and trainer for
NPRI, a firm specializing in telemarketing software. Steve was a colleague, and I was immediately impressed at
how he came into the company and quickly began documenting
a wide variety of technologies – user interfaces (which were
text-based at the time, and not very user-friendly), some
special hardware we had for automatic phone dialing, and
a custom programming language used to create call scripts
for telemarketing staff.
I also observed that Steve was
very adept at getting information from one of our lead
technical staff members, who was himself
somewhat less than user-friendly. That’s one of the
real challenges of technical writing, working with technical
staff, most of whom are wonderful, but a few of whom are
less threatened by computers than people. Steve was willing
to take the time to understand the technical side to the
point of converting it accurately to English in an understandable
and readable format for the less technical audience.
What really struck me, though,
was something I only learned years later, in casual conversation,
long after we'd both
moved on to other jobs: NPRI was Steve’s very first
technical writing job. Apparently he’d done programming
before, and also other kinds of writing, and shifted gears
into technical writing as if it was the most natural thing
in the world. I truly had never guessed it was his first
crack at tech writing, until he mentioned as much. |
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