Here’s a select list of my favorite technical writing resources. I use these all the time: Web Programming and Design

• HTML Entities, and URL encoder/decoder; HTML Entity Conversion Tool (i.e., for displaying XML code).
• Web browser user statistics; See Wikipedia’s background page describing data from more than one service.
• Free Online Font-Converter. For converting formats. See also font-forge.
• Google font directory. Tutorial on how to use them. Recommendations about suitable pairs of Google Fonts to use.
• Typekit font directory. Requires a subscription fee.
• HTML Color codes. List of Color Scheme Tools. Kuler color scheme picks, Combo Library (with URL Color grabber),  Color Pilgrim (Pallette directory, login required), ColourLovers; Intro to Color Schemes, HTML Color Chooser Tool and definition of color schemes.
• Web Accessibility Guidelines.
• Browser Statistics and Browser Display Dimensions
• CSS Examples and online testing tool and CSS-Discuss wiki. Also, a listing of browser support for new web standards and a listing of CSS support for mobile devices.
• Elements of Typographical Style applied to the web by Richard Rudder. Guided by Bringhurst’s principles.
• Embeddable Web Fonts Wiki and how to embed fonts. See also Fontsquirrel’s embeddable fonts which are free for commercial use and Kernest fonts (which seem to be web-embeddable; doublecheck). See also this thread and this guide to different kinds of embedding. This is mainly for web-embedding. See more about using fonts with ebooks below. League of Movable Type, a “hall of fame” for open source fonts.
• Interesting research about serif vs. san-serif fonts.
• Section 508 Compliance and W3 Web Accessibility Guidelines

Tools

• Zamzar free file conversion wizard.
• Utilities: winmerge, Tortoise SVN, filezilla, putty
• Snagit (online demos & online help), a $49 screen capture utility with extra features.
• Open Source Publishing: scribus, gimp, inkscape
• Freeware utility index
• Screencasting programs: Camstudio (Windows only), Wink
• Notetab Light, main text editor I use (Windows only).
• Sigil ebook creator. Here’s the Sigil manual and a how-to on converting from MS Office/PDF/OpenOffice.
• Oxygen XML Editor. Full-featured commercial xml/xslt editor (with forums). See also XML Mind (also commercial) which is targeted towards documentation.

References

• Technical Forums: Writers, Ebooks, Stack Overflow,Pro Webmasters,Superuser, Server Fault,
• Subversion Book
• Typographic Design Patterns and Best Practices and 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines. By Smashing Magazine.
• Simplifying Complexity is a 15 part series by Tom Johnson about the challenges of information architecture and usability. Highly recommended.
• CSS Wiki and CSS Mailing list
• Managing Technical Writing online book
• Indoition has a good index of technical writing resources, including a review of Help Authoring Systems, Screencasting Tools and a Documentation Quality Checklist.
• Reference Cards: restructured text
• S5 Web presentation reference guide. Fascinating single-source solution for presentations.
• Klariti information re technical writing. They sell excellent-looking MS Word templates of assorted project/planning documents which technical writers usually have to submit to project managers.
• Agile Documentation, Scott Ambler’s summary of how documentation interacts with project management.

Freelance Writing Resources

• Rate database of freelance writing gigs
• Editing Rates from the Editorial Freelancers of America.  See also: About.com’s Freelance rate by project.
• Docracy Legal Document Templates and sample contracts for illustrators.

XML Flavors: Docbook and DITA

• Docbook Definitive Book, and Docbook XSL book
• Docbook-apps mailing list,
• Docbook HTML parameters reference (also the fo parameter reference).
• DITA: 1.1 Specification, DITA XML Wiki, Ditaworld, DITA Users Mailing List, Dita for Publishers epub plugin,
• Docbook Publishers Schema: Specification, Mailing List, Info

XSLT Tutorials & References

• (all my links expired. Removed and will update).

Education & Technical Writing Weblogs/Portals

• I‘d Rather Be Writing is Tom Johnson’s cutting edge blog about documentation, blogging, wordpress and tech writing topics.
• UX MAtters is a academically-oriented usability blog
• elearningpost , an outstanding site with links to usability, information architecture and instructional design.
• Content Wrangler, a good news site on new technologies in documentation.
• Elearningcurve, a blog about instructional technology and technical writing
• I Came, I saw, I learned is Iconlogic’s blog with tutorials, reviews about technical writing products (Adobe, Camtasia, etc).
• Just Write Click is a blog by Austin technical writer Anne Gentle.
• I occasionally write posts about technical writing on my idiotprogrammer weblog.
• Oreilly XML Weblog, a series of articles written by O’Reilly authors.
• Jim Thoughtspot, XML Technology blog, with emphasis on DITA and technical writing.
• Boxes and Arrows, a leading site for information architecture and user interfaces. They have sections for Findability, Usability, and Learning from Others, plus a lot more. No RSS feeds for each section, but lots of articles added weekly.
• TECHWR-L Forums, google group mirror of world’s largest mailing list for technical writers.
• Microsoft.public.word.docmanagement, a high traffic newsgroup for MS Word users.
• Daily Blog Tips

Houston/Texas Resources

• STC-Houston Forum
• Techblog, Dwight Silverman’s excellent technology blog for the Houston Chronicle. (I briefly wrote some guest articles for this blog).
• Idiotprogrammer Weblog. My personal weblog which covers a wide range of topics (not just technology). The weblog has a section specifically devoted to technical writing.
• Technical Writer Market & Salary Information Texas 2020 TW Salary Information , Comparison of Salaries by Industry and National Data
• Write the Docs 2020 Salary Survey.
• Technical Writer Market & Salary Information: Texas 2017 TW Salary Information,  Texas 2014 TW Salary Information and  National TW Salary Data.  2017 Houston Rates for TW, Editors, Authors. 2016 Legal Range.

Epub & Ebooks Resources

• Oxygen XML: Oxygen-user mailing list; Latest user manual; video demos
• Epub Specifications: OPS, OPF
• Free & Budget Epub creation tools: Jutoh, Calibre (User Guide), Atlantis, (blog),
• Kindle formatting guide, Kindle Previewer tool and KDP community
• Pressbooks, a wordpress cms for outputting epub files.
• Epub Resources (collected by Keith Fahlgren); Epubcheck tool (and online version)
• Blogs: Epub books blog, Pigs, Gourds & Wikis ; Epubsecrets
• Formatting poetry for kindle and for epub
• MobileRead epub forum and Calibre ebook conversion software;
• Mobileread eproduction wiki for ebooks.

Podcasts

• SXSW Podcast, lots of podcasts from SXSW conference, with many topics of interest to technical writers.

Book Production

• Amazon Kindle Publishing guidelines (PDF). This link always goes to the latest document.
• a free download to people making print books on Createspace (with generally useful information). Also, Smashword Style Guide.
• Fonts for use with ebooks: Free Unicode Font Faces. For commercial use in epub files, they need to be OFL ,(more here), GPL with Font Exception or Public Domain. Open Font Library contains OFL fonts; not a lot though. Smashing Mag also has a regular column of free high quality fonts: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. These fonts, though nice-looking, may have restrictions; read the fine print.
• Nexus Font Manager, a free tool for viewing and comparing fonts. (here’s a long review of several others). Fount Identifier, a browser bookmarklet which lets you identify all kinds of embedded fonts.
• Fonts currently on Ipad/iOS.
• epubcheck error reference.

Practical Info about Book Publishing

• Online discussion sites: Ebook SE and self-publish reddit
• Publishing Gurus: David Gaughran, Derek Murphy, Joanna Penn, Nate Hoffelder, (Author Resources)
• Lowdown on Best Book promotion sites: PaidAuthor,
• Industry Book Review Services: Booklife (Publishers Weekly),
• Indie Ebook Distributors: Leanpub, Draft2Digital,
• Children’s Book Publishing: Brooke Talks Books, Planning Book Ilustrations,
• I have written several pieces about ebook publishing: Tips & Advice for New & Indie Authors. Chatting about Ebook Covers, Smashwords vs. Amazon: a comparison.
• Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Poetry. View other codes of best practices. See also: interview with Paul Rapp and StackExchange about Song Lyrics in Books. US Copyright Fair Use Index. Stanford summary of fair use cases,
• Publishing/Legal/Contracts: Sidebar Saturdays (publishing & the law), Stanford Copyright Renewals Database, Using Real People, Corporations in Fiction, Tips for Authors about Contracts, Reducing the Sting of Warranty/Indemnity Clauses in Pub Contracts, How to Avoid Unfair Delivery and Acceptance Clauses in a Publishing Contract, Negotiating Editorial Contract in Contracts, Definition of Publication Rights for Writers/Authors,
• Copyright Owners Watch Database, Author Guild Sample Contracts,
• Creative Law Center Blog. Helpful undated posts about topics.
• My article about submitting images to wikimedia commons (i.e., author photos).
• Saved Subreddit threads: