Kevin Otnes

Kevin Otnes was born in Seattle, and is a graduate of the University of Washington School of Communications Advertising program. Instead of moving to New York to pursue a career in advertising copywriting, he stayed home to pursue a career in technical writing. Fortunately, home was close to Microsoft, where he worked for 12 years writing online help for Windows and Internet Explorer. After 20 years as a technical writer, his favorite phrases are "On the Tools menu, click Options," and "On the Help menu, click Help." Many times those phrases came in handy when writing award-winning online help.

By day, he now writes documentation for backup and recovery software for EMC Corporation. By night he still writes about Windows.

In 2009, he coauthored with Joseph Moran one of the first books available for Windows 7, Getting Started with Windows 7.

He also writes about common computer problems on his blog Your Mother Does Windows, at www.yourmotherdoeswindows.com. Comments and suggestions for new topics are always welcome.