Writer – Editor – Blogger
Computers
Spring Cleaning for Writers
Apr 13th
Yes, it’s that time of year. Time to clean the debris out of the writing cave and bring in some fresh material. Time to dust off your writing aspirations and get busy making them happen.
Here’s my spring cleaning plan.
- Organize files (both computer and hard-copy). Dispose of duplicates and out-dated material.
- Clean equipment. See Computer Hope site for detailed how-to on computer cleaning.
- Make sure all files on the computer are backed up. See my post on backup methods here.
- Inventory supplies and equipment. Make a shopping list and a wish list.
- Look for fresh ideas. Spend some time reading old journals and/or writing projects you put aside long ago. Move the ones that interest you to your active file.
- Inventory writing books and magazines. Sell or give away those that you have not looked at in more than a year. I know. This is hard.
Don’t even try to do all this at once. You may feel overwhelmed and give up. Give yourself a week or even a month to finish the job. More >
Lessons from a Computer Crash
Feb 23rd
Earlier this month, while I was reworking my Web site and setting up this blog, my laptop computer experienced what my support person called a “hard crash.” I asked what that meant, and he said, “All of your data is lost. You must reformat your hard drive.” I followed instructions, but doing this on the phone was taking forever. And, because things weren’t working out like I thought they should, I took my computer to my local computer repair store. I’m back up and running now, but I’ve learned some things that I want to share with you in case you have a similar experience.
Lesson #1: If support tells you that you have to re-format your hard drive, get another opinion first. The local repair guy said that, if I had not wiped the drive clean, it might have been possible to recover my data before reinstalling Windows XP. Just because the person on the phone works for the computer manufacturer doesn’t mean he or she is always right. I wish I had sought a second opinion. More >
Life Journal™ Software
Nov 14th
Journaling is a great way to collect subject matter and organize your thoughts for your articles and stories. I still do most of my journaling on in notebooks, and I’ve tried to organize and index them as I complete a volume. However, over time, the sheer volume of my journal content has made it hard for me to find my notes on a given topic when I need it.
Last year, I purchased Life Journal™ software which was developed by Ruth Folit, a writer with 30 years experience with journaling. Lee Jones, the programmer, also is a journaler. I chose the version for writers, but there are also versions dubbed For Staying Sober, For Christians, and For Educators. It’s not as expensive as some software, and you can try it for free before you buy.
Before I share my evaluation, see this excellent summary of the features and benefits of Life Journal™ . More >
Online Security: Passwords
Oct 22nd
Usernames and passwords are a fact of life for anyone active online. From your e-mail account to your bank account, you have to deal with keeping your login information private. And how difficult is it to remember and manage all those usernames and passwords?
Dedicated Address Book
I keep my usernames and passwords in a wire-bound address book listed alphabetically by the name of the Web site. If I change a password, I immediately record the change in the address book and make a note of the date I changed it. I use some of my logins often enough that I can remember them, but I keep the address book on my desk just in case. It almost goes without saying that you don’t store your password list on computer, but I’m going to say it anyway. Don’t make a Word file or any other file with usernames and passwords that will be saved on your computer.
Password Manager Software
It’ll cost you between $25 and $30, but you can get software that will help you manage your usernames and passwords without compromising security. The top ten are reviewed online here. I have never considered using this method because I’m a cheapskate, and, whenever you buy software, at some point you have to buy an update. However, there are people who firmly believe this is the best way to manage login info.
Secret Formula
Here’s a great idea. Develop your own formula for your passwords. If you use the same formula for every password, the password will be unique each site and easier for you to remember. Still, I’d keep them written down somewhere anyway. See this article by Daniel Scocco on DailyBlogTips.com. I’d want my formula to be simpler than his, but it is a great idea. I think I will choose five-letter word to use as the base of my formula. I will change it up by adding letters, numbers or special characters before and after it. Of course, my formula is secret, so I won’t share it with you.
Do You Have Backup?
Oct 5th
Policemen have them. So do quarterbacks, astronauts, and lead actors. OK, so a writer’s need for backup is not as serious as for policemen and astronauts. But, writers do need to protect their life’s work from a computer crash, lightning strike, or just plain “operator failure.”
Accept the fact that you should backup early and often no matter whether your project is large or small. There are a number of backup options. I’ll share methods I have used and then pass along some suggestions that have come to me from others. More >
FeedDemon Redux
Sep 15th
FeedDemon is still the best way to follow multiple blogs, in my opinion. I’ve written about it in previous blogs here and here. Just after I posted my last rave about FeedDemon, I got an e-mail from Newsgator saying there would be changes, effective August 31, 2009. Here’s my take on the changes.
- There’s an ad in the lower left corner of the FeedDemon desktop. Annoying, but pretty unobtrusive.
- FeedDemon now syncs with Google Reader instead of Newsgator, which is an improvement, I think. I usually recommend Google Reader for beginners to feed-reading, because there are online tutorials on how to use it and it’s easy to use. Once a beginner has learned to use Google Reader, it’s easy enough to move to FeedDemon for more efficient blog tracking.
- I think it runs a bit slower than the old version, but I really can’t complain.
Go to the FeedDemon site for a complete overview including features description and screenshots. I welcome comments from anyone who uses another feed reader. If you would like to write a guest post on an alternate feed reader, e-mail me at akinemily[a]gmail.com.
Twitter and Facebook on Tweetdeck
Aug 13th
In my last post on social networking, I provided links to tutorials and evaluations of Twitter and Facebook. I said then that I wasn’t sure if it was worth the time involved to keep up with both. In the past week, I’ve had several experiences that make me lean toward Facebook as the better choice for social networking. Here’s why.
- Facebook lets you enter longer messages. In Twitter, you’re limited to 140 characters.
- Facebook lets you hide some of your “friends” that post too much extraneous stuff. On Twitter, you have to “unfollow” them entirely.
- Facebook comments allow for more inter-communication between me and my ‘”friends.”
I’m not ready to write Twitter off, though. I am currently tracking my Facebook friends and my Twitter follows through Tweetdeck, a free desktop application that lets you organize your tweets into groups. It also allows a Facebook friend column so that you can monitor Facebook, too. When I post something about my blogs on Twitter, I can send a duplicate post to Facebook from Tweetdeck. Here’s a partial screenshot of my Tweetdeck.
If you’re already using Twitter and/or Facebook, try it. It’s free. There are a number of other desktop applications that work with Twitter. There’s Seesmic and Twhirl which I have not tried. As long as I’m using both Twitter and Facebook, I would want a desktop client to track both. Twhirl only tracks Twitter.
I welcome comments on this post, especially if you have used Seesmic or Twhirl.
Followup on FeedDemon: I Love It!
Jul 27th
Update (7-30-09): Since I posted this, Newsgator has made some changes in how they do things. There will be a new version of FeedDemon that can sync with Google Reader, but it is not clear to me at this point whether it will still be free. More later on this.
In a previous post, I mentioned that I had started using Newsgator’s FeedDemon to track blog posts. See the May 20, 2009, post here. I described some of the basic features in that post, but I have since discovered a number of other goodies in FeedDemon. More >
FREE Software Solution for Writers
Jul 15th
Writers, especially beginning writers, often don’t have money to spend on 
software and equipment for their writing projects. Experienced writers may get tired of spending money of software upgrades to keep in step with the publishing industry. Microsoft Word has become the standard for the publishing industry, and keeping up with the upgrades is a challenge.
The solution? Open Office 3.1.0. More >
Update on Bamboo Fun Pen Tablet
May 25th
Just after Christmas, I bought a Bamboo Fun pen tablet thinking that everything I needed was included in the package. I blogged about it in a previous post.
I’m still operating on Windows XP instead of Vista, so it turned out that I didn’t have everything I needed in the original package. I discovered that I needed software to make the Bamboo work with Microsoft Office programs like Word and Excel.
I Googled and found a trial version of JustWrite Office. After the trial period expired, I found that it wasn’t available in the USA, so I contacted the manufacturer of Bamboo, Wacom. The vendor recommended Meander’s Annotator available here, which is not too expensive. I’m now setup to use handwriting in Word, so I’ve done a sample for you below.
I’m still not sure it’s worth all the time and effort, but, for editing clients who don’t use Word’s track changes feature, this might be a way to provide an edited copy without having to resort to postal mail.
