I just feel bad that it took me until the very last day.
Summary to come. Watch this space...
Summary to come. Watch this space...
all official-like /
Stop hitting the panic button! /
Some tempests in teapots are not worth paying attention to, but this one got to me because of the slant on it.
I'm talking about the Twitterank storm.
I found out about Twitterank from, well, my Twitter feed, when people I follow mentioned that they got their rank done. I decided to check it out because I was curious. After all, that's why I'm on Twitter in the first place. It's been the best social networking site I've found so far (far more useful than F*******). Why wouldn't I want to learn something new about it?
The asking-for-the-password thing didn't make me terribly comfortable, but when Twitter asked me for my e-mail password (or when F******* asked me for my entire freaking life) it didn't make me feel too comfortable either. So I entered it, based on the best criteria I had:
But then (also over Twitter) I find about a ZD about gullible Twitter users who were driven by nothing by egos gleefully entering private information into an untested site. This is quickly followed up with a reply from the creator himself, posted in the same column.
What I don't like about this is all the points people are making about the madness of crowds, and how people should be more careful when they provide their passwords. Think: social networking sites ask for your password, your home town, and all sorts of other information that is an identity thief's dream, just so that you can have a chance of making it easier to plan birthday parties with people you already know. Yet Twitterank is the one we're supposed to distrust.
Did you use Twitterank? Do you think you would have used it if you had had anything really personal in your Twitter feed?
I know my answers.
Now then: I'm still somewhat ill and I'm way behind on my NaNoWriMo counts. I think it's time to duck back to my fictional 1964-in-an-alternative-universe. They don't have the internet yet.
I'm talking about the Twitterank storm.
I found out about Twitterank from, well, my Twitter feed, when people I follow mentioned that they got their rank done. I decided to check it out because I was curious. After all, that's why I'm on Twitter in the first place. It's been the best social networking site I've found so far (far more useful than F*******). Why wouldn't I want to learn something new about it?
The asking-for-the-password thing didn't make me terribly comfortable, but when Twitter asked me for my e-mail password (or when F******* asked me for my entire freaking life) it didn't make me feel too comfortable either. So I entered it, based on the best criteria I had:
- Tweeters I trusted had tried it out
- The Twitterank site was written in a language style I know very well: educated North American geek (that's a compliment, in case the author ever stumbles upon this post). I've received a lot of mail from phishers and wannabe hackers in my spam box, mostly since I went on F*******, but unlike most people I actually read some of it randomly. The writing is almost always frighteningly bad.
- I don't consider Twitter an essential internet service like I do my e-mail or my on-line banking. If you get into my Twitter account, you can cross-reference it to my main e-mail address, but you don't get the password for it. Everything else on that profile is already publicly posted.
- Unlike other sites, I didn't need to enter my entire freaking life to get any level of access. Think about it: what if certain social networking sites whose names I always asterisk out had been phishing? Er, and in fact, they were, in their own way, but people keep using them anyhow.
But then (also over Twitter) I find about a ZD about gullible Twitter users who were driven by nothing by egos gleefully entering private information into an untested site. This is quickly followed up with a reply from the creator himself, posted in the same column.
What I don't like about this is all the points people are making about the madness of crowds, and how people should be more careful when they provide their passwords. Think: social networking sites ask for your password, your home town, and all sorts of other information that is an identity thief's dream, just so that you can have a chance of making it easier to plan birthday parties with people you already know. Yet Twitterank is the one we're supposed to distrust.
Did you use Twitterank? Do you think you would have used it if you had had anything really personal in your Twitter feed?
I know my answers.
Now then: I'm still somewhat ill and I'm way behind on my NaNoWriMo counts. I think it's time to duck back to my fictional 1964-in-an-alternative-universe. They don't have the internet yet.
Off to the races /
Today was the first day of NaNoWriMo, and I've already written more than I did in the first three days last year. This is actually a pretty busy November for me (clients visiting from out-of-country, family events, friends-wh0-don't-do-NaNoWriMo events), so I've been trying to get a bit ahead of the game. So far, I am, although not as much as some people on the site!
I'm continuing with the idea that there is "time to write." It's just you just have to plan for it, the same as you plan in shopping for groceries, doing the laundry, and everything else. In practical terms:
I'm continuing with the idea that there is "time to write." It's just you just have to plan for it, the same as you plan in shopping for groceries, doing the laundry, and everything else. In practical terms:
- I made a big enough meal for four people tonight (Spanish rice, steamed broccoli, grilled chicken, organic spinach sausages) and tucked the leftovers into the fridge. With judicious packaging and freezing, and assuming I keep up my cooking schedule, I should be able to get away with no cooking at all the middle two weeks of the month, which is the NaNoWriMo stress time. Tomorrow I'm making chicken soup.
The food thing is important to me because last year when I did this I wound up living almost exclusively on take-away from the local Chinese Canadian diner. They make lovely diner food, but no-one's supposed to live on it morning, noon, and night for days on end. Seriously.
- So far I've managed to stay off the internet long enough to actually get work done. This is a lot harder than last year, where I had the excuse of not having bothered to set up a wireless connection on my router. This year is something else again.
Migrations /
Earlier this week, Joop Dorresteijn posted on his blog about an idea to make TV available on the iPhone. You can see my comment mixed in with everyone else's at the bottom: I'm all for making TV available on the iPhone, but only if it makes it more readily available on other devices at the same time.
Once upon a time, anyone with the know-how to set up a receiver and the necessarily electrical guts could get radio or television, all for free. You just needed to learn how the receivers worked, gather the parts, do the work, and supply the electricity (either off the grid or generate-your-own).
My parents' first TV set was like that. My dad gathered working parts from sets that their owners were junking because they were broken, wired everything together, and created what my mother called HajerVision (Hajer being our last name): a set with a Zenith screen, an RCA cabinet, Panasonic innards... I don't know what the exact mix was, but even though it was a Frankenstein's monster of an entertainment device, it worked well enough until my parents could afford to buy a new TV set like regular consumers.
How did the stations ever allow such a montrosity access to their precious channels? Easy: they didn't care, so long as my parents watched the revenue-creating ads like everyone else with a set.
Somehow, in the minds of the broadcasters and (it seems) television watchers, that has changed. It's easy enough to stream "radio" or "television" on the Net, or to make it available in individualised, downloadable chunks. Both accommodate advertisements easily enough — I watch enough video on Slate, and virtually all of it has ads.
Unless you hide behind a proxy or have a non-standard internet connection, content providers Always Know Where You Are, too. Just watch the ads change as you physically travel from place to place but keep accessing the same web sites from your new location.
So, with all this targeting and "captive-audience" infrastructure in place, what are the broadcasters doing? They're making hulu.com not available in Canada, even though the exact same shows are available over the broadcast airwaves. Somewhere along the line it wasn't good enough to be a consumer of content with attached advertising. Now you have to consume cable or sattellite as well.
As it happens, I can't get any television channels in my new apartment, even though it's only 2.6km from my old one (where I got about six channels with rabbit ears). I'm told that's probably because of the cement walls in the new place. I never watched enough television to make it worth my while to pay for cable, but it would be nice to watch some of the dramas I liked. It would be even nicer (as Joop suggests in his post) to be able to watch shows on a portable device (my N-800, in my case).
TV channels are crying that the internet is costing them revenue and attacking people who download pirated copies of TV shows to watch them on computers. So why aren't they providing the content, with targeted ads so they can make money, like they did when they were actually broadcasting?
Once upon a time, anyone with the know-how to set up a receiver and the necessarily electrical guts could get radio or television, all for free. You just needed to learn how the receivers worked, gather the parts, do the work, and supply the electricity (either off the grid or generate-your-own).
My parents' first TV set was like that. My dad gathered working parts from sets that their owners were junking because they were broken, wired everything together, and created what my mother called HajerVision (Hajer being our last name): a set with a Zenith screen, an RCA cabinet, Panasonic innards... I don't know what the exact mix was, but even though it was a Frankenstein's monster of an entertainment device, it worked well enough until my parents could afford to buy a new TV set like regular consumers.
How did the stations ever allow such a montrosity access to their precious channels? Easy: they didn't care, so long as my parents watched the revenue-creating ads like everyone else with a set.
Somehow, in the minds of the broadcasters and (it seems) television watchers, that has changed. It's easy enough to stream "radio" or "television" on the Net, or to make it available in individualised, downloadable chunks. Both accommodate advertisements easily enough — I watch enough video on Slate, and virtually all of it has ads.
Unless you hide behind a proxy or have a non-standard internet connection, content providers Always Know Where You Are, too. Just watch the ads change as you physically travel from place to place but keep accessing the same web sites from your new location.
So, with all this targeting and "captive-audience" infrastructure in place, what are the broadcasters doing? They're making hulu.com not available in Canada, even though the exact same shows are available over the broadcast airwaves. Somewhere along the line it wasn't good enough to be a consumer of content with attached advertising. Now you have to consume cable or sattellite as well.
As it happens, I can't get any television channels in my new apartment, even though it's only 2.6km from my old one (where I got about six channels with rabbit ears). I'm told that's probably because of the cement walls in the new place. I never watched enough television to make it worth my while to pay for cable, but it would be nice to watch some of the dramas I liked. It would be even nicer (as Joop suggests in his post) to be able to watch shows on a portable device (my N-800, in my case).
TV channels are crying that the internet is costing them revenue and attacking people who download pirated copies of TV shows to watch them on computers. So why aren't they providing the content, with targeted ads so they can make money, like they did when they were actually broadcasting?
Being there /
Yesterday the ever-prolific Karen, one of the best writers I have the honour to know, had her debut show at Toronto's Second City comedy theatre. She's been taking a writing course there for months, and the show was a collaboration written by all of the writers in the course, performed by bona fide Second City actors. The show ("Yank My Cheney One More Time") was free, and was the usual Second City mix of sketches and blackouts. There was even one song-and-dance number thrown in.
Karen confirmed to me after the show that there was only to be one performance, so I almost feel bad blogging about it (in a "sucks to be you 'cos you missed it" sense). I'll put it this way: if you ever hear about one of these free shows happening and you have the time at all, by all means go! It was written so that there was a little bit for everyone, so everyone got a chance to have lots of good laughs. Given that I've sat completely stonefaced through comedy club shows I've paid for, I thought getting to go to a show where I actually laughed at the vast majority of the gags (and someone or other laughed at all of them) was great.
Karen confirmed to me after the show that there was only to be one performance, so I almost feel bad blogging about it (in a "sucks to be you 'cos you missed it" sense). I'll put it this way: if you ever hear about one of these free shows happening and you have the time at all, by all means go! It was written so that there was a little bit for everyone, so everyone got a chance to have lots of good laughs. Given that I've sat completely stonefaced through comedy club shows I've paid for, I thought getting to go to a show where I actually laughed at the vast majority of the gags (and someone or other laughed at all of them) was great.
Found a happy place... /
It's called Word on the Street, and it just happened last Sunday. The only thing I'm sad about is that I'll have to wait an entire year before it happens again.
WotS is a fair that celebrates language. That sounds kind of broad, but the thing is, a short list of what was there includes:
I made it home with five books and three literary magazines bought, plus two free books from Cormorant Books. The concept of free books was so strange to my ears that the poor man giving them out had to repeat himself before I would take the bag he was holding out to me.
Two authors on my to-read list were there: Nancy Kilpatrick and Robert J. Sawyer, both of whom were kind enough to sign what I bought from them.
The crowds made it difficult to navigate by the booths in some parts (crowds! at a word festival! with rain clouds overhead! who said reading is declining?), and I didn't get there until the final two hours because some other event was delaying the street cars (I'm sure the people who went to that one felt the same about their event. But mine had books.)
The other sad thing, of course, is that I've been reading avidly since I was three, WotS has been a going concern since 1989, and this is the first time I've been. The friends I met there were surprised — I had to remind them that I wasn't in Toronto 1988-2000, and getting downtown on a Sunday only became easy for me five years ago. Then last year I had a family event for WotS.
Yeah, I have to get out more.
But at least now I have lots of cool stuff to read while I'm traveling.
WotS is a fair that celebrates language. That sounds kind of broad, but the thing is, a short list of what was there includes:
- storytellers
- authors
- writers' guilds
- newspaper columnists holding panel discussions
- magazine publishers
- book publishers
- people collecting money for literacy campaigns
- people showing off/selling alternative publishing media, like audio CDs
- book clubs, both traditional and mobile
I made it home with five books and three literary magazines bought, plus two free books from Cormorant Books. The concept of free books was so strange to my ears that the poor man giving them out had to repeat himself before I would take the bag he was holding out to me.
Two authors on my to-read list were there: Nancy Kilpatrick and Robert J. Sawyer, both of whom were kind enough to sign what I bought from them.
The crowds made it difficult to navigate by the booths in some parts (crowds! at a word festival! with rain clouds overhead! who said reading is declining?), and I didn't get there until the final two hours because some other event was delaying the street cars (I'm sure the people who went to that one felt the same about their event. But mine had books.)
The other sad thing, of course, is that I've been reading avidly since I was three, WotS has been a going concern since 1989, and this is the first time I've been. The friends I met there were surprised — I had to remind them that I wasn't in Toronto 1988-2000, and getting downtown on a Sunday only became easy for me five years ago. Then last year I had a family event for WotS.
Yeah, I have to get out more.
But at least now I have lots of cool stuff to read while I'm traveling.
Writing Deskless /
When I was very young (Grade 1 to Grade 5 or so), my parents had a rule that I had to do my homework on the kitchen table. I hated it. I remember sitting there with my math homework, tears running down my face, my mother telling me not to carry on and reminding me that "smart kids finish their homework."
From Grade 6 until about six weeks ago, I had my own desk. The furniture changed. First it was the fold-down in my parents' old bookshelf. Then the pine scrollwork desk with the useless pigeon holes, my aunt's old kitchen table, my uncle's old clear-top with the National Geographic map of the world under the laminate, then the IKEA desk I just got rid of.
Some were good desks (the IKEA was my favourite, hands-down, which is probably why I held onto it so long). Some were bad — the pine one wins for that, since it was originally a hall desk design that was made deeper and wider to be sat at, yet still didn't work.
For my new apartment, I got rid of the IKEA desk (too much horizontal space taken up), and replaced it with a narrow shelving unit that has drawers. I haven't missed a desk yet.
The truth is, I've never really got the hang of sitting at a desk. Maybe it's because I associate it with being uncomfortable. Maybe it's because it's something I do away from home (ie: school or work). Maybe I just like sitting on beds and couches better.
In university, I had a desk, but I would only use it for the final typing-up of my essays (it being where the old Roland 286 I had resided). Otherwise, I used the living room couch to work on. I also marked papers on the couch when I was a teacher, and once I got my first laptop... that was the end. The laptop I'm writing this on now stays in the living room when it's not on the road, and can be found tucked under a piece of furniture when I'm not using it.
As far as my fiction-writing goes, I think the only time I work at a desk is when I'm adding a couple of paragraphs to a short story during my lunch hour (using the N-800, not my work computer, in case any co-workers read this!). The vast majority of last year's NaNoWriMo got completed either in the comfy chairs at home or the comfy chairs at the nearest Starbucks.
This, of course, is heresy. Think of all the writers' biographies you've read. Now think of how many included a description of their desks. Alice Sheldon had three, one for each name she wrote under. Ernest Hemingway had one that was to be stood at; he had back problems and couldn't sit for long. Big desks, small desks, desks in "dens" the size of my apartment, desks tucked away to one side that only came out once the children were asleep. To write is to be a desk owner.
But memory, even the collective sort, is selective and fickle. Did Jane Austen have a desk? From what I've read, she rarely wrote at one, working instead in the parlour with the rest of her family as company. And Hemingway is more famous for his use of Moleskine notebooks than for his specially-designed desk.
Desks will always be useful to someone, somewhere. But the wisdom of their necessity as writing equipment needs to be questioned.
From Grade 6 until about six weeks ago, I had my own desk. The furniture changed. First it was the fold-down in my parents' old bookshelf. Then the pine scrollwork desk with the useless pigeon holes, my aunt's old kitchen table, my uncle's old clear-top with the National Geographic map of the world under the laminate, then the IKEA desk I just got rid of.
Some were good desks (the IKEA was my favourite, hands-down, which is probably why I held onto it so long). Some were bad — the pine one wins for that, since it was originally a hall desk design that was made deeper and wider to be sat at, yet still didn't work.
For my new apartment, I got rid of the IKEA desk (too much horizontal space taken up), and replaced it with a narrow shelving unit that has drawers. I haven't missed a desk yet.
The truth is, I've never really got the hang of sitting at a desk. Maybe it's because I associate it with being uncomfortable. Maybe it's because it's something I do away from home (ie: school or work). Maybe I just like sitting on beds and couches better.
In university, I had a desk, but I would only use it for the final typing-up of my essays (it being where the old Roland 286 I had resided). Otherwise, I used the living room couch to work on. I also marked papers on the couch when I was a teacher, and once I got my first laptop... that was the end. The laptop I'm writing this on now stays in the living room when it's not on the road, and can be found tucked under a piece of furniture when I'm not using it.
As far as my fiction-writing goes, I think the only time I work at a desk is when I'm adding a couple of paragraphs to a short story during my lunch hour (using the N-800, not my work computer, in case any co-workers read this!). The vast majority of last year's NaNoWriMo got completed either in the comfy chairs at home or the comfy chairs at the nearest Starbucks.
This, of course, is heresy. Think of all the writers' biographies you've read. Now think of how many included a description of their desks. Alice Sheldon had three, one for each name she wrote under. Ernest Hemingway had one that was to be stood at; he had back problems and couldn't sit for long. Big desks, small desks, desks in "dens" the size of my apartment, desks tucked away to one side that only came out once the children were asleep. To write is to be a desk owner.
But memory, even the collective sort, is selective and fickle. Did Jane Austen have a desk? From what I've read, she rarely wrote at one, working instead in the parlour with the rest of her family as company. And Hemingway is more famous for his use of Moleskine notebooks than for his specially-designed desk.
Desks will always be useful to someone, somewhere. But the wisdom of their necessity as writing equipment needs to be questioned.
Trust in the Age of Automated Machinery /
What's the point of having a blog if you can't embarrass yourself in public with it?
This morning, I turned on my laptop — just to check the weather and pay a bill, nothing special. I'd used it last night to read the news and catch up on blog-reading, and I'd installed one update, but nothing untoward happened, and everything shut down fine.
Startup was not going fine.
The hardware check would go okay, GRUB (a thing that manages booting in Linux desktops) would start alll right, I saw a message saying that my kernel (the core part of the operating system) was "alive" and starting up... and then the screen would go black, the hard drive light would stay on, and... nothing.
No problem, I thought, maybe it's just doing a hard drive check. I'll wait a few more minutes, and then I'll reboot if there's still nothing happening.
Nothing happened. I powered down, waited a few seconds, and then tried again.
Same thing. So I tried again.
Same thing.
This is when the low-grade panic set in. I'm still organising my stuff in my new apartment, and I have no idea where my emergency recovery CD is. Sure, if I were desperate I could plug in my old desktop machine and burn an emergency CD on that. Once I found its power cord and my blank CDs, anyhow.
I decided to do what I always do in cases like this, which is houseclean for fifteen minutes. The washroom reeks of bleach even now, but hey, those mildew stains are fading away very nicely.
While I was rinsing off the grout around the bathtub, I thought about the laptop. Although a dying hard drive couldn't be entirely ruled out, it didn't act or sound like it to me. A dying operating system was more likely. I've used Slackware, Red Hat, and Ubuntu, and have never had an installation fail unless I deliberately did something stupid and destructive to it, so this seemed unlikely, but it was possible. Maybe that update I ran the night before had thrown something out of whack.
Right, back to the computer. GRUB has an option when it is starting up whereby you can press the Escape key to make a bootup option menu appear. I chose "recovery mode" for the latest kernel version.
What "recovery mode" does is show you all of the messages from the various hardware checks, daemons, services, and whatnot as the operating system loads up — everything that happens before you see the screen to log in. Normally these go by too quickly to pay attention to, and besides, who cares if nothing is going wrong?
I watched the messages go by. I didn't understand them all, but they all ended with "OK", which was a good sign.
Then a message came up saying, "System started more than 35 times without a hard drive check", which forces one to happen. I know Ubuntu does this, so that was fine. Hard drives are the only essential moving part on a computer (not counting the power button), and they tend to die faster than other components. It's a good idea to have them checked regularly.
This hard drive check took about five minutes, but was successful. Then GRUB asked me how I'd like to proceed. I decided to do a normal boot, since nothing had come back with an error message.
And then everything started up fine — no changes, no heroic measures.
Diagnosis: The machine would have started up fine before if its owner hadn't kept panicking and shutting if off before the hard drive check had a chance to finish.
Moral of the story: When in doubt, use "recovery mode" for reassurance.
Real moral of the story: Using Linux after Windows is like being in a good relationship after a bad one — you have to learn how to trust all over again without hurting the other party. I mean, I was ready to do a data rescue followed by a completely new installation, just because everything was working the way it should be.
Really real moral of the story: I need to lay off the caffeine and relax already.
This morning, I turned on my laptop — just to check the weather and pay a bill, nothing special. I'd used it last night to read the news and catch up on blog-reading, and I'd installed one update, but nothing untoward happened, and everything shut down fine.
Startup was not going fine.
The hardware check would go okay, GRUB (a thing that manages booting in Linux desktops) would start alll right, I saw a message saying that my kernel (the core part of the operating system) was "alive" and starting up... and then the screen would go black, the hard drive light would stay on, and... nothing.
No problem, I thought, maybe it's just doing a hard drive check. I'll wait a few more minutes, and then I'll reboot if there's still nothing happening.
Nothing happened. I powered down, waited a few seconds, and then tried again.
Same thing. So I tried again.
Same thing.
This is when the low-grade panic set in. I'm still organising my stuff in my new apartment, and I have no idea where my emergency recovery CD is. Sure, if I were desperate I could plug in my old desktop machine and burn an emergency CD on that. Once I found its power cord and my blank CDs, anyhow.
I decided to do what I always do in cases like this, which is houseclean for fifteen minutes. The washroom reeks of bleach even now, but hey, those mildew stains are fading away very nicely.
While I was rinsing off the grout around the bathtub, I thought about the laptop. Although a dying hard drive couldn't be entirely ruled out, it didn't act or sound like it to me. A dying operating system was more likely. I've used Slackware, Red Hat, and Ubuntu, and have never had an installation fail unless I deliberately did something stupid and destructive to it, so this seemed unlikely, but it was possible. Maybe that update I ran the night before had thrown something out of whack.
Right, back to the computer. GRUB has an option when it is starting up whereby you can press the Escape key to make a bootup option menu appear. I chose "recovery mode" for the latest kernel version.
What "recovery mode" does is show you all of the messages from the various hardware checks, daemons, services, and whatnot as the operating system loads up — everything that happens before you see the screen to log in. Normally these go by too quickly to pay attention to, and besides, who cares if nothing is going wrong?
I watched the messages go by. I didn't understand them all, but they all ended with "OK", which was a good sign.
Then a message came up saying, "System started more than 35 times without a hard drive check", which forces one to happen. I know Ubuntu does this, so that was fine. Hard drives are the only essential moving part on a computer (not counting the power button), and they tend to die faster than other components. It's a good idea to have them checked regularly.
This hard drive check took about five minutes, but was successful. Then GRUB asked me how I'd like to proceed. I decided to do a normal boot, since nothing had come back with an error message.
And then everything started up fine — no changes, no heroic measures.
Diagnosis: The machine would have started up fine before if its owner hadn't kept panicking and shutting if off before the hard drive check had a chance to finish.
Moral of the story: When in doubt, use "recovery mode" for reassurance.
Real moral of the story: Using Linux after Windows is like being in a good relationship after a bad one — you have to learn how to trust all over again without hurting the other party. I mean, I was ready to do a data rescue followed by a completely new installation, just because everything was working the way it should be.
Really real moral of the story: I need to lay off the caffeine and relax already.
Shiny! Shiny! Useful? Yes. /
When I was first getting into Linux, there was a prevailing attitude of, "Yes, yes, it's just barely workable enough if you're a geek, but for anyone who's not a Unix expert, it's not very easy to use, and it's awfully ugly." The prevailing attitude had a point. This was back when you had to specify your line refresh rate manually to get X-Windows to work — if it would work at all, which was not very often.
I hope what I've written so far has shown that Linux is no longer in that situation. The only holdout criticism I still take seriously is, "I can't run [my favourite PC game] on it." WINE and other emulators have made great strides, but not all games are supported, and if you're a big video-game player, I can see how that could influence you. Since my idea of "playing video games" means Tetris or Solitaire (both of which are standard extras in Ubuntu and other distros), I just don't care that much.
This post is for those of you who like your computer environment to be pretty, but don't play games.
One of my favourite things about the "standard" GNOME desktop in Linux are that for your one monitor, you get several desktops. I keep mine set to the Ubuntu default of four — less than that and I run out of room, more than that and I run out of things to put on them. The virtual desktops work like this: you can switch between everything on a single desktop (say, your word processor and a PDF you're referring to, plus a web page you're also referring to), but still have other applications running on other virtual desktops (say, your MP3 player) that will stay out of your way until you switch to that virtual desktop. It's sort of like having four monitors running at once, even though you're on your laptop and sitting on a park bench in real life.
I love this because it means that I can put applications that I want to have running but don't otherwise need to attend to (the MP3 player) out of my way, while the applications I'm actually going to work with are on one or two desktops. As I write this, I have my e-mail application open on desktop #1, this editing window open on desktop #2, and an open folder with the screen shots I'm about to include in this post on desktop #3.
To switch between desktops, I can either click on the one that I want (the environment has little clickable icons for each one, with application icons superimposed so you can keep track of which application is where), or I can take advantage of an "eye candy" utility that has been added in recent years: Compiz.
Compiz does a lot of things, from the "why didn't they have that by default?" to "just for fun". In Ubuntu you can find it under System -> Advanced Desktop Settings; in other distros, you'll have to find someone more knowledgeable than I who knows where to find it.
Being able to work with several applications open but not all cluttering the same taskbar is fine and all, but adding some pizzazz and extra utility makes it feel like a luxurious necessity (sort of like my friends who see getting a pedicure with French-style polish as basic hygiene, like brushing one's teeth). With Compiz installed and the right goodies enabled, you can see all of your desktops in a ribbon and then scroll through to the one you need, like this:
You can also use the infamous cube view to rotate between desktops, like this:
(Note: Normally I don't place applications "around the corner" like the calculator is in the screen shot. I just wanted to show that you could if you wanted to.)
For working on a piece of writing, I usually have my "statistical" apps (Tomboy Notes, word count spreadsheet, calculator) on one desktop that I ignore except at the beginning and end of my writing session, my word processor on another desktop, a third desktop for any reference material, and the fourth desktop is inevitably my e-mail application and MP3 player. When I switch between desktops, it looks something like this:
Both the "desktop ribbon" and the "cube" effect have shortcut keys that let you use them efficiently — after the first few days you'll stop lingering admiringly over the cool video effect and just want to jump to your next task, believe me. The animation corresponding to the keyboard shortcut you used will run in the minimum amount of time and let you get on with your work, having enjoyed a fraction of a second of pure aesthetics.
Sometimes eye candy does have a useful purpose — the ribbon lets you scan where the heck you put that Tomboy Note, or the cube reminds you of how you've organised your work. Sometimes you just turn on the "rain" speical effect because you can (like I did just now). I'd even argue that the "rain" effect has its use, though — it keeps me interested and focused on the screen because something is happening, and that keeps me from getting distracted from this blog-writing. I've almost forgotten I have laundry to hang up (not entirely, obviously).
I'm getting to the end of this "Linux for writers" series. I want to blog about file conversions (the kind where no-one knows you've done a file conversion), and then I think I'm done for now. If anyone wants to hear about other topics, let me know. Personally, I'm just wishing I'd installed Celtx in time to be used to it so I could have completed an outline in it in time for the 3-day novel event this weekend. I still plan to do a writing marathon on my own to make up for time lost moving house — next year I'll be able to participate in the event fully.
I hope what I've written so far has shown that Linux is no longer in that situation. The only holdout criticism I still take seriously is, "I can't run [my favourite PC game] on it." WINE and other emulators have made great strides, but not all games are supported, and if you're a big video-game player, I can see how that could influence you. Since my idea of "playing video games" means Tetris or Solitaire (both of which are standard extras in Ubuntu and other distros), I just don't care that much.
This post is for those of you who like your computer environment to be pretty, but don't play games.
One of my favourite things about the "standard" GNOME desktop in Linux are that for your one monitor, you get several desktops. I keep mine set to the Ubuntu default of four — less than that and I run out of room, more than that and I run out of things to put on them. The virtual desktops work like this: you can switch between everything on a single desktop (say, your word processor and a PDF you're referring to, plus a web page you're also referring to), but still have other applications running on other virtual desktops (say, your MP3 player) that will stay out of your way until you switch to that virtual desktop. It's sort of like having four monitors running at once, even though you're on your laptop and sitting on a park bench in real life.
I love this because it means that I can put applications that I want to have running but don't otherwise need to attend to (the MP3 player) out of my way, while the applications I'm actually going to work with are on one or two desktops. As I write this, I have my e-mail application open on desktop #1, this editing window open on desktop #2, and an open folder with the screen shots I'm about to include in this post on desktop #3.
To switch between desktops, I can either click on the one that I want (the environment has little clickable icons for each one, with application icons superimposed so you can keep track of which application is where), or I can take advantage of an "eye candy" utility that has been added in recent years: Compiz.
Compiz does a lot of things, from the "why didn't they have that by default?" to "just for fun". In Ubuntu you can find it under System -> Advanced Desktop Settings; in other distros, you'll have to find someone more knowledgeable than I who knows where to find it.
Being able to work with several applications open but not all cluttering the same taskbar is fine and all, but adding some pizzazz and extra utility makes it feel like a luxurious necessity (sort of like my friends who see getting a pedicure with French-style polish as basic hygiene, like brushing one's teeth). With Compiz installed and the right goodies enabled, you can see all of your desktops in a ribbon and then scroll through to the one you need, like this:
You can also use the infamous cube view to rotate between desktops, like this:
(Note: Normally I don't place applications "around the corner" like the calculator is in the screen shot. I just wanted to show that you could if you wanted to.)
For working on a piece of writing, I usually have my "statistical" apps (Tomboy Notes, word count spreadsheet, calculator) on one desktop that I ignore except at the beginning and end of my writing session, my word processor on another desktop, a third desktop for any reference material, and the fourth desktop is inevitably my e-mail application and MP3 player. When I switch between desktops, it looks something like this:
Both the "desktop ribbon" and the "cube" effect have shortcut keys that let you use them efficiently — after the first few days you'll stop lingering admiringly over the cool video effect and just want to jump to your next task, believe me. The animation corresponding to the keyboard shortcut you used will run in the minimum amount of time and let you get on with your work, having enjoyed a fraction of a second of pure aesthetics.
Sometimes eye candy does have a useful purpose — the ribbon lets you scan where the heck you put that Tomboy Note, or the cube reminds you of how you've organised your work. Sometimes you just turn on the "rain" speical effect because you can (like I did just now). I'd even argue that the "rain" effect has its use, though — it keeps me interested and focused on the screen because something is happening, and that keeps me from getting distracted from this blog-writing. I've almost forgotten I have laundry to hang up (not entirely, obviously).
I'm getting to the end of this "Linux for writers" series. I want to blog about file conversions (the kind where no-one knows you've done a file conversion), and then I think I'm done for now. If anyone wants to hear about other topics, let me know. Personally, I'm just wishing I'd installed Celtx in time to be used to it so I could have completed an outline in it in time for the 3-day novel event this weekend. I still plan to do a writing marathon on my own to make up for time lost moving house — next year I'll be able to participate in the event fully.
intro to OpenOffice /
I just saw the "writing in Linux" summary post on Becoming a Writer Seriously from 5 August, and thought, "Right, I was going to write about OpenOffice next". Then I saw the date on my last blog post and thought, "GAH!"
You see, while the on-line eyrea has been staying in the same place, the physical eyrea (ie: where I live) has been moving to a smaller, but much, much nicer apartment that I actually own instead of renting. I'm about 1.75 km west of where I used to live, so I'm still in the Beach. Nevertheless, it's Day 11 of moving and I'm just starting to feel settled now. As you can see, blogging has been taking a rather distant back seat.
Right then: here's a quick overview of OpenOffice, and what I use each application for (your mileage may vary, of course). Before I start, I need to say again that this suite, like most home-user Linux distros themselves, is absolutely free. OpenOffice is also included in the base install of Ubuntu, so if you choose that distro, you don't even need to install it separately — it's installed the same time as the operating system.
OpenOffice is basically the front-runner freeware competition for Microsoft Office, and is available for Windows and Macintosh as well as Linux (that means you can check it out without installing a new operating system on your computer). The full installation for OpenOffice includes:
Pros: The file converter is excellent — I've even used it to convert from one MS-Word format to another because it did a cleaner job than Word itself. This means you never need to break into a sweat just because you're submitting something electronically and a certain software format is specified. OpenOffice is quick (ie: non-sluggish), supports styles very well, and has very friendly, easy-to-use help so that you can learn as you go along.
Cons: This is not just a Linux version of Word. You will have to keep an open mind, especially when you're trying to figure out how to do things like having a different footer on the first page of your document. It can be done, but it is not done the same way as Word does it.
By the way: the Styles dialogue box has a shortcut key of F11. I use F11 more than any other shortcut key in OpenOffice. If you learn one new shortcut key, learn that one.
Pros: the spreadsheet does everything that I would ever want to do in a spreadsheet — fills, multiple tabs, formatting. I even like the cell formatting better than Excel. I have a spreadsheet I use to track my income and taxes for my contract work, and my accountant thought it was well-organised and easy to use when I gave it to him in Excel format. That's a ringing endorsement as far as I'm concerned.
Cons: Haven't come across any yet.
Pros: Very easy to use if you understand forms and databases first (the tool's only as good as the hand that guides it, after all).
Cons: It might just be my own bad habits getting in my way, but sometimes setting up an auto-incrementing field in a table that is also the key seems to take more steps than it ought to. It always works in the end, but I resent having to confirm some of the steps.
Pros: If you know PowerPoint, you'll barely notice you're using a different application. As with the rest of OpenOffice, the file conversion support is excellent.
Cons: The default templates are... underwhelming, shall we say. Fortunately, there are plenty to download for free on the web. You can also use any PowerPoint templates you have or download.
Pros: Again, if you've ever used any drawing application before, you'll be at home in no time. All the usual tools are there.
Cons: I haven't used this application enough to find any real drawbacks to it. If someone knows of one, please comment!
PS: The "cookie jar" trick comes from Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See. I had a long, horrible writing drought in my twenties (too much work, no time to sleep, never mind write), and this book plus some other similar ones helped me make writing a normal part of life again. Which, of course, is how things should be.
You see, while the on-line eyrea has been staying in the same place, the physical eyrea (ie: where I live) has been moving to a smaller, but much, much nicer apartment that I actually own instead of renting. I'm about 1.75 km west of where I used to live, so I'm still in the Beach. Nevertheless, it's Day 11 of moving and I'm just starting to feel settled now. As you can see, blogging has been taking a rather distant back seat.
Right then: here's a quick overview of OpenOffice, and what I use each application for (your mileage may vary, of course). Before I start, I need to say again that this suite, like most home-user Linux distros themselves, is absolutely free. OpenOffice is also included in the base install of Ubuntu, so if you choose that distro, you don't even need to install it separately — it's installed the same time as the operating system.
OpenOffice is basically the front-runner freeware competition for Microsoft Office, and is available for Windows and Macintosh as well as Linux (that means you can check it out without installing a new operating system on your computer). The full installation for OpenOffice includes:
- a word processor
- a spreadsheet
- a database application (like MS-Access)
- a presentation application (like MS-PowerPoint)
- a drawing application (like Adobe Illustrator)
The word processor
Not surprisingly, the word processor is what I use the most for writing with: short stories, novels, query letters, and whatever else comes up. I also use a desktop publishing application and sometimes roll some HTML pages by hand, but almost always I'm using the OpenOffice word processor.Pros: The file converter is excellent — I've even used it to convert from one MS-Word format to another because it did a cleaner job than Word itself. This means you never need to break into a sweat just because you're submitting something electronically and a certain software format is specified. OpenOffice is quick (ie: non-sluggish), supports styles very well, and has very friendly, easy-to-use help so that you can learn as you go along.
Cons: This is not just a Linux version of Word. You will have to keep an open mind, especially when you're trying to figure out how to do things like having a different footer on the first page of your document. It can be done, but it is not done the same way as Word does it.
By the way: the Styles dialogue box has a shortcut key of F11. I use F11 more than any other shortcut key in OpenOffice. If you learn one new shortcut key, learn that one.
The spreadsheet
I don't know if this is typical usage or not, but I do use the spreadsheet at least once per writing session. I use it to track my word count/editing sessions, because I have a "cookie jar" account set up and give myself a dollar every time I make quota. It's a stupid mind trick, but it works for me.Pros: the spreadsheet does everything that I would ever want to do in a spreadsheet — fills, multiple tabs, formatting. I even like the cell formatting better than Excel. I have a spreadsheet I use to track my income and taxes for my contract work, and my accountant thought it was well-organised and easy to use when I gave it to him in Excel format. That's a ringing endorsement as far as I'm concerned.
Cons: Haven't come across any yet.
The database application
I built a little two-table form to use to make notes at my day job with the OpenOffice database application, because I prefer to type my notes and I was tired of trying to remember where all the different word processor notes were. I'm also in the midst of building a query letter database, but that was more complicated (I want it to include a contacts list plus track acceptance/rejections and from where), so it's not done yet. If you understand form drawing and SQL it's very, very easy.Pros: Very easy to use if you understand forms and databases first (the tool's only as good as the hand that guides it, after all).
Cons: It might just be my own bad habits getting in my way, but sometimes setting up an auto-incrementing field in a table that is also the key seems to take more steps than it ought to. It always works in the end, but I resent having to confirm some of the steps.
The presentation application
I haven't actually used this as a writing tool yet, but I have used it to document an event (dying knitting wool with Kool-Aid — an experience that would scare one off artificial food colouring forever, believe me). It has all the pretty transitions and slide layouts that PowerPoint supports, and some of the animations.Pros: If you know PowerPoint, you'll barely notice you're using a different application. As with the rest of OpenOffice, the file conversion support is excellent.
Cons: The default templates are... underwhelming, shall we say. Fortunately, there are plenty to download for free on the web. You can also use any PowerPoint templates you have or download.
The drawing application
I've only used this in my writing for sketching out ideas, relationships, and timelines. It was good for two reasons: first, I was able to read what I had sketched when I was done (not feasible with my regular handwriting!) and second, it meant I could keep all the information for my project in one place.Pros: Again, if you've ever used any drawing application before, you'll be at home in no time. All the usual tools are there.
Cons: I haven't used this application enough to find any real drawbacks to it. If someone knows of one, please comment!
Summary
You need to accept that OpenOffice is an alternative to MS-Office or whatever it is you are used to using. If you want to try something new, and are willing to keep an open mind, you'll be surprised with how much you can get for free.PS: The "cookie jar" trick comes from Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See. I had a long, horrible writing drought in my twenties (too much work, no time to sleep, never mind write), and this book plus some other similar ones helped me make writing a normal part of life again. Which, of course, is how things should be.
It's the little things that count /
At first I thought that after giving the overview of Linux, I would jump right into looking at my favourite word processor and related applications. But word processors are word processors, and really (this is heresy, but really) writers don't necessarily need a fancy word processor to get the job done. Neat formatting and organised content, yes. But not fancy, not unless you're writing something with lots of cross-references and hand-tooling your own index. Even then, any full-fledged word processor will handle that easily.
No, it's the little things that count, those little widgets or mini-features that we get attached to beyond all reason. That's why this time I'm going to write about note-taking.
I used to take notes either a) on paper or b) in a word processing file. Then I would promptly lose the notebook page I wrote the note on (or, in extreme cases, the entire notebook), or forget where I saved the word processing file.
The first problem was solved by getting my N-800 that I've already blogged about and using Maemopad+ to write notes.
This post is more about Linux on a full-fledged computer, though. For that situation, I have wound up with two solutions: one for work and one for home. For work, I built myself a searchable database — something that's very quick and easy to do in OpenOffice. I'll blog about that soon. The home solution was to put Tomboy Notes in my Ubuntu launch panel.
There are lots of different sticky notes applications out there, but I picked Tomboy because:
Finally, since TomBoy is a Gnome project, and Gnome is the environment that Ubuntu runs by default, it comes pre-installed with Ubuntu — you just need to add it to the panel to make it handy.
Further explanation if that last paragraph made no sense to you: Unlike other, ah, more commercial PC operating systems, the layers in Linux are all customisable. There's the "core" — the part most casual computer users only see when the machine is starting up (you know, all those cryptic messages about memory counts and things). Then there's the environment, which is the pretty part with the desktop wallpaper, windows, icons, menus... By default, Ubuntu comes with Gnome, a very popular environment (but not the only one). If you can use MS-Windows or Macintosh OSX, you should be able to do basic navigation and application use in Gnome without having to learn much that's new. That's not to say that everything is exactly the way you're used to — because it isn't — but it's familiar enough. It's sort of like going to a restaurant in a country you've never been to before — some things will be different, but the basic conventions of ordering from the menu and so on are the same.
No, it's the little things that count, those little widgets or mini-features that we get attached to beyond all reason. That's why this time I'm going to write about note-taking.
I used to take notes either a) on paper or b) in a word processing file. Then I would promptly lose the notebook page I wrote the note on (or, in extreme cases, the entire notebook), or forget where I saved the word processing file.
The first problem was solved by getting my N-800 that I've already blogged about and using Maemopad+ to write notes.
This post is more about Linux on a full-fledged computer, though. For that situation, I have wound up with two solutions: one for work and one for home. For work, I built myself a searchable database — something that's very quick and easy to do in OpenOffice. I'll blog about that soon. The home solution was to put Tomboy Notes in my Ubuntu launch panel.
There are lots of different sticky notes applications out there, but I picked Tomboy because:
- It doesn't put notes all over my desktop. Instead, my notes are listed in a menu that drops down when I click on the panel icon.
- If you enter the title of one note in the text of another note, Tomboy will automatically create a hyperlink for you. This is great for doing preliminary story outlines. You can also create new notes that are linked to your current note by highlighting the text you want to use to link, right-clicking, and selecting the "Link to New Note" option.
- You can organise your notes into notebooks. If you've ever been in a meeting where the chair has a "parking lot" of a piece of flip-chart paper with sticky notes on it — that's kind of what notebooks are.
- All notes are searchable, so if you can't remember the title of the note where you jotted down that important piece of information, you can at least search for it. The search dialogue also acts as a nice overview of all of your notes.
- Unlike the other sticky note applications I've used, the text is formattable. I like this because it means that if I get carried away in a note and then think, "Hm, maybe I should copy this into the actual document I'm working on," I can do it without having to insitute any formatting. It's nice being able to use all the expressiveness that formatting allows too. I'm particularly fond of bulleted lists in my notes. Web and e-mail addresses automatically become links.
- Notes can be exported to HTML (that's web page formatting). If you can export to HTML, you can import into pretty much any contemporary word processor.
Finally, since TomBoy is a Gnome project, and Gnome is the environment that Ubuntu runs by default, it comes pre-installed with Ubuntu — you just need to add it to the panel to make it handy.
Further explanation if that last paragraph made no sense to you: Unlike other, ah, more commercial PC operating systems, the layers in Linux are all customisable. There's the "core" — the part most casual computer users only see when the machine is starting up (you know, all those cryptic messages about memory counts and things). Then there's the environment, which is the pretty part with the desktop wallpaper, windows, icons, menus... By default, Ubuntu comes with Gnome, a very popular environment (but not the only one). If you can use MS-Windows or Macintosh OSX, you should be able to do basic navigation and application use in Gnome without having to learn much that's new. That's not to say that everything is exactly the way you're used to — because it isn't — but it's familiar enough. It's sort of like going to a restaurant in a country you've never been to before — some things will be different, but the basic conventions of ordering from the menu and so on are the same.
The best things in life are free /
Here I am again, enjoying the irony that the first time I've had a chance to blog in ages is while I'm on a business trip.
It feels like Linux's place in personal computing has gone up another notch — people have been asking me what it's like to use Linux as a writing environment. So, partly to kick-start the blog, and partly because I think the more articles about using Linux in everyday life, the better, I'm going to do a little series of entries on writing in Linux. I don't aim to get very technical — one of my major arguments is that a casual user doesn't need to get technical — but I'll try to include enough detail to make it interesting.
First stop: an overview. Unlike Windows or Macintosh, there are lots of different flavours of Linux out there, and they're all made by different groups of people. In order to be Linux, they have to meet certain standards. Not all of them are free, although any that you would be interested in for personal computing are. There are a few flavours (called "distros") specifically aimed at people who are not hard-core computer people but want to explore alternatives to Windows/Mac. The one I'm using is called Ubuntu, and it's very popular.
The Ubuntu site tells you more about how to try out and install the operating system better than I ever could, so I'll leave it to them. Here are some highlights, though:
So, it's pleasant, it's friendly, it's efficient, and best of all, it's free. For real free. Not "my brother got it off his friend whose sister-in-law works in IT free", but really free. And so is all the software stuff that comes with it.
By the way, this blog entry was written on my Nokia 800 using the off-line blog writer MaemoWordPy. The N-800 uses Linux too, although not Ubuntu. But yes, there is lots of free software for it as well.
When people are giving away such nice, useful stuff, why pay for frustration?
It feels like Linux's place in personal computing has gone up another notch — people have been asking me what it's like to use Linux as a writing environment. So, partly to kick-start the blog, and partly because I think the more articles about using Linux in everyday life, the better, I'm going to do a little series of entries on writing in Linux. I don't aim to get very technical — one of my major arguments is that a casual user doesn't need to get technical — but I'll try to include enough detail to make it interesting.
First stop: an overview. Unlike Windows or Macintosh, there are lots of different flavours of Linux out there, and they're all made by different groups of people. In order to be Linux, they have to meet certain standards. Not all of them are free, although any that you would be interested in for personal computing are. There are a few flavours (called "distros") specifically aimed at people who are not hard-core computer people but want to explore alternatives to Windows/Mac. The one I'm using is called Ubuntu, and it's very popular.
The Ubuntu site tells you more about how to try out and install the operating system better than I ever could, so I'll leave it to them. Here are some highlights, though:
- The environment looks pretty.
- It plays nice with older/slower computers.
- Unlike Windows/Mac, when Ubuntu is installed, it also installs all the applications you'll probably want to use right away: a word processor, spreadsheet, presenter, photo editor, music player, basic games (like Solitaire)and so on. It does this in about the same amount of time it takes to load just a new verion of Windows.
- Although there is a certain "Toto we're not in Kansas anymore" feel to it, if you already know Windows/Mac and take your time learning the new space, you'll be fine.
- If something you want wasn't installed right away, just find the Add/Remove Programs menu option and search for what you do want. Unless it explicitly says so otherwise, everything available from here is safe. That means protection from spyware and other nasty stuff.
- If what you're interested in is getting some writing done, probably everything you want is already installed.
- All your stuff (documents, photos, music) gets saved in a folder named after your user name. It's called your home folder. Ubuntu automatically creates some sub-folders and adds bookmarks to them on the menu to help you get organised.
- By the way, when it comes time to back up your hard drive, that home folder I just mentioned is the only one you need to back up. All your data and personal settings are saved there. Really.
So, it's pleasant, it's friendly, it's efficient, and best of all, it's free. For real free. Not "my brother got it off his friend whose sister-in-law works in IT free", but really free. And so is all the software stuff that comes with it.
By the way, this blog entry was written on my Nokia 800 using the off-line blog writer MaemoWordPy. The N-800 uses Linux too, although not Ubuntu. But yes, there is lots of free software for it as well.
When people are giving away such nice, useful stuff, why pay for frustration?
June's West End Stories & how we amuse ourselves /
I missed May's West End Stories because I had to work that weekend, but I made it to June's. They were last night, and a good time was had by all. Once again there was sort of a hive-mind "DJing" of stories going on. Pat, who went last, did a great job of telling a short-and-sweet Aesop's fable that tied together three previously-told stories from earlier in the evening. Entertainment doesn't get any more interactive than this.
Last weekend I got together with some friends near Kensington Market. We sat on a blanket in the park and talked. We admired the ever-creative Tara's watercolours from her recent trip to Ireland. I took photos (some of them have been added to my photo stream), and we tried to help the ever-sensible Nichole decide what kind of bicycle to buy. The ever-effervescent Fiona had some great advice about what bikes were on sale in which stores.
Later, Tara and I walked downtown. There was some sort of event going on at Yonge-Dundas Square, for Luminato, I think. There were tents where you could get makeovers, crowds (and crowds and crowds) of people, a swing band, and giant LED billboards everywhere. We marvelled that less than half an hour's walk away we had been sitting in a blanket in a quiet park, watching retro-hippies do yoga and tai chi moves.
This is not some Luddite comment on how much better blanket-sitting and story-telling are than big urban cultural events. But I will say that I think variety makes you appreciate each event better. It certainly keeps one from being bored.
Last weekend I got together with some friends near Kensington Market. We sat on a blanket in the park and talked. We admired the ever-creative Tara's watercolours from her recent trip to Ireland. I took photos (some of them have been added to my photo stream), and we tried to help the ever-sensible Nichole decide what kind of bicycle to buy. The ever-effervescent Fiona had some great advice about what bikes were on sale in which stores.
Later, Tara and I walked downtown. There was some sort of event going on at Yonge-Dundas Square, for Luminato, I think. There were tents where you could get makeovers, crowds (and crowds and crowds) of people, a swing band, and giant LED billboards everywhere. We marvelled that less than half an hour's walk away we had been sitting in a blanket in a quiet park, watching retro-hippies do yoga and tai chi moves.
This is not some Luddite comment on how much better blanket-sitting and story-telling are than big urban cultural events. But I will say that I think variety makes you appreciate each event better. It certainly keeps one from being bored.
Books in Camouflage /
Okay, I hate gushy cross-posts as much as the next person, but this site is really cool, promise promise promise...
The New Zealand Book Council has gone to a lot of time and trouble to create a web site that lets you read novels at work on your computer screen, but make it look as if you're working. From the phony Windows XP login to the phony Windows XP desktop (hint: you have to double-click to launch stuff, just like in real Windows), the site looks like a regular office screen. All of the novels are formatted to look like PowerPoint business presentations — someone walking by would think you were reviewing a service or product by a third party.
I think it's freaking brilliant, so long as you don't work somewhere that (ahem) tracks IP addresses.
Cross-post disclaimer: I found out about this from Beatty's Book Blog.
The New Zealand Book Council has gone to a lot of time and trouble to create a web site that lets you read novels at work on your computer screen, but make it look as if you're working. From the phony Windows XP login to the phony Windows XP desktop (hint: you have to double-click to launch stuff, just like in real Windows), the site looks like a regular office screen. All of the novels are formatted to look like PowerPoint business presentations — someone walking by would think you were reviewing a service or product by a third party.
I think it's freaking brilliant, so long as you don't work somewhere that (ahem) tracks IP addresses.
Cross-post disclaimer: I found out about this from Beatty's Book Blog.
Wii found a better mousetrap /
I almost feel like putting this on my DIY blog, because it's all about building your own tools to extend your power. I didn't do the building in this case, though.
I found out about the Wiisniper blog, the owner of which has built a variety of Google widgets that let you search for specific Wii products. I put the Wii Fit widget on my iGoogle home page, and found a shop that had it in stock tonight. Actually, they don't have it in stock — they're allowing back orders — but that's fine by me. And it's not even either of the shops that annoyed me so much yesterday.
What I learned from this: Revenge is sweet. Also a reminder that the power of the internet comes from both the wide range of information available and the ability to compile and synthesise information.
I found out about the Wiisniper blog, the owner of which has built a variety of Google widgets that let you search for specific Wii products. I put the Wii Fit widget on my iGoogle home page, and found a shop that had it in stock tonight. Actually, they don't have it in stock — they're allowing back orders — but that's fine by me. And it's not even either of the shops that annoyed me so much yesterday.
What I learned from this: Revenge is sweet. Also a reminder that the power of the internet comes from both the wide range of information available and the ability to compile and synthesise information.
Wii Wonder /
Yes, I've joined the Wii-playing masses, mostly because my gym is about to close by the time I get out of work most days (it's a great gym, it just doesn't stay open very late). The Wii appealed because it meant I could get some light exercise in and still manage to eat supper before nine PM.
I found a console fairly quickly (thanks to my brother Steve's "fixer" mentality and expansive knowledge of downtown gaming shops), and set things up last night. Everything worked on the first try. It was weird — although I didn't like boxing as a two-player Wii game when I tried it before, I really got a kick out of pummeling the entirely-computerised avatar. I knocked out "Ryan" the generic Mii by the second round. Well, it had been a frustrating week.
I think I'm going to be pummeling more avatars if the customer service I'm getting over Wii Fit keeps up. First I tried one game store in person (that had been recommended to me). I got a fish-eyed stare and a flat "No" as a response to my enquiry. When I asked why, I got a half-baked explanation and a blow-off. I don't like overweening shop clerks, but I don't like being treated like a criminal either, just because I asked for a service the shop doesn't happen to provide.
Not a problem, I thought, I'll just back-order the thing from a big box store. Except their web site wouldn't let me. So I called customer service and asked why. The rep said that they don't allow back orders on sold-out items because it would bog down the ordering system and they would never be able to fulfill hundreds of thousands of orders (hundreds of thousands? really? for an item that few households would order more than one of, in a country with 33 million people?). Then he hung up on me.
Okay, okay, it's a scarce item, I get it, but do I have to be treated like garbage because I'm shopping for a scarce item? I do buy other electronics, after all. Can't someone say "no" politely anymore? Offer some hints on how to buy from them while working with their Byzantine system of order fulfillment?
Consumers get accused all the time of being short-sighted and needing instant gratification. Shops would do well to remember that they can come across the same way, with similarly distasteful impressions made.
I found a console fairly quickly (thanks to my brother Steve's "fixer" mentality and expansive knowledge of downtown gaming shops), and set things up last night. Everything worked on the first try. It was weird — although I didn't like boxing as a two-player Wii game when I tried it before, I really got a kick out of pummeling the entirely-computerised avatar. I knocked out "Ryan" the generic Mii by the second round. Well, it had been a frustrating week.
I think I'm going to be pummeling more avatars if the customer service I'm getting over Wii Fit keeps up. First I tried one game store in person (that had been recommended to me). I got a fish-eyed stare and a flat "No" as a response to my enquiry. When I asked why, I got a half-baked explanation and a blow-off. I don't like overweening shop clerks, but I don't like being treated like a criminal either, just because I asked for a service the shop doesn't happen to provide.
Not a problem, I thought, I'll just back-order the thing from a big box store. Except their web site wouldn't let me. So I called customer service and asked why. The rep said that they don't allow back orders on sold-out items because it would bog down the ordering system and they would never be able to fulfill hundreds of thousands of orders (hundreds of thousands? really? for an item that few households would order more than one of, in a country with 33 million people?). Then he hung up on me.
Okay, okay, it's a scarce item, I get it, but do I have to be treated like garbage because I'm shopping for a scarce item? I do buy other electronics, after all. Can't someone say "no" politely anymore? Offer some hints on how to buy from them while working with their Byzantine system of order fulfillment?
Consumers get accused all the time of being short-sighted and needing instant gratification. Shops would do well to remember that they can come across the same way, with similarly distasteful impressions made.
Travel Globally, Present Locally /
The Kingsolver and Hopp presentation last night (as part of Pages' This is Not a Reading Series, promoting Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) was brilliant. The audience got to laugh, feel doomed, watch turkey sex videos*, and learn a lot about how to eat locally.
The most amazing part, in a night of amazing things, is that the "spine" of the delivery was customised for the Toronto growing season. At the end we were presented with a list of web sites about where to get locally-grown food in and around Toronto. I have to say: this is the very first time, in any context, that I have seen non-Canadians customise a presentation for Canada and do such a good job at it. That includes some events I paid a lot more than ten dollars to attend.
Here's the list (I don't think this information is meant to be hoarded):
Thanks to Jean-Anne for helping me copy down all the addresses.
Always on top of things, culture queen Carla did her own scouting and found this public Google calendar: Toronto Farmers Markets
I haven't started Animal, Vegetable, Miracle yet, but I'm interested in reading it. As I blogged last, I grew up eating grow-your-own and pick-your-own, so a lot of the fascination for me is learning how to apply what I took to be common sense when I was eight to the urban environment I live in now.
It seems to me a lot of it is peer pressure. The first time I grew tomato plants on my balcony, a lot of my non-gardening friends expressed surprise that one even could grow tomato plants on a balcony. This was closely followed by musing about the propriety of such an act, for want of a better word. Most of my friends are gardeners, though, and so just said, "Cool! What variety?". I don't have a balcony right now, so tomatoes are on the local-buy list. Mmmmmm, tomatoes.... I wonder when the local heirloom ones will be ripe?
* Please note both parties participating in the sex were turkeys.
The most amazing part, in a night of amazing things, is that the "spine" of the delivery was customised for the Toronto growing season. At the end we were presented with a list of web sites about where to get locally-grown food in and around Toronto. I have to say: this is the very first time, in any context, that I have seen non-Canadians customise a presentation for Canada and do such a good job at it. That includes some events I paid a lot more than ten dollars to attend.
Here's the list (I don't think this information is meant to be hoarded):
- Local Food Plus
- The Stop Community Food Centre
- Food Share
- Edible Toronto
- City of Toronto Food Policy Council
- GTA Local Food
- Project for Public Spaces (multi-city)
Thanks to Jean-Anne for helping me copy down all the addresses.
Always on top of things, culture queen Carla did her own scouting and found this public Google calendar: Toronto Farmers Markets
I haven't started Animal, Vegetable, Miracle yet, but I'm interested in reading it. As I blogged last, I grew up eating grow-your-own and pick-your-own, so a lot of the fascination for me is learning how to apply what I took to be common sense when I was eight to the urban environment I live in now.
It seems to me a lot of it is peer pressure. The first time I grew tomato plants on my balcony, a lot of my non-gardening friends expressed surprise that one even could grow tomato plants on a balcony. This was closely followed by musing about the propriety of such an act, for want of a better word. Most of my friends are gardeners, though, and so just said, "Cool! What variety?". I don't have a balcony right now, so tomatoes are on the local-buy list. Mmmmmm, tomatoes.... I wonder when the local heirloom ones will be ripe?
* Please note both parties participating in the sex were turkeys.
Food gets cool /
Food isn't always cool, at least not in North America. Thankfully, some of the time it is cool, and Tuesday 27 May is one of those times.
Pages, an excellent independent Toronto bookstore that has somehow stayed classy and cool on the way to becoming iconic, is featuring an event with Barbara Kingsolver as part of their This is Not A Reading Series, um, series. Kingsolver will be discussing her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. It's about the year she and her family spent living on food that was either locally produced or grown by themselves. Note that tickets are being sold in advance, and when I got mine along with the ever-cool Jean-Anne, the staff person at Pages mentioned they were selling out quickly.
I'm looking forward to this on a few different levels. For one thing, I continue to flip between fiction and non-fiction in my reading, so a non-fiction book by someone who usually writes fiction sounds like a good bet. For another, I grew up with a large percentage of my diet being grown by my parents (helped by me when I got a bit older) — we had two large vegetable patches and 10-12 assorted fruit trees on our lot when I was a kid. My parents did a lot of pick-your-own to supplement the home-grown food, and we did a lot of preserves and jams too.
I'm hoping there will be some leads on pick-your-owns around Toronto. It's hard to do when you're a singleton apartment dweller, but I'd love to at least pick some local strawberries, since
they're impossible to get at the supermarket even when they are in season.
Not to mention it will just be nice to listen, talk, think, breathe books.
Pages, an excellent independent Toronto bookstore that has somehow stayed classy and cool on the way to becoming iconic, is featuring an event with Barbara Kingsolver as part of their This is Not A Reading Series, um, series. Kingsolver will be discussing her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. It's about the year she and her family spent living on food that was either locally produced or grown by themselves. Note that tickets are being sold in advance, and when I got mine along with the ever-cool Jean-Anne, the staff person at Pages mentioned they were selling out quickly.
I'm looking forward to this on a few different levels. For one thing, I continue to flip between fiction and non-fiction in my reading, so a non-fiction book by someone who usually writes fiction sounds like a good bet. For another, I grew up with a large percentage of my diet being grown by my parents (helped by me when I got a bit older) — we had two large vegetable patches and 10-12 assorted fruit trees on our lot when I was a kid. My parents did a lot of pick-your-own to supplement the home-grown food, and we did a lot of preserves and jams too.
I'm hoping there will be some leads on pick-your-owns around Toronto. It's hard to do when you're a singleton apartment dweller, but I'd love to at least pick some local strawberries, since
they're impossible to get at the supermarket even when they are in season.
Not to mention it will just be nice to listen, talk, think, breathe books.
In praise of — /
Have you ever been caught complaining that something ought to exist, only to find out that it does exist, exactly the way you want it, and, in fact, has existed for some time in that state? Your emotions do this weird thing where you're both delighted and embarrassed at the same time. That's what my emotions do, anyhow. Most recently that happened with my discovery that it's as easy as anything to use the em-dash on-line for things like this blog. If you already know this, you may well be rolling your eyes and thinking, "Yeah, so?". Hey, remember your first time.
The em-dash is that longish dash that gets used for pauses in mid-sentence. It's heavier than a comma, but (to me, there's some controversy about it) lighter than parentheses, semi-colons, or colons. They can be used to death — some of the nineteenth-century poets went a little silly with them — but they're also very handy and seem to be more in use of late.
The alternative is to type two or even three hyphens, like so: --. The problem with those on-line is that one hyphen can word wrap while the other one just sits there on the previous line. Instead of looking like you intended a longish pause in the word flow, it just looks like you can't type. There are various ways to get one entered using a word processor (most word processors will replace a double hyphen with an em-dash anyhow), but for HTML you have to write —. I guess what kept me from discovering it myself is that it's "m", not "em".
Now that I'm writing about it, I'm wondering why they're so difficult to get keyed in while semi-colons are right on the home row. Hmmmmm....
The em-dash is that longish dash that gets used for pauses in mid-sentence. It's heavier than a comma, but (to me, there's some controversy about it) lighter than parentheses, semi-colons, or colons. They can be used to death — some of the nineteenth-century poets went a little silly with them — but they're also very handy and seem to be more in use of late.
The alternative is to type two or even three hyphens, like so: --. The problem with those on-line is that one hyphen can word wrap while the other one just sits there on the previous line. Instead of looking like you intended a longish pause in the word flow, it just looks like you can't type. There are various ways to get one entered using a word processor (most word processors will replace a double hyphen with an em-dash anyhow), but for HTML you have to write —. I guess what kept me from discovering it myself is that it's "m", not "em".
Now that I'm writing about it, I'm wondering why they're so difficult to get keyed in while semi-colons are right on the home row. Hmmmmm....
The future was in the past /
Looks like I'm finally getting over being ill from some things infecting the inside of my head, other things causing emergency room visits, and other things yet requiring more images of my guts... don't worry, that's as much as I'm going to whine about it — at least until the next ultrasound three to five weeks from now. It's just annoying because my health has actually been improving for almost ten years now. It's really messed up the nice writing schedule I had all set up for myself, which means as soon as I'm done this post I'm going to re-calculate the spreadsheet and see how much I have to push out my personal deadline (doing a better job of adding in slack this time) to make this reasonable. I still need to leave time to get the Interim Project done before the next NaNoWriMo, which thankfully I have not one but two (two!) sketched-out ideas for.
Other news:
Odd sights are all around these days — check out this angel doll I found on the sidewalk when I was walking home from the movie theatre this afternoon. It was just lying there on the sidewalk, just as I photographed it, and had been around long enough to get a bit dirty (although not rained on, from the looks of it, and we just had a rain yesterday morning). Judging from the plastic base (not in the photo), it looks like it was part of some shop's window display. You think they could have at least given it a proper send-off in a garbage bag.
Last thing: Blogger now lets you post-date blogs. I wrote a quick one to try out the feature for later this week. Finally, a way for those of us who like to blog regularly but also want to get other things done to get more organised.
Other news:
Odd sights are all around these days — check out this angel doll I found on the sidewalk when I was walking home from the movie theatre this afternoon. It was just lying there on the sidewalk, just as I photographed it, and had been around long enough to get a bit dirty (although not rained on, from the looks of it, and we just had a rain yesterday morning). Judging from the plastic base (not in the photo), it looks like it was part of some shop's window display. You think they could have at least given it a proper send-off in a garbage bag.
Last thing: Blogger now lets you post-date blogs. I wrote a quick one to try out the feature for later this week. Finally, a way for those of us who like to blog regularly but also want to get other things done to get more organised.