WINE
For those of you not familiar with it, WINE is a compatibility layer that sits between the software and the operating system and lets you run Windows programs in Linux without actually having a copy of Windows. The results have been very impressive. So far I have the Windows versions of Evernote 4.4 and Microsoft Word 2007 running. I used the Playonlinux front-end for WINE to instal Word without a hitch. (There is no option for Evernote on this software so I did a manual install.) There have been one or two graphical blemishes occasionally but both programs run well enough Read more…
A Month Without Scrivener
Around one month ago I transferred all my files out Scrivener and started using OpenOffice Writer. This was an experiment and I was not even particularly sure why I was trying it. I said I would keep you all posted as to how it was going. The answer is surprisingly well. There are some things I miss about Scrivener, the little touches like countdowns to deadlines and daily word targets in particular. Making the change has not really affected my productivity any. I managed my usual word counts for the month. Some things are easier now. I can open the Read more…
Dropbox
Of course, you’ve heard of Dropbox. It’s a simple idea but it’s a game changer. It’s a piece of software that creates a folder. It stores anything you put in that folder in the cloud and on every computer on which you have installed Dropbox and it keeps all of these different folders in sync when the computer carrying them is online. It’s so useful I have set it as the default save location in my Wordprocessor. It deals with the vexed problem of backups by ensuring that I have the file in Dropbox on that computer, on any machine Read more…
Scrivener on Linux
I just downloaded the .deb package from the Scrivener forums and installed them on a Linux virtual machine running Ubuntu 10.10. It worked flawlessly. I am looking forward to testing this next week. Below is a screenshot of The Angel of Fire imported from OpenOffice Writer. In case you are wondering why the word Scene appears so often in those Binder headings it’s because I put it there to mark scenes in my OpenOffice file before I imported it into Scrivener for Linux. I then performed a search for the word and used the Shift+Control+K hotkey combination to split the file into individual Read more…
Working in Ubuntu
I went out to the cafe today carrying my Acer TravelMate 8371 running Ubuntu 10.10. I opened my present manuscript from Dropbox and I began work immediately and I did not stop writing until I had done 1500 words. I was very pleased with myself and very happy with the Ubuntu writing environment. Of course, when I came home, I had a setback. I opened up Dropbox in Windows 7 on my desktop replacement and looked at what I had written. I decided that I did not like the way Open Office Writer handled chapters and scenes. It does not Read more…
Scrivener to Writer
This morning I compiled The Angel of Fire, my work in progress, in Scrivener, saved it as an RTF file and transferred it to OpenOffice with the intention of completing it there. I’m still trying to get to the bottom of what my reasons were since I love Scrivener. I’ll try and list them in order – that is the order they come to me – probably not the order of importance. I have become very enthusiastic about Ubuntu recently even as I am becoming less fond of the increasingly control freak attitudes displayed by Apple. I find myself increasingly attracted Read more…
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