Monday, June 23, 2008

In my toolkit...

I've already mentioned SugarSync which I'm now using on my laptop computer to circumvent an Adobe Acrobat glitch on my desktop computer. Here are some more tools I love:

Aardvark is a Firefox extension I use to delete unwanted content from web pages before printing them out. Yes, I print out web pages. Want to make something of it?

I'm a visual-kinesthetic learner whose comprehension is enhanced by seeing and touching. This explains why I must doodle during live meetings and have been known to clean my kitchen during conference calls. Aardvark also reveals source codes and how pages have been constructed.

While I think jump/thumb/flash drives are just so cute, I prefer backing everything up with Mozy, which offers a 2 GB for free option for its automatic, secure online services. Several months ago I used Mozy to find something I thought I'd deleted and found it safely intact, thus sparing me hours of panic-induced vomiting.

I don't know what I was thinking when I thought I could write without outlining first. I think I thought outlining was for wimps and that real writers just let it flow. I was delusional. And the next writing-related delusion to be decimated? Using writing software.

Over the years, I've tried and rejected a slew of software programs before stumbling upon Writer's Blocks3. I futzed around with the free trial and didn't even wait for the 30 days to run out before ordering my own copy.

It works for me because it works the way my mind works. It also allows me to import content from other sources, shove it all around on the screen, and have that activity reflected in manuscript output without having to open a pile of programs and scores of screens. So far it seems to work well for articles and I hope it makes writing the next book easier.

The next book? Like I noted in an earlier post, thank God for the human capacity to forget pain.







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