Shelley - I Might Be Sinking

A little piece of our youth, courtesy of Kev. I'm the little guy wandering about on the left..

Twitter: @chillyspoon

Some tech ramblings.

I haven't posted since well before Christmas. Head hung in shame at yet another year of mentioning, starting, and then not completing, my all time favourite Christmas movie list. Aw well - I'm not going to lose sleep over it. 

So Apple eh? .. the day after tomorrow, we finally get to see what it's going to be like. It's going to have to be truly exceptional to succeed. If nothing else it will drive things forward. After all the Newton did.

On the 2nd of December I briefly blogged about the Asus Eee PC 1201N. I was so pleased - an Atom 330 powered Netbook with Ion graphics - it could only be good. Until of course I found out that once again they've strapped a mirror to it where the screen should be. Netbooks are meant to be used on the go, in cafe's, airports, trains and in the park. So what use is the the most reflective screen ever made?

It's truly frustrating. On a daily basis I have to stop myself from buying one. It has everything I want from a highly portable "chuck it in my bag" tapper but I can clearly see myself, scowling back - it's like the rear of an old PS2 disk. No matter how dark or bright the surroundings or the background being rendered and no matter what the screen settings are. I do not want to see myself - I want to see the bloody operating system!

Have a quick read through the product description on Asus' own site that I've linked above. For Pete's sake, when has "glare-type" been a feature that you wish to promote? .. it's not a good thing.

Something which is good however is Balsamiq Mockups - I have been using it for about six months now to design the user interactions for OpSource Cloud and I have to say it's one of the most creatively enabling tools I have used to date. A high speed, no messing about, Adobe Air interface that lets you get on with prototyping without having to waste time setting things up.

I have a couple of minor gripes; the lack of a zoom facility is annoying and on some widgets (e.g. progress bars), there is no way of switching off the borders. These are trivial complaints compared to the massive value it has brought to us.  I highly recommend it for anyone developing human interactive software or hardware interfaces.

Hallelujah! .. a *real* dual core netbook

Asus have at last announced a dual core netbook - the Eee PC 1201N.

Ok, so the 12.1" screen is slightly pushing things .. but .. HD resolution, HDMI output, an Atom 330 dual core processor and Windows 7? .. great!  I wonder how well it will run OS-X ;)


My much, much loved Samsung NC10 may have to move over if this one reviews well.

Robert Holdstock passes away..

Just a microblog to mark the passing of a fantastic author, Robert Holdstock.

His book "Mythago Wood" is one of the three books that made me want to write myself (the other two being Hyperion by Dan Simmons and Count Zero by William Gibson). It is a wonderful tale drawing on Celtic folklore that pulls the reader in, guaranteeing not only re-reads but a little more involvement with every one.

http://robertholdstock.com/

I highly recommend checking out his imaginative and unforgettable work.




Image: Holdstock, Robert. (1984). Mythago Wood. Publisher: Berkley Books

An excerpt from "The Parisian" by Fergus Neff

The Parisian is story two in my Tales of the Stones anthology that begins with The Gardener. It is an introduction to the world of humans without electrical power, where society has taken alternate routes to explore means of transport and industry. The Parisian is about an accident in the lives of three young people that changes the course of humanity.

I have published an excerpt at the Sci-Fi Almanac:
http://scifialmanac.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-parisian; reproduced below.

The Parisian

"Are you set?" Con barely heard Ben's sister Patrice shout over the nervous tension rushing through his ears. Beads of sweat formed above his eyes and on his forearms as he prepared to save his own life moments after take-off. Should he mistime releasing the wings, he was as good as dead.

"I'm ready. Set." His voice more croak than reply.

"We fly!" Ben bellowed. With both arms bulging he pulled back the release lever, unleashing thousands of kilograms of tension bound in the nest of tiny wooden branches encasing man and craft.

The wind roared in his Con's ears, his blonde hair blowing back as he and the folded glider exploded vertically upwards into the sky from the roof of the ruined forty storey 'scraper. Seconds passed; the increased gravity on his frame made him feel faint and disoriented. A full kilometre up, his eyes were blurred with tears and dust from the atmosphere, he finally managed to breathe in. Con looked to each side to ensure he had picked up no debris during launch, before he gently pulled the cord to unfurl his wings. The craft immediately stalled and he fell backwards through the morning air. He experienced a nauseating roll to the right and adjusted his controls; the sun crossed his wings and he was a bird. Man and machine gliding smoothly across the ruined Parisian skyline.


Twitter: @chillyspoon

Illustration of the Stone Pod for The Parisian by Keith O’Connor – Aug 2009.

Amazon DTP - Kindle, Mobipocket and the "no international authors" policy!

It is a rare occasion that I use my blog for a rant - however today it is required - for today I attempted to register at Amazon DTP to self-publish my books on the Kindle. It's a bit unedited and raw as a result so if I have anything wrong, please do tell me - I want to be wrong in this case!

Imagine my disappointment to find that Amazon are restricting publication to US residents and then imagine my disgust when I found out that if I go through Mobipocket - my work still winds up on the Kindle but I don't get paid! - didn't the audio recording industry have some complaints on this basis?

Of course the fact that Mobipocket is being pulled into DTP is probably related on that end of things. But that doesn't explain the fundamental question; why in the hell don't Amazon DTP accept international publishers? - it's nonsensical. Now before anyone starts waggling a "tax issues" finger I feel I should point out that this is an elderly and long since solved problem - including by Amazon themselves with their Marketplace.

Now let's add some more to the soup - noticing the age of the thread on DTP I decided to refresh the query for my fellow authors that live outside of the US. DTP will let me log in with my Amazon ID - in fact Amazon are quite happy to take my money for other Amazon goods and services - but whenever I click "reply to thread" I get bounced back to the log in screen. Argh! Oh and yes, I tried that in IE, Firefox, Safari and Chrome in case you are wondering. Forgive me if I'm starting to suspect a conspiracy.

So that's where we are. Rubber hosed by what really smacks of lack of experience in dealing with international payments - which is quite ironic for a veteran like Amazon.

Perhaps some of this is why Amazon have repeatedly pushed back the release date of the Kindle in Europe.  I say go out and buy yourself a Sony PRS-505 and forget about the Kindle until Amazon get their act together, I got one for my fiance for her birthday and it's great.

Hack your Mac; writing is back!

I have waxed lyrical many a time about my Samsung NC10 and what a wonderful netbook it is. Couple that with the combination of a dual boot of Windows XP / Linux Mint and I've got pretty much everything that I want.

The "pretty much" is the clincher. As you have seen in other posts and many a tweet, I've been searching for my optimum writing software combination and I'm oh so nearly there. However, after that earlier post where I pointed out that Scrivener really is "the man" when it comes to my personal writing needs, I realised that all I really want in that case.. is a Mac netbook (sudden intake of breath).

Now of course this has been blogged, speculated, dreamed and discussed for the last couple of years (just Google "mac netbook tablet"). Rumours of announcements for Apple netbooks and tablet variants that have failed to emerge have been abound and thus far the only Mac netbooks have been Hackintoshes, so that's probably where I should go for now.

Unfortunately it's the only thing that the NC10 is not good for! .. you have to change some hardware to get everything to work, an mucking about inside a teeny laptop is a place that I'm not comfortable to go to with my ropey eyesight.

So what netbooks make a good Hackintosh? .. and do any of them match up to the NC10 in terms of reputation? .. and at what level of interest in the Hackintoshing of netbooks will lead Steve Jobs to check the approval box for a netbook scale Mac?

Now even if I do successfully get a nice Mac netbook on the go - I still have the other problem that I don't want to be working from a memory stick for two reasons:

1. Bad: it makes netbook use on public transport difficult having a "thingy" sticking out from a USB port
2. Good: working from 2 machines means I always have two copies of my work very up to date - backup for free if you will.

Scooter Software's Beyond Compare has been my close friend for all manner of folder and file comparison for both Windows and Linux use - but there's no decent Mac equivalent. Each of the diff tools that I've demoed has been (really) utter nonsense compared to the industry stalwart that Scooter Software have been producing for the last several years.

The answer? - Sun Microsystem's VirtualBox, running Linux Mint, running Beyond Compare on my Macbook Pro.. now I can sync between the main Mac, notional Mac Netbook and indeed any outboard memory device we can think of as well as working in Scrivener on both machines.

We're really getting close to perfection.

The only problem is the I have to get a new netbook and then Hackintosh it.

Hmmn.

All is full of love

Thought I'd do a wee repeat of a microblog and this one's worth repeating again and again. Bjork's sensational video by Chris Cunningham - "All is full of love".

Enjoy.

Underlining the writing software situation

Passionless is the only word I can really use to describe how I've felt about writing this week. This happens from time to time and - while being a bit annoying - it's usually temporary. It's strange because I wrote a new song this week; something that usually does not coincide with a writing dry spell..

.. and what about all this nonsense to do with writing software recently?

I had an epiphany point during the week when I tweeted (with fear) that perhaps I was spending so much time assessing the various software packages as a means of not actually getting down to it and working on my writing. I guess I should cut myself at least a little slack, given that we are flat out at work preparing for the launch of OpSource Cloud.

So let's leave song writing and potential writer's block for now and at least document the results of my software frustration. I pose the following question about software designed to assist in the writing process - is it possible to find the perfect writing companion, or is it too subjective and hence an unachievable dream?

1) What type of writing?
Let's specify some usage criteria first of all - people have many usages of this kind of software, which can alter their preferences; script writing, screenplays, novels, academic and business technical are just a couple of usage examples.

In my own selfish case we're talking short story and novel construction - so my praise and gripes are based on that assumption about use.

2) How do you construct what you write?
We all have our own preferred ways of working whether it is a free flow, outlineless brain dump through to the opposite; a novel broken into an outline with parts, chapters and scenes - possibly to the extremes of phase drafting.

3) Visualisation

How do you prefer to visualise what you are writing?

I like three basic forms:

1. A part/chapter/scene breakdown - in some sort of tree structure
2. A storyboard; usually represented by some kind of card story board or cork board.
3. A fullscreen, no distractions text editor - for which I can globally (and quickly) set the default font.

So  what's good and what are the problems?

Scrivener

I'll start with Scrivener because it's damn good - in fact it fulfils all of the three desires above.
However it has one huge problem for me in that it's Mac only. Yes I use a Mac when I'm writing in my little recording studio at home but the rest of the time; the bus, sitting in a cafe, out at my parent's house, anywhere not home! .. I'm likely to be using either Windows or Linux - usually on my netbook (these days I'm very happily tapping away on my Samsung NC10).

I should nod to the fact that using WriteRoom for iPhone + writeroom.ws a user can write remotely on their iPhone and then sync it back to Scrivener on their Mac later. If they have an iPhone.


Writer's Cafe

On to my biggest love/hate relationship within writing software. Writer's Cafe nearly satisfies all three of my basic writing software wants. It's a seriously feature rich application AND is 100% cross platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) and can be run from a USB key. Fantastic? .. NO!

It's got some bloody awful flaws.

• If you conceal your Storylines (the plot line kind of view) completely - there's no way of getting it back without resetting the entire display to its defaults (losing all of your fonts and layout etc).
• The fullscreen editor isn't! .. and the scrollbars never work properly on small screens like a netbook. So you are left unable to scroll down to the work you wish to edit.
• The way in which chapters and scenes are added is beyond confusing - sometimes you are trying to add a new scene and a chapter appears, sometimes vice versa.
• Dragging and dropping chapter and scene cards in the Outline view causes random other chapters to appear when all you are trying to do is re-arrange what exists without creating new stuff! Undoubtedly this is due to user ignorance - but - as a software developer who specialises in User Interaction and usability, I find it reveals the shot gun feature addition that has happened with this software to the significant detriment of usability.

Writer's Cafe almost makes me cry - if they just made a simpler version, less icing and more decent cake please. A true fullscreen, distractionless editor (such as WriteRoom/Darkroom or the fantastic fullscreen
editor in Scrivener) and card/scene organisation that is uncomplicated and does not require re-reading the manual thirty times, it would be the perfect writing companion.

Scrivener Fullscreen 1:

Scrivener Fullscreen 2:

yWriter

yWriter is primarily for the Windows user and has the simplicity thing done perfectly. It's SO easy to use. You can get it running on Linux by using Mono (although I gave up trying after the first attempt - too much hassle). I'd really like a ".deb" or a ".zip" with a runnable application please.. but hang on a second, unlike Scrivener and Writer's Cafe, this software is free and there's a lot to be said for that. So no matter what the outcome, I say hat's off to the developer and a thank you for yWriter.

For project structure, locations and characters etc. yWriter has much to offer, just as much as Scrivener and Writer's Cafe in terms of those core story writing needs. Its big flaw? .. no full screen editor of any kind. If the producer was to integrate it with the DarkRoom editor it would be darn near perfect.

DarkRoom / WriteRoom Editor:

That's all that I'm going to go into, some others worth checking out are below which have different slants and StoryMill, I think I blogged previously, was my first foray into writing software on the Mac - not as good as Scrivener due to Scrivener's fantastic fullscreen editor but great organisational features and really simple to use. CeltX is more about screenplays and scriptwriting. Liquid Story Binder appears to be feature rich but I have not given it any time due to being Windows only.

• Celtx (with online publishing features - http://celtx.com/)
• StoryMill (Mac only - http://www.marinersoftware.com)
• Liquid Story Binder (Windows only - http://www.blackobelisksoftware.com/)

Is there a conclusion?

The sad answer to that question is no!

I have no solution;

• I *want* to use Scrivener on my netbook (maybe I should Hackintosh it)
• I want Writer's Cafe to be simpler to use and have a fullscreen editor that is actually fullscreen and has sane scene/chapter organisation
• I want yWriter to be accessibly cross-platform and have a fullscreen editor. I'm serious about the suggestion of integration with DarkRoom, that could really work.
  

I use different ones in different situations. I'm on my netbook now, so when I finish this blog post I'm going to Alt-Tab back to DarkRoom to continue writing.

Later, I'll use Beyond Compare (wonderful bit of software) on XP on the netbook to sync between the its drive and the memory stick that I work directly to from the Mac and finally paste the results into Scrivener. It's a hassle but it kind of works and is my most productive method at the moment.

Words per day? .. the @inkyelbows way..

One of the quirky things that I find about writing is actually making myself get down to do it. All the way through school, college, mature study, song writing and now writing fiction, I have always had a problem with getting down to it. I guess primarily due to its part time, after work nature. Writing fiction has to play second fiddle to my mortgage paying first.

One way I have found to alleviate this everso slightly is to take on a little challenge by @inkyelbows - quite simply she has put a number of personal challenges out there to motivate the flagging writer to get a little done every day.

I've gone for the sensible 500 words a day challenge; realistically I'm hitting between 300-400 but that's ok; it's informal and I'm only competing with myself. The passion to get the stories that have been bouncing around in my mind into a form that others can consume fuels me in getting those few words down every day no matter how tired I am or how little time there appears to be.

For any other part time writer who feels a little tired - perhaps a bit jaded when the pressures of the rest of life get in the way of writing - I recommend this simple approach.

To put it in my own words, small bites make for big eating!

Writing software.. the quest continues..

In previous musings I've mulled over the pros and cons of a few different software packages that aim to make the life of a writer a little easier. It's a very personal thing and my preferences brought me to yWriter and Writer's Cafe for various reasons - including cross compatibility of varying degrees (or StoryMill would have been in with a shot).

Eventually yWriter did fall by the wayside despite having a MUCH cleaner interface than Writer's Cafe. The reason being Writer's Cafe's better management of the peripheral data involved with a writing project and being available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Unlike a lot of people, I really do need something that can be run across the OS ballpark, I use all three variants at different times.

The biggest annoyances with Writer's Cafe are the really bad general editor and the fact that you can minimise the Storylines view into oblivion, making it really difficult to get back. Even after hitting F8 and going into the fullscreen card editor it regularly can't scroll properly, requiring the user to close and re-open the view and isn't really fullscreen, it just pretends to be.

Bear in mind that these gripes are on top of all the great reasons for choosing Writer's Cafe, its features for managing your characters, locations and plot lines are excellent - in fact they are really excellent for the tiny cost of this package.




But that editor.. oh dear. So then this week, thanks to a Tweet I found myself looking at the websites of WriteRoom for Mac and Darkroom, its PC counterpart. No Linux port as yet unfortunately.



This utterly fantastic piece of software has just about solved my Writer's Cafe issues. I can now use WriteRoom/Darkroom as my primary editor and then paste the results into Writer's Cafe for tweakage and organisation.

It's simple:

Creative flow: WriteRoom/Darkroom
Organisation: Writer's Cafe

Now, were the nice folks behind Writer's Cafe to embrace an editor such as WriteRoom/Darkroom - I think they would truly be on to a winner.

Simply wonderful.. Sweet Disposition

I absolutely love when I hear a song and it just grabs me. Of course for everyone the moment needs to be just right, a combination of emotion and situation that makes the song hit the spot. For me this evening it was Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap. It's actually being used in some TV ad, I can't remember what for and don't really care - the song itself is great; like The Vines with less aggression or a more tone-rich Longcut.

Anyhoo, here it is miniblogged and lovely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3b9E1p9uOA

Song title in the first two words.. always good.

The Mint and the Moon - more netbook Linux ponderings

This post came about after I stumbled upon MoonOS a little while ago and I've done a little playing about since in VirtualBox and on my netbook, a Samsung NC10 (2GB).

As you know from previous posts I am more than happy with Mint (Gloria) running on the NC10 - with the expected exception of bizarre Wifi behavior when connecting to some wireless routers; specifically connections that drop after a few minutes for no apparent reason. It's a well known problem with Atheros.

Mint is really excellent, the approach to the UI is clean beyond reproach and the Compiz integration has worked flawlessly so far, high speed desktop switching and being able to "peel back" windows to see what's underneath is a real boon on a small screen device like the NC10.

MoonOS has caught my attention though; these guys in Cambodia have gone full-on in terms of a visual appealing UI that will grab people's attention even - dare I say - moreso than Mint. The artwork is really pretty. As with so many of these new distributions, there is the familiar underlying presence of Ubuntu.. no surprise there.

I suspect it was approached from something like a "what visual tweaks would I like applied to Mint?" perspective. It appears likely that they were using Mint as a benchmark. It is nowhere near as stable according to the many discussioners out there and has a few behavioral quirks from the outset. My personal favourite is the lack of any visual feedback when entering my password at the login screen - the cursor continues to flash at the left hand side of the password field but it is actually accepting the typed characters and will submit the password when you hit "Enter".

The question we could ask ourselves is, "can these guys reach the level of stability and respect that Mint has gained in as short a time?" .. that's not a trivial task.

I've dotted around some screenshots and recommend downloading the ISO and running it as a live disk to get a bit of a feel for MoonOS.

Right now my recommendation is remaining firmly with Mint - it looks beautiful, is reliable and stable, well supported and well suited to netbooks. I am however going to run MoonOS releases every now and then in VirtualBox and see how it develops, who knows it may become the next big thing.

What do you think - will MoonOS become a real player?

"The Gardener" in "Maybe Tomorrow" by Mythica Publishing

I have not been writing fiction for very long, at least little that involves completion. For the last couple of years I have been putting off working on a series of novels, while I completed my part time studies. With that done, I prepared myself to get the first novel moving, only to be immediately distracted by a tweet from @essntialwriters (http://essentialwriters.com/).

The tweet promoted an invitation for writers to submit short stories to Mythica Publishing for an anthology of eight futuristic thrillers to be called "Another Time, Another Place". Having thought a little, I traveled a ways back in time before the events of one of the novels to flesh out a little pre-history in the shape of a short story called "The Gardener". I had four weeks of writing after work to get it done, edited and in. Thankfully my other half is a natural - which stands to reason given the quantity of books that she consumes each year - together we were able to iterate through the versions of story pretty quickly and I managed to get it in on time.

It turns out so many stories were submitted that the publishers decided to produce not one but two anthologies. As well as "Another Time, Another Place", a second anthology called "Maybe Tomorrow" will be published, also containing eight stories. I believe that both will be hitting the shelves in the fall of 2009.

To my own surprise and great pleasure, "Maybe Tomorrow" will include "The Gardener", which I guess could be considered a prelude to the first novel, which I hope to be publishing in late 2010.

The synopsis of "The Gardener" is below and the cover of Maybe Tomorrow shown opposite. Over the next while I will be assisting in the promotion of this book through an offshoot of the Mythica Publishing website, the synopses of all the stories in the anthology will be published there along with bios of the various authors, excerpts and other promotional material as we approach the release date of the book.

The Gardener by Fergus Neff
Argarrai is a retired space port manager. His successful life has been marred by the suspicious death of his wife and their younger daughter. Visited on his death bed by a stranger, he is given an intimidating proposition - to accept the responsibility of becoming the caretaker, the Gardener, for a universe - in reward all his questions will be answered but at what cost?

I hope you enjoy it and the other stories in the two anthologies when they come out later in the year!

I'll post then with the ISBN codes for both print and e-book versions.

Maybe Tomorrow website: http://mythicaweb.com/maybetomorrow/
Twitter: @mayb2morrow

NC10 - Top 9 Linux Distros?

For the last week I have been trying to get my Samsung NC10 ready for the heady task of being my backup writer for the novel following up to my short story "The Gardener"... more about that in an upcoming blog post.

What do I need?

• A machine that can boot quickly, really quickly (Moblin 2 please) so that I can have Writer's Cafe open and writing within a minute.
• Sound in and out are essential - I'm a muso and use Skype lots too
• Internet access - goes without saying, I do all of my work in the cloud

NC10 & Linux

It's anathema that possibly the best regarded netbook since the origin of the species is one that has some painful problems when trying to get a nice working environment using Linux up and running. Now I don't mean anything fancy, I just mean basic functionality:

1. Sound (in and out)
2. Correct screen resolution
3. Wifi
4. System function controls - the key one being Brightness (essential on a netbook)
5. Writer's Cafe - that's just for me
6. Open Office - if you need it

As you can probably guess Wifi and Brightness are the most important, followed by Sound - and Skype is not much use without a microphone!

To this end I have installed, nine - yes nine - different operating systems onto my NC10 this week.

Why?

From previous posts you will have seen that I have been extremely happy with Windows 7 Beta on this machine. It booted faster than XP by along way, enough to be competitive with the non-lightened Linux distros like Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Mepis.

However, after persisting with Windows 7 RC1 for a couple of months I can say, they've taken the rollerskates from the elephant. The boot time takes almost a full minute longer than it did with the Beta (7000) which is just depressing and utterly useless when you want to get a snippet of text into your work before it runs away. No I don't want to use a pen.

My experience from my two Eee PCs is still a fond memory - less than a minute to boot in both the Eee PC900 and EeePC1000 with 2GB of RAM and hacked (full desktop) KDE Xandros.

Given that I work in the software industry and use Linux on a regular basis - I thought, I can do this, I can find the perfect distro for the NC10 based on the good work of others ;)

What?

Here are the distros I tried and the basic reason for rejecting each. My biggest disappointments were with gOS and Mepis - two distros that have been wonderfully produced and I rate very highly. You may notice the looming gap of Xubuntu - I have it on another laptop, which I use regularly - I tried it before and it has the same basic problems as both Ubuntu and Kubuntu.

1. gOS 3.1 Gadgets - needed to patch the kernel to get WiFi
   
2. MEPIS 8 - couldn't get the mic to work probably the same underlying problems as Ubuntu (which are well documented out there in web land)
   
3. Moblin 2 Beta - it's looking fantastic but just not ready for long term use (e.g. doesn't save cookies between browsers settings yet)
   
4. Ubuntu 8.10 - needed to patch the kernel to get the mic working.. that broke WiFi
   
5. Kubuntu Hardy (8.0.4) - as above..
   
6. Kubuntu Jaunty - psychotic WiFi connectivity.. now it's up, now it's down
   
7. Dreamlinux 3 - I just didn't click with the styling
   
8. Cruncheee - couldn't get the Atheros driver to work for WiFi
   
9. Puppylinux - more Atheros troubles; same as this chap: http://tinyurl.com/psgxzv

Moblin 2

The sad news is that I'm back to XP Home for now (no chance of that minute for launch time and into Writer's Cafe) - and I'm going to put a dual boot partition back on to give both MEPIS and gOS another go. I love the clean interfaces of both and particularly the blatant Mac appearance of the gOS main menu.

I did think about going the Hackintosh direction but I'm not ready to trying climbing so steep a hill and I *will* try the next release of Windows 7 to see if they've got that startup issue sorted out - just too damn slow for now.

Thanks to everyone out there for putting together the various step by step guides for getting the various distributions onto these machines for those of us with a working knowledge rather than sysadmin skill with Linux.