End-of-the-month Status Update

Here we are again. Another February gone by, and what do we have to show for it?

Let's see:

1. I was sick for about 8 days with some kind of flu/serious cold. All better now except the cough is still hanging around. Yeah. I missed almost an entire week of work. Major suckage.
   
2. I finally got my promotion (and accompanying raise). No suckage. Can you say discretionary income?
   
3. I switched to Open Office 2.3.1 for my writing, then bagged it because of a couple of problems saving my document, then went back to MS Word 2007 (which works pretty well), then decided to go back to Open Office. No suckage. Just indecision.
   
4. With respect to the story (A Far Sun or here, too), I had to put it down while I was sick, so I was stalled and it took a whole week to get back into it. I got it started again and now I'm past 86,000 words. I have a really good confrontation/crisis happening, which will help lead up to Act III. No suckage.
   
5. I changed fonts in the manuscript, so my 86K words are now about 306 pages. Act I is 115 pages, so ... that means the whole thing should be about 460 pages. Unless I change fonts, again. Or decide it needs to be longer, or something. Again, no suckage.
   
6. My home computer speakers, (Altec Lansing) which have served me exceedingly well for about 4 years, are gradually crapping out. Sad, sad, suckage. However, I have purchased primo replacements. No suckage. But to make room I now need to clean up my home office, which has borne the brunt of my procrastinatory slothage for quite some time. Self-induced suckage. But, just think how much better I'll feel when everything is all clean. Huzzah!
   
7. I looked into online/remote backup programs/services. Huh. Major suckage. The first company had a stupid restriction about writing or saying anything about them without their prior written approval. Adversarial, so I ran. The next company was nice and friendly, but their backup program crashed about 20% through my 2G free backup. Uh, no sale there, either. They shall remain nameless.
   
8. I found a not-free program that can sync and/or backup (though not online or remotely) any kind of files I want. Very simple to use and so far it appears to work. I have it backing up documents and stuff every half hour. It's called GoodSync, and you may have heard of it if you know RoboForm. No suckage.
   

While we're on the subject of writing, I must say I really like Open Office. Current version is 2.3.1, and you can download the whole suite from here, quite easily. There's also a portable version that I find eminently suitable for my laptop (where I have it installed on my external 80G USB hard drive). Install the Portable App menu/launcher, because you'll want to install a bunch of other free portable applications (which include WinAmp, Firefox, and Thunderbird, among others). On second thought, just get the whole Portable Apps Suite and be done with it.

MS Word still has some features this program lacks, but there are cool features in Open Office Writer that Word doesn't have. First, you can modify the colors (page background, text, etc.) as it displays on the screen. Like the blue background and yellow text of WordPerfect for DOS? You can have it. I like a pale yellow background for the page. Enhanced contrast and all that good stuff. Among other features, F5 brings up a navigational window where you can navigate to chapter headings, page numbers, bookmarks, you name it. Let's see, I did have some issues with "smart quotes," but solved them. Seems some fonts don't support fancy, curly quote marks quite as fully as you might want. (Can you say Optima?)

Oh, did I mention that it stores documents in Open Document format? This is an XML format, but they are stored compressed so they're about 1/4 the size of the same documents in Word format. I cannot speak for Word 2007 format, but Word 2007 is much more efficient storing documents in Word 2003 format (.DOC extension) than Word 2003 is, itself. Yes, we're talking 200K .ODT vs. about 1M .DOC. There is a plugin (two of them, actually) to permit Word to load/save in ODF. Open Office Writer itself loads and saves in Word 2000 format (.DOC), should you feel the urge. The coolest thing about Open Office is that it's free. I may have an MSDN subscription, permitting me "free" copies of almost all Microsoft stuff, but not everyone is so "blessed".

I am a font geek. I also change my tastes from time to time, and believe it or not the choice of font is important to the written piece. Times New Roman should be banned, along with Arial. I never want to see either of them, ever again.

In my story, I had been using a Microsoft font called Consolas, that MS released for use with Visual Studio 2005, which I happen to have. This is a very nice fixed-spacing font, really good for programming (duh), and I have no complaints about it. I also really like Maiandra GD, which comes with MS Office, I believe. It almost makes a good book font, too. Now, though, I've switched to Myriad Web Pro, from Adobe, a font I purchased as part of a font collection. It's a nice Gothic-looking font (think Century Gothic or Franklin Gothic, you get the idea) with good balance between dark and light that enhances its readability. Yes, really.

For classic book fonts, I most heartily recommend Garamond and Palatino. Many books have been published in these fonts. I used both of these for my earlier novelistic attempt. You can't go wrong, but for my story they just don't quite make it. Not for the first draft, anyway.

So, another cold-ish February is by the boards. Let's see where I can get to by the end of March.

I knew this

LegoRobots. There are only 65 comics. Go there. Read. Laugh. Oh, and check out #64, which I believe vindicates my personal lifestyle choice of full beard and mustache.

Nuff said.

Understanding the bandwidth limitations of "e-comm"

It's not my intent to coin a new term, but in today's age we have all begun to rely on various forms of electronic communication. In short: "e-comm." But the point of this post isn't (specifically) to talk about the wonders of email, IM, SMS, or any other TLA. My purpose is to apologize (publicly, this time) for making some invalid assumptions about the effectiveness of email.

It can be very difficult to interpret tone of voice in an email. Even when you (think you) know the person with whom you are conversing, misinterpretations can happen. That's why those little "emoticon" things were invented. They take the place of the very crucial tone-of-voice, body language, and facial expression information that we all automatically add to the content of our in-person communications. If we then abbreviate excessively, as is common in text messaging, the bandwidth issue becomes even more pronounced. I don't use SMS for very much; can't see how anyone could.

I'm not saying you cannot have an effective electronic conversation with a good friend, but if they are sensitive to the subject matter, you might need to pay attention the fact that they might not understand you are kidding them. That was my mistake.

I admire my step daughter immensely. She's very smart, creative, fun, insightful, and very, very sensitive. In an email recently I kidded her about her habit of never answering emails, and she then replies immediately, launching into a long rant telling me how very busy she is. Which, of course, she is. And which, of course, I already knew.

I don't know if she's still pissed with me, because I don't have the guts to send her another email asking. Of course I apologized to her (in an email, no less); I just haven't heard anything since. Given how much pressure she feels she is under, I really don't want to be adding to her overall stress level. It isn't healthy for either of us. :-) (I am kidding, of course!)

So, when I saw this recent blog posting about bandwidth and the need to "escalate" our communication methods as the importance of the conversation increases, I though it apropos.

Here is an oldie but a goodie

If you're technical, you really should read Joel On Software. Joel Spolsky often has very insightful insights into development matters. And he's often quite humorous, as well. Take this article about "architecture astronauts". Nevermind it was written back in the dark ages of 2001, it seems just as relevant today.

Of course, I remember the stone age of "data processing" when we wrote programs in COBOL and punched them on cards (or paper tape--I did that, too). And computers had magnetic drums for the "really fast" data access. Almost everything else was stored on magnetic tape. Yes, the 9-track reel-to-reel stuff common to every movie with computers made before 1990. You kids today! You have it Too Easy.

Of course, it's easy to lose sight of all the really tremendous improvements in technology. Just last week I was in a conference call with folks in the Bay Area (i.e., Silicon Valley), downloading software from their web site, while they were able to view my laptop desktop and applications via a "webex" (a web browser-based computer sharing tool), while I was installing said downloaded software on a computer located ... somewhere in our corporate campus (I do not know where), and also connecting to a database located in our offices in Portland, Oregon. Yeah, it was just like that. It should also be noted I was on my cell phone and using my Bluetooth wireless headset so my hands were free.

Yep, it's Too Easy.

My Latest Addiction: Amazon.com MP3 Downloads

It's all over for me, now. I have "discovered" Amazon.com's MP3 download store, and found a way to satisfy my music jones even faster than before. Now there's no waiting two to four days for a CD to arrive. I can now have my new music in about one hour. Let's summarize:

1. There is no complaint about the quality. They claim their MP3s have an average bitrate of 256K (as compared to the bitrate of 128K or 112K that most people have). I have been encoding at 192K for every CD I purchase, so it's clear that 256K is better. And this is borne out in the listening, as well.
   
2. There is no DRM on these tracks, either. This is quite satisfactory for me, as well. I can copy them to wherever I want, so I can listen to them anytime I want.
   
3. Amazon uses their own downloader. While it isn't blindingly fast, it does work.
4. Most full album prices are $8.99. This represents a discount off the price of the physical media that can be anywhere from about a dollar up to about $10.
   

All in all, I can recommend this as a way to buy your music, as long as you are prudent and save your purchases off to a CD or other durable backup medium--just in case, you know, your hard drive crashes and burns.

No obvious reason for this post

Except to say I have passed 74,000 words (302 pages) in my story. I'm well into the second half of Act II, but still with about 100 pages to go to get to Act III. Maybe 80, but you get the idea.

It's definitely looking like the finished first draft will be about 500 pages, which works out to about 122,000 words. But of course anything between 100,000 and 150,000 words would be OK, too.

Once completed, I will then begin to craft the second draft. In it I will focus on a few things I left out of the first draft, mainly the mythology and quasi-religious rituals of the sun-skins. I will also shift into third person past tense, which will be the basis of the novel. Before working on the second draft, however, I will attempt to mercilessly cull the bits of the first draft that can be safely lost. Honestly I haven't found much that isn't relevant to the story I want to tell, but we'll see how creative I get.

Some folks have expressed interest in reading what I have, but I hesitate to share because it's a work in progress and because it's a rough draft (well, rough for me). I always like to re-read dialog and action and refine it. Over and over, and over again. Until I can't find a single word I would change. But, that's just a bad habit I've developed, because I really need to get the first draft done. Then (and only then) can I go back and revisit stuff.

Oops, too late for that, I guess.