The Linux Programming Interface
It's clamfs chowder time!
Ubuntu 11.04 Delayed, Release Schedule Changed
EFF Pioneer Awards 2010 - Our thank you video
The Linux Programming Interface
Behind KDE: Martin Eisenhardt
Linutop OS v4 is out
The Tools to Create Your Next Great Novel
Adding Users and Aliases for Postfix
FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"
The new Linux Desktop: Ubuntu's Unity
Create the tools to your next great novel
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November 1st kicks authors to put pen of national novel writing month a chance for budding to paper, or finger to keyboards and bang out a 50,000 word (or more) novel in 30 days. Sound like fun? Well, it can be. And unless you are really almost with a pen, most of the budding authors use some sort of software to write their novel.After all, at a minimum of 1,600 words a day, that is a lot of ink and paper.
But even if this is not your first NaNo, you might be wondering, is there a better program out there for me. The answer is probably yes, but....Over the past year I have been looking at some of the programs that are available for writing novels and are open source. I hope one of them will help you write your novel.
To begin, the packages break down into two styles: general word processors and dedicated story processors. The distinction is significant and will either help or frustrate your efforts to create a novel.
The two programs I have worked with are storybook and writer's Cafe. Both have the advantage of being cross platform so you can work on Linux or Windows. Since I do write on both a Linux and a Windows machine (depending on where I am and what machine is available to me) so the cross platform capability is critical to me.
Storybook
I found from an installation perspective that storybook was much more complicated to install, especially on Windows where a number of Java libraries were required. You must have at least version 6 (2.6) of Java installed on your system or it storybook will run not, but you also do not have to be root to run the program. If your Java libraries are up to speed, all you need to do is grab the tarball, and run the shell script
./storybook.sh
to start working.
Both storybook and writer's Cafe are designed for the plotting novelist. That is, the type of novelist that has done plot development and character drafts and even gone so far as to break their story down into a series of scenes.Storybook I the most found to be structured of the packages and if you are a structured writer you will find it to be a great tool, with places to keep all the little minutia of your novel.Overall, it has a steep learning curve but once you get used to the tool set and way it it expects you to write, has similar features to many of the commercial novel writing software you will find packages and allows you to maintain multiple plot threads without getting confused.
Writer's Cafe
Writer's Cafe comes in a tarball, or pre packaged for your OS, in both 32 and 64-bit flavours. Since I am running 64-bit Fedora, I grabbed the RPM and installed it in the usual way.
Writer's Cafe seemed a little more intuitive to me from the beginning with a couple of helpful tips on start up to get going. It also has the ability to track character sketches, plot lines and other things to help you write, but it also has a number of more free - form writing areas for more haphazard writing.
Writer's Cafe of so had a neat little autogenerator for names when you just stuck are and do not know what to call that swarthy gentleman at the bar. (Seems his name is Hassan beers).
Writer's Cafe has a number of useful novel-writing features but is again a steep curve if you are not used to using these sorts of tools, or the structured novel is not your writing style.
In short, both are useful tools, good for writing structured novels and for those used to using structured tool suits. But if this is your first shot at NaNo, or, like me, you apply structure as you go along, then you really want something more simplistic.
Kate
If you are a user of KDE, or just like a good text editor, I encourage you to get Kate. There are no fancy fonts, no plotting tools and no peg boards, but it does allow you to type without distraction. Kate also has a nice auto complete feature similar to that in open Office.So if you find yourself typing existentialism over and over, for example, it will offer to insert the word for you after only two or three times typing it this is useful for those of us that have problems spelling existentialism, the computer does it for us. The only really negative thing about Kate for this very difficult to keep track type is it of exercise is of how many words you have typed. But Kate is configurable and I am sure there is some way to add a word count function.
Open/Libre Office
Clearly, open/Libre Office would be the hands down winner for simply banging out a manuscript. I found that when I used it year, its cross-platform performance last what more than acceptable and it did count words for me, once I figured out how to tell it to do that. The problem with open/Libre Office is that it sometimes makes you stop and think about typography. And when you are trying hit a goal of so many words per session, dithering with fonts and layout can soon become a major distraction. The other problem that I had with it what the way it counts words.For open / Libre Office, every space is considered a word.Something I discovered as we were nearing the end of the month last year and my word counter say I had typed 55,000 words, but the official counter said I was at a little more than 47,000.Nothing like the cold dose of reality that you are 3,000 words behind where you thought you were.It was not until much later that I discovered this little foible.
LyX
LyX is a different type of word processor.In fact it calls itself a document processor.Specifically, it is a what you see is what you mean processor, rather than the traditional what style you see is what you get that are most familiar with.
Like Kate, LyX does not have a lot of interface to clutter up the work space.But it is also a different way of thinking if you are used to a WYSIWYG-style editor like open/Libre Office.LyX pre processor to LaTeX, and installing it will require a number of LaTex is a front end and TeX packages to make it work.Further, while there is not much of an interface to get in the way of you banging out your novel, you might find yourself frustrated at the end of the month when you try to print out your novel, as there are a number of templates and styles that you can wrap your text in, some quite robust and complicated.
On the whole, I find LyX to be a very sophisticated package that is not for the first time novelist, unless you also happen to be an expert in typography, LaTeX, and pre and post processing that go with the publishing industry.There are too many things that will distract you, especially if you are not used to the WYSISWYM meme.
In the end, there are a number of good packages out there to help you write you novel.The one you use is the one that will work best for you based on how you write.Good luck over the next 30 days.I have not started writing my novel yet, but come November 30, I hope to have my 50,000 words done and then some.See you at the end!
EFF Pioneer Awards 2010 - Our thank you video
It's clamfs chowder time!
Ubuntu 11.04 Delayed, Release Schedule Changed
EFF Pioneer Awards 2010 - Our thank you video
The Linux Programming Interface
Behind KDE: Martin Eisenhardt
Linutop OS v4 is out
The Tools to Create Your Next Great Novel
Adding Users and Aliases for Postfix
FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"
The new Linux Desktop: Ubuntu's Unity
Indie Android developer shows free apps can generate $1,000+ monthly
Indie Android developer shows free apps can generate $1,000+ monthly
Nov 9, 2010, 13 :04 UTC (0 Talkback[s]) (1375 reads)
(Other stories by Matthew Humphries)
[ Thanks to An Anonymous Reader for this link. ]
"If you are coming to mobile app development for the first time then the path ahead of you can look very daunting. There?s already hundreds of thousands of apps out there covering just about every feature and bit of functionality you could ever think of. How on earth are you going to create somethign different and get someone to spot your app, let alone pay and download it?"Fear not, there is hope as one independent developer from Poland has demonstrated. Poland is a territory Google does not yet allow on the Android Market, but KreCi as he is known, has 6 Android apps available to download and use on your Android smartphone. What?s surprising is he gives the apps away for free and relies on advertising to generate revenue."
Complete Story
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Ubuntu bug reporting
Canonical has pretty good things. Obvious or Ubuntu would not covered approximately 57% of the Linux desktop market share (according to Google's search insight tool). But there is at least one scope for some important improvements: bug reporting/tracking.
Found in a previous LJ article I have an apparent long-term bug in Ubuntu 10,10 had surfaced again. This is a problem in the drivers for some of the Atheros wireless-chip sets, which essentially disables those machines.What I in this article discuss, the incredible frustration was involved by attempting to a bug report at the Ubuntu developer vorzulegen.Ich will describe this process here.
Let's say that you have discovered a problem in Ubuntu: what do you do? Well, I went to http://www.ubuntu.com/ for your bug reporting system to search. It is a "get support" link right in the middle of the page so far, so good.Click on.Now I'm on a page that point me in the direction of free support from online forums, or to me "professional support services" sell bietet.Fair everyone enough, expected to canonical make business a Krugerrands or two of your distribution may sollte.Unten at the bottom of the page under "Community" section, it is a "report A problem"-link.
Click on.
We are now on a page that describes how you report an issue, including a link to a tutorial on bug reporting.Click auf.Aha! Now we're on a page which is actually a link to Ubuntu's launchpad.net bug reporting website has. This tutorial page suggests that you are looking for all existing reports of your bug, before you submit new report.So far, so good yet, if somewhat convoluted.
Now, as a reminder of what led us here a few days ago I found a bug in the driver for the Atheros AR9285 wireless chipset in my Acer Aspire one N450 NetBook.The defect is connected to the NetBook would not stay through wireless for more than a minute to a Zeit.Also I clicked the Search Link.Down below on my screen the message appeared "Waiting launchpad.net...""Get used to that it much be seeing melden.Ihre are attempting to research or error Launchpad bug reporting is website terribly langsam.Sie will see this message more often, than you probably care would:
Sorry, something only wrong in Launchpad.
We recorded what happened and we will be there as soon as possible beheben.Entschuldigung for the inconvenience.
In a few minutes work attempts may again.
(Error ID: OOPS 1752E1761)
In fact, this error was everything I was able to get if you try a search on "Atheros AR9258" with the "Newest first" search option from the launchpad.The site is 21 bug reports that many described almost a problem always broken if you try this option of search use. Finally after 6 tried the site returned very similar to what I had observed i.e. the wireless connection with certain Atheros chipsets useless war.Eine more general search on 'Atheros"'newest first' (only three Launchpad error timeouts) returned 189 results.
So, just to be sure that canonical aware was Meerkat 10.10 version of the problem in their brand new Maverick, I filed my own bug report: number 660864, error, if you Launchpad, to find it you want to A little additional research brought to light the fact that this problem with the Atheros driver is a recurring in Ubuntu dating all the way back to 7.04.Es was vorhanden.Nun certainly not in the previous 10.04 Ubuntu NetBook Edition, it existed in the out-of-the-box "install, but the fixed installation of Linux-backports modules."
This experience leads me notice that canonical has two major areas for improvement:
You could offer a less Byzantine, twisted, and painfully slowly towards the bow reporting.They should prevent to help process your regression testing that previous bugs strengthen re-entry into their distribution.
Don't get me wrong, I like Ubuntu-I used it for years verwendet.Allerdings is definitely time for canonical to your QA process a bit to tyres.
