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List of newbie questions regarding software
40hz:
Are there any other free novel writing software besides ywriter4?
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re: Writing Software
(Ah! A topic near and dear to me!)
Could you narrow down what writing function(s) you're looking for? The Writer's Store uses the following categories, which could give you some ideas to start with:
* Story Planning
* Craft Development
* Outline / Brainstorming
* Script Formatters
* Word Processing
* Film Production & Business
If you could give me an idea of what you want to do, I'd be glad to make some suggestions. :)
re: Zotero
The best place to look would be back at the mothership itself. Zotero documentation can be found at the following link:
http://www.zotero.org/documentation/
Paul Keith:
Take notes in the shower? What the...? . I'll try to answer a couple questions, anyway.
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Yeah, it's something I dare not ask the planner people but I probably should. I just felt like putting it in since many dabble here in notetaking and in the past it hasn't stop sites like Lifehacker which focuses mainly on software to have a topic on it. (Although I couldn't find the topic on Google now. It referred to an uncomfortable for outside while it's raining notetaking utility.)
We already have a few threads about those around here, but personally I recommend Feed Demon. It's quite fast, with an excellent interface, and various features to control how you read the feeds, and when they should be eliminated from the system, although by default it stores up to 200 entries per feed subscription. It's also the one that gives fewer problems with feeds, others tend to have problems with certain feeds, or ignore parts of them. You can do all the reading inside it as well, as it uses tabs and the IE engine to show them. But feel free to try the rest as well, I also recommend Newzie, for its unique set of features.
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Yeah, I've read many of those kind of threads both from within and outside DC. Are you sure Feed Demon can? I've tried it before and it looked heavy in comparison to something like NFreader although I wasn't able to fully try it because I'm using a XP with a botched attempt of removing IE only to find that IE is more than a browser then I had to reinstall it only now it doesn't show images so I never got into fully importing all my RSS into Feed Demon.
With Newzie, it's just not for me. I've heard of it before, read some of it's past bugs (not sure if it's more stable now) but all those features is most likely going to take it's toll on my system.
Again I don't doubt you and I don't have adequate knowledge or patience to count how much specific memory consumption Feed Demon uses but I'm rather skeptical because we're talking about a fully featured desktop rss reader possibly being able to consume less memory than a bare bones portable rss reader with the same amount of feeds.
Don't even try to go through all plugins of a certain application, most times you are just losing time. The best approach IMO is to search for a plugin that provides some functionality you need, trying everything is fun for a while, but no recommendable. Like, "Wow, I'd like to do x with the browser", and you go to the plugin page, and search for it.
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The problem with this is that often times there might be a functionality I might dearly need but I wouldn't know of until I switched programs.
Take the history feature of Meebo which saves previous conversation or a logging feature of a irc client. Little features that I find useful if things go too fast for me or I need to recall something but since I don't have a technical framework to understand how to have this feature in, I often suffer through just reading stuff like "Miranda/Pidgin is the best once you have all this plugins set up or yeah <insert x> Mirc scripts/plugins is awesome without really knowing what these people are talking about since I do want all these great features they're talking about but I'm just an average user who was indoctrinated to messengers with the Yahoo Messenger and used Mirc before because it was a program that allows you to chat that I keep hearing.
The Task Manager?
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To be honest, I don't know where it is in the task manager. I'm using Process Explorer btw. If you mean the default task manager, don't you have to open it first which by the time your apps are eating too much, would be too late?
That sounds like Skrommel's ClipStep. Or try ClipX if you want some basic interface to manipulate clipboard contents, apart from extending it.
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Yeah, those are the applications that led me to ask because I don't even know where to begin with all the features in them. All I use now is Ditto for Windows and Klipper for Linux and the only advanced feature I know of how to use is to set up groups.
first post looks a lot better all right Paul
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Whew! Thanks. That was a pain to redo but at least I've learned something new. I've never tried putting tables before.
(Ah! A topic near and dear to me!)
Could you narrow down what writing function(s) you're looking for? The Writer's Store uses the following categories, which could give you some ideas to start with:
* Story Planning
* Craft Development
* Outline / Brainstorming
* Script Formatters
* Word Processing
* Film Production & Business
If you could give me an idea of what you want to do, I'd be glad to make some suggestions.
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Wow...err... I honestly don't know which to choose. I'm just a writer who hasn't really finished a story and one day said "that's it, I'm going to surround myself with the right environment and poop out a passionate turd!" and novel writing software just sounds to me like something that would help instill good writing habits within me at a less costlier price than workshops because I don't know one near here. I have read articles and books on writing though, I just at this point want to really do what it takes to up the quality and content of my stories aside from just writing often to get better.
All I know is that a novel writing software based on reading ywriter4 is a story planner and a future editor for when things needed to be changed so that's probably my primary intention when looking for one but story planning is such a vague term in itself. From the way it sounds it can fall under brainstorming either and yet at the same time it can also fall under such vague things like listing down your characters which is something I don't naturally do when I write/type before.
Craft development is something I haven't heard of before and I don't quite understand.
An outliner is something I want but not for the reasons of outlining but more for getting a better preview of what I've written which I don't find easy on many tree-based outliners so I'm on the fence with this one.
Brainstorming...I wouldn't mind suggestions but not having really used a novel writing software with suggested brainstorming before, I'm not sure I really need this because I rarely have problems with writer's block. More often it's writer's idea overload which leads to writer's too much self criticism leading to procrastination leading to unfinished work.
I probably don't need Script Formatters and Word Processors because I'm not intending to go pro (although it's more like I don't know how to) unless these features aren't what I assume they are which is something that formats my writing to a standard of some sort.
Film Production and Business... I'm on the fence with this one. If it's something that can help me output a more professional level story than it's always in line with quality and I want that but it can be just again a less competent editor and I already edit my work. Film Production I'm assuming is script writing and while I don't intend to be a scriptwriter, I do want to make a Visual Novel/Ren'ai game using Ren'Py so it's something I want but it's not something I thought of when requesting for alternatives because I thought they were a separate program from novel writing software.
The best place to look would be back at the mothership itself. Zotero documentation can be found at the following link:
http://www.zotero.org/documentation/
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Yes, I have seen that before but the problem with someone on a non-techie level like me is that often times I drift between "How to use this mode" and "whether to use this mode" because I have no foundation or idea on what the hell the software is about but I'm drawn to the term "researcher's tool" so this documentation never makes sense to me.
I know it sounds like a bad case of "RTFM" avoidance but I since realize that some people just might need other ways of introducing applications to them to get them hooked and willing to look into it further and some don't because they are hooked but they don't know how to start while in between thoughts, they're wondering whether this is what they're really looking for. I think a good example is a PC user who wouldn't touch Linux because it's complicated but would use it once it's installed for him even though the real reason he's not getting into problems is because he just uses his PC for the basic stuff which most user friendly distroes like Ubuntu already has set up by default (which if he has tried, he would know that it would be just as easy to install as Windows if he did it by himself)
For me, my main issue with Zotero is the lack of formal background on how to do proper research. You see, I can never tolerate nor understand the value of bibliographies, footnotes, citations, timelines and reports but would be willing to learn those if the right program shows me that this would help me in my research.
Zotero is the reverse of that. It's the program that gives these options to those who already know the value of all these things and can tolerate them so when looking at the documentation, I can only be left wondering if "This is just Evernote with report and bibliography support" which I definitely don't need but then there's a risk like many seemingly unorthodox programs and services like Opera (from the perspective of a user who's only been introduced to IE), Diigo, Linux, Launchy, Pop-up Wisdom that they can not only be just what I'm looking for but something that would fuel my desire to not only consume information but be able to transform those information into something that would help make me remember and go back to them and value their information instead of just a black hole.
40hz:
re: writing
Sounds like your heart and head are in the right place. OK, a couple of things. :)
1. Scoot over to http://www.writersstore.com/products.php?categories_id=128 and take a gander at all the stuff they sell. I'm not suggesting you need to buy anything. But at least it will give you an idea of what's out there. Once you have a feel for this class of software, you'll be better prepared to search for freeware equivalents.
Scope out the various offerings - and Google anything that looks interesting or potentially useful. The product homesites usually have demos you can download to try before you buy. If something intrigues you, take them up on the offer. FWIW - most of these apps are idiosyncratic in the way they do things. If you don't think like they do, you won't be able to work with them - so check them out before you plunk down cash.
2. Now for some recommended freebies to get you started:
One app I use a lot for getting things down is WriteMonkey. It's free - and it works the way I need it to for what I need it for.
http://pomarancha.com/writemonkey/index.php
There was a bit of discussion about it here at DC:
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=5372.msg121288
Scroll down to read my post (40hz) and also to follow the responses it got. I love it. Not everybody does. ;)
For screenwriting/scripting (including games and graphic novels) you could take a look at Celtx. This is a free script formatter/organizer that is somewhat similar to FinalDraft in form and function.
http://celtx.com/index.html
Let me know what you think. 8)
(You can also PM me if there's something you want to ask/discuss that would just muddy up this forum thread.)
re: Zotero
I know it sounds like a bad case of "RTFM" avoidance
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Not at all. And I doubt you'll find anyone at DC that would ever offer that most unhelpful of replies to a question. I just provided the link since a lot of people who install Zotero via Firefox's Add-on feature don't know there is documentation for it.
If you've looked at the documentation - and it still doesn't make sense, then so be it. You're not alone.
I have wanted to like Zotero. I have tried to use Zotero. I have installed and uninstalled it a dozen times. But in the end, there is something about it that just doesn't work for me.
I keep most of my references in an SEO Note file. I simply cut and paste as needed. Not very sophisticated or efficient - but it works for me. ;D
Shades:
Customization:
Here in South America a lot of computers are being sold through super markets. They use the gOS operating system. This (linux-based) O.S. is light on resources and comes with practically all a casual user would need. The interface is easy on the eyes (at least to me) And it seems to be a solid base for expanding it to your specific needs.
For more info: gOS
tomos:
from another thread:
to figure out (in Process Explorer) how much ram your process is using:-
.. IIRC, it's the Private Bytes figure you really have to look at if you want to know how much the process is REALLY using, since the working set is the amount of RAM allocated to the process + some shared (or to be used) by other processes.
-Armando (September 03, 2008, 06:59 PM)
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