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List of newbie questions regarding software
anne_r:
Windows Vista: Why do people prefer it over a dual boot Xp and Linux?
I know the common reasons, I just want to make sure I'm not missing something crucial because it seems it should be a disaster but I read people using it.
-Paul Keith (September 03, 2008, 01:26 AM)
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Well, I haven't used either XP or Linux, so I can't say if Vista is better or inferior to those. All I can say, is that I've had Vista now for 1,5 years it has not crashed once.
I repeat that: Windows Vista has NOT crashed once in 1,5 years.
I have had no problems installing my old, favourite software (I still use Word 97 :)). No problems with drivers or peripherals.
Of course Vista needs lots of RAM and such. You can't install it on any old computer. That's what I've heard people complain about.
suleika:
Have you tried all-weather paper? There are a lot of products out there. For the odd short reminder I have a chinagraph pencil in the shower (aka grease pencil or wax pencil) and write on directly onto the wall - it cleans off perfectly.
Yeah, speech recognition is overkill to me since what I mainly want is something waterproof that can be used in the shower, probably something with a long battery life and something bare bones but sturdy and would last a while. I really don't mind jotting down my notes since I will probably be using this more often for quick notes and 1 or 2 mid-length conversations which is more to help me remember the conversation rather than for turning it into text.
-Paul Keith (September 09, 2008, 12:12 PM)
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Paul Keith:
Have you tried all-weather paper? There are a lot of products out there. For the odd short reminder I have a chinagraph pencil in the shower (aka grease pencil or wax pencil) and write on directly onto the wall - it cleans off perfectly.-suleika (September 13, 2008, 06:46 AM)
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I've heard of the paper but I really didn't feel like they were an affordable option especially for short note taking but a chinagraph pencil, there's something I haven't heard of before. What are the things to look out for when buying such a pencil?
40hz:
Compendium for outlining. Tree-based hierarchies just don't do it for me. I feel more at home with a structure I can pattern myself.
-Paul Keith (September 13, 2008, 04:18 AM)
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Thanks for mentioning that. I thought I knew every outliner out there, but this is a new one for me. :Thmbsup:
I webbed over to their homepage, and while I was happy to see that they have since released Compendium as a free product, the download links no longer work. You get a 404 no matter what. I tried e-mailing, hoping that maybe this is a temporary case of a bad link on the site.
From the feature list (it has a few unique ones), Compendium may be the general outliner application I've been looking for.
Fingers crossed...
Woah man, very nice! I'm jealous. Always wanted a space large enough to host a library but I couldn't afford it.
-Paul Keith (September 13, 2008, 04:18 AM)
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Don't be overly impressed. Library is a bit of a misnomer. It more closely resembles a medieval monastery book collection than your local public library.
I do have a nice little office area with several shelves of books neatly arranged and within arm's reach. But the bulk of the "library" is spread promiscuously throughout the rest of my living space. There are piles and rows of books in every available room and storage space.
The thing that makes this arrangement work for me is a very nice little library program from Norway called BookCAT. It's published by FNProgramvare. ( www.fnprg.com ) Complete documentation and a fully functional evaluation copy are available for download.
BookCAT is a powerful book collector database program which will help you catalog a book collection of any size. BookCAT is used by book-lovers, schools, churches, clubs, and business libraries. Using BookCAT you can quickly catalog your books by downloading information from the Internet. BookCAT will help you track what you have in your library, where it is (including books out on loan) and the total value of your collection.
BookCAT has a comprehensive set of fields, enabling you to catalog a wide range of information: author, title, publisher, ISBN number, publish date, number of pages, editor, original title, translator, binding, edition, type of book (fiction, non-fiction, etc.), category and sub-category, purchase date and price, current value, condition, status (own, want, for sale), personal rating, owner, location, keywords, awards and nominations, comments, synopsis, reviews, and more.
Other features include customized entry fields, a loan module (to keep track of books on loan), flexible searching, a report designer, more than 80 pre-defined report formats, a HTML generator, a sample data base to get you started, pop-up menus for quick feature access and navigation, and comprehensive context-sensitive on-line documentation available at the touch of a button.
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About a year ago I bit the bullet and got my entire collection entered into BookCAT.
I was motivated to do so by two separate 'incidents'. The first was the discovery that several irreplaceable books I owned were missing. I vaguely remembered loaning some of them out, but I couldn't even begin to recall to whom or when. (I'm suffering from the early stages of an affliction called AGE.) The other 'incident' was my discovering that I had duplicate copies of a dozen or so fairly expensive books (SAMS and O'Reilly titles!). Apparently, I bought, forgot I owned, and then re-bought some books! Not the most cost effective way to do things.
Getting the books entered took about two weeks of parttime effort with me crawing from place to place with my laptop and a cup of coffee when I had nothing better to do. It wasn't as big a chore as it could have been because the program supports online information lookups using the ISBN number. Pop in the ISBN and you can download all the publisher details into your database.
Using a database for a book collection is liberating. Retrieval is the critical issue - not storage. Once you have a reliable reference and location tool, the whole issue of physical storage and organization becomes almost moot.
Now it no longer matters where I put a book - or who I loaned it to. I can even keep my lesser used titles in numbered boxes up in the attic. And they don't even need to be organized or categorized before they get put away. Titles can be shelved, stored, and stashed at will. I can find any title quite quickly as long as I keep its current location updated in the database.
One interesting feature: BookCAT uses MS Access as its database. The documentation that comes with the program gives full details on the database table structure. This allows for extensive customization of the application should you have sufficient expertise using Access.
A fine program. Not free, but at $40 US it's very reasonable. Highly recommended. :up: :up:
Paul Keith:
Well, I haven't used either XP or Linux, so I can't say if Vista is better or inferior to those. All I can say, is that I've had Vista now for 1,5 years it has not crashed once.
I repeat that: Windows Vista has NOT crashed once in 1,5 years.
I have had no problems installing my old, favourite software (I still use Word 97 :)). No problems with drivers or peripherals.
Of course Vista needs lots of RAM and such. You can't install it on any old computer. That's what I've heard people complain about.
-anne_r (September 13, 2008, 06:35 AM)
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Hi Anne, sorry I missed this post of yours. If it's not too much hassle, besides stability, could you point out one possible plus of Vista over XP? I'm really considering upgrading my PC entirely but I've heard Linux has some problems with 64 bit which is keeping me from switching to it entirely (also my Linux partition currently won't boot so that's leaving a sour taste in my mouth right now and I'm pre-occupied with this topic to pay any attention to the problem) and Vista as far as I've heard has still no exclusive functionality going for it yet. Not to say that stability isn't important but I'm really looking for something to convince me to switch to it besides it's hardware support.
Thanks for mentioning that. I thought I knew every outliner out there, but this is a new one for me.
I webbed over to their homepage, and while I was happy to see that they have since released Compendium as a free product, the download links no longer work. You get a 404 no matter what. I tried e-mailing, hoping that maybe this is a temporary case of a bad link on the site.
From the feature list (it has a few unique ones), Compendium may be the general outliner application I've been looking for.
Fingers crossed...
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Hmm... the download link seems to be working for me though I didn't test it because I have to input another e-mail again.
http://kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/compendium/download/indexAlpha.cfm
I only downloaded the Windows version though.
I wouldn't try the app looking for an outliner though. It's just not that kind of program... Closest I could call it's outlining capabilities are that it's an outline exporter but there's really no easy way to really get any kind of full outline view from it.
Instead what you get is a dashboard/file explorer with optional visible arrows connecting each item to the entry that gets people into mistaking it as a mindmapping software even though it's not and it can be very difficult to see everything all in one screen like an outliner. Why it works for me though is that often times I can't see anything other than titles from a traditional outliner and all the text makes my brain hurt and in Compendium, the file explorer style just makes it easy for me to browse through reference files and reference texts much more conveniently than I would in a real file explorer because of the arrows. As a stand alone outliner though, it would probably give me a headache once I go beyond notetaking as the tagging system there is mostly for search filtering rather than browsing and you would probably overclutter your bookmark just to get to a quick node.
Ex.
Say you have Introduction followed by Features by Quick Start in a normal outliner/notetaker. When you want to switch to them, it's just as easy as opening a sidebar to get the tree or the tag cloud. In Compendium, the sidebar requires some right clicking just to get to that entry. If you want to manually switch pages, you also have to remember your previous pages because if you close the window, you might not be able to return to that page unless you close all the other windows unless you have a set up a My Documents Folder in your bookmarks (which the program calls a node) so you can't really quickly switch between information unless you index a text file and write the outline there or over-abused the in-built multi-page text editor to find what you want but it's like reading a windowed notepad with back and forth buttons. Both still are inferior to an outliner program. Not to mention there are certain import and export features in the program that are still buggy but I haven't confirmed with the makers yet on what is the most stable way to back up your files.
However, say you're not sure how many flaws and features your story character or project has. Then it becomes a better outliner in the sense that instead of a text box where you put in their flaws, you can create a node pointing that to the character and because it's not restricted to a text box, you can then point those flaws to a Chapter and then you have a visual pattern for your character's growth or your project's pros and cons. This makes the program great for having a default set of templates which you can surround with answers and structure it in ways that makes you view it your way.
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