Publishing Schedules

One of the things I've noticed about some of my favorite web logs, even personal ones, is that they come out on a fairly regular basis. One of my intents for Strapped to a Desk has been to publish it on a fairly regular basis, my original plan for that was just to always be writing, and then I'd always have something to post to the blog. What ended up happening was a bit different. I kept writing, into a document called NaNoNovel 2007, and so I didn't have anything to publish during November. Between that, and not really having a dedicated blog-writing time, not only has my publishing schedule been sporadic at best, I've somewhat slowed down in my writing.

So one of my goals for 2008 is to start publishing my blog more often. I'm going to achieve this by just writing more, plus I intend to use a calendar, which will help me keep track of when I've started to write things, and when I intend to finish them. I've already started the calendar, I'm using Windows Calendar on my ThinkPad R61i to keep track of when I start writing things, and when I intend to publish them. My intent is to have something fairly major ready for publishing every Monday, and I've already started filling in Mondays in 2008.

One thing I've definitely noticed is that I think to my blog a lot, or at the very least, I think in things I write that could potentially end up on my blog. Another thing I suppose I would like to do is write some more things that don't get published to the public weblog, but that do get written, primarily as a personal record. It's a need I have because there are a lot of things I see and hear and experience that most people don't need to know about, but that I'd like to have in the future. I may just start writing Word documents into a separate folder for that.

Legit Software

I'm sad to admit that I'm actually surprised at how much legal software I've got here on the new ThinkPad. Windows Vista is legal on it, and I have now got my legal copy of Adobe Creative Suite (1) on here, and last night I found and took advantage of a pretty good deal on Microsoft Office 2007, the Ultimate Edition, straight from Microsoft, for $80usd. So… here I am on the ThinkPad, with all legal music and all legal software. It's cool, and it was surprisingly affordable, especially given that this used my Windows software collection, which is, as we all know, extensive and varied. I like this setup though, especially since it allows me to move some of the responsibility away from the iMac, which I want to be my graphics/gaming computer.

On another note, I really do quite love Microsoft Office OneNote 2007, I've already started using it for notes for my classes, and I intend to keep using it for other things, such as keeping track of tasks, and other pieces of information I want to have handy. It'll definitely be something I use on a regular basis while I'm doing NaNoWriMo and other similar projects, I think.

Speaking of NaNo, I've got a bit of an idea, and I'm working on developing it a bit more through the end of September and into October. Hopefully by mid-October I should actually be ready to start writing, although what I'll do then is just start plot-sequencing onto notecards or some similar media. (like OneNote, since I'll be using the computer all the time anyway.)

In other news, I think I am going to expand my collection of DVD-RW media, I'd like to be able to use them to back up the ThinkPad, which means I should need about 30 total, maybe fewer. It'd be something I'd do not-too-often, maybe monthly full-system backups onto DVD-RW and weekly or nightly backups of just the changes onto the 40gig drive in the external enclosure. We'll see.

iWork '08

I am currently working on testing some of the new features in iWork ’08. I typically use the Word Processing features of any given application or application suite more than any of the other functions, so let me go ahead and explain about some of the things I thought were wrong in previous versions of iWork.
The main problem with iWork, as I’ve had in the past is its insistence upon styles, and the difficulty I had in controlling them to my benefit. Also, it is very difficult to write an MLA format paper with it. What I’m discovering here though, is that it’s much easier to do these things now in iWork ’08, which includes a fairly standard toolbar. Another thing I always disliked about iWork was the awful file format, which seems as though it’s here to stay, but iWork will at least be able to open and save Word Documents, and I can export or save-as whenever I need to migrate a document to another computer. It does concern me that .doc is not a selection for default file format, but it shouldn’t be difficult to just “save as” whenever I need to move a document around to another machine. Especially to my mobile computer, which will be running Mac OS 9 with Office 98, most likely. (battery life issues: the machine is perfectly capable of Mac OS X 10.4, and therefore Pages ’08, but I can get about 1.5x the battery life if I run Mac OS 9.)
Spreadsheets in various forms are the other thing I use more often than presentations. I typically use them for lists, checklists, and little database-like things such as my list of RW media, which I update every time I re-burn one. Numbers then, is what I’ve been waiting for. It allows great flexibility in how I set up my spreadsheets, and what can be done with them. For example, it allows pull-down selections for pre-determined values, and it’s got sliders, steppers and a few other interesting things. If I actually did spreadsheets with numerical data, there is other enhancements and features I’d be able to use, like the ability to have more than one table on any given page, or the ability to combine tables and charts on the same page. I can imagine this being pretty good, especially for tables charts and whatnot created as part of a report that’s destined for a printer.
I’ve yet to look at any more of the integration between the iWork apps, nor have I looked at some of the other features like change-tracking or commenting in Pages, but I really think that this will be a reasonable replacement for my traditional productivity app, Microsoft Office. The main problem I’m having with even thinking about Office is the fact that it won’t be available until next January. By then, I’ll have learned iWork and grown to love it.

Wicked Avenue Rent Express-- The Extreme Acid Jazz-Polka Musical.

If you could create a musical, and/or your life (or your ideal life) were a musical, what would it be called, and what kind of music would it have?

My musical (maybe not my ideal life, but my ideal musical. :P) would be called Wicked Avenue Rent Express , and would have the subtitle "The Extreme Acid Jazz-Polka Musical." It would basically be about junkie wizards and witches who live in a cheap, run-down apartment building in New York, Oz. They'd also conduct train (or trainwreck) races -- in which magic, talking, quite-snarky trains race around quite uselessly. (because it's somewhat dangerous to ride the train, given how fast they go.)

I'm actually not yet sure what the musical of my life would be though. I need to work on that a bit.

It should be a bit obvious what I've been listening to recently.

Also, I've been reading the Gregory Maguire novel "Wicked" subtitled "The life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West." It's very good. I've actually got the sequel here too, a Yanni CD, and the first LoTR novel. I intend to catch up on some reading and whatnot. I found out too that I can place holds online, and (in theory, though I've yet to test it) have them make their way to a specific branch of the Mohave County Library System. In this way, I intend to make fairly regular trips to the now-walking-distance Valle Vista MCLD location. Summer of Reading! Yaay!

It's also worth noting that I recently discovered the "Indoor Walking Machine" aka the treadmill. Quite a nifty device, which I'm taking advantage of by using it. I found that after an hour or so, I can work up quite a sweat on it, which is cool because I think that means it's helping me achieve my lofty goals of losing the "Freshman Thirty" (Come on, you can't think I've been denying the fact that I'm a bit chunkier than I was at the start of the school year.) The Treadmill also (niftily enough) can be attached to an audio device (such as my iPod) to provide a form of entertainment (midis converted to MP3s by iTunes) while I'm walking (but not actually leaving the house.)

My goal is to return to the weight I was before I started at NAU. Unfortunately, even if I do, it may not do me any good, as I'll just be back at NAU again next fall, probably following the same eating patterns. Though, I do admit... my food intake patterns probably didn't hurt my GPA, so for now I'm not complaining too bitterly.

Writing a New Novel.

Just a quick note to let everybody know that I have restructured the Gotschland map to be more suitable for some of the changes I want to make to it.

Also, I'm now writing a new novel. Well, I think what I'm writing now will end up being a bit more like a textbook, but it's the beginning of what will eventually be a novel, or collection of short stories. I'm not entirely sure yet.

I am mostly doing this because I found an interesting (far from finished, though) app that's specifically for novel writing. It is only available on the Mac, (which is fine with me) and it's got a few nice additions such as a full screen mode that doesn't waste 75% of my monitor, and a database function that lets me easily keep track of the characters I've introduced, and store information about them.

At any rate - Gotschland, Ahoy! (not Chips Ahoy! - unfortunately.)