Scrivener and Me

This could get long, I’m coming off of a very long November.

I am relatively new to Macs. I got my very first Mac in December 2008 and I am still thrilled to tell everyone who will listen, that I am typing on that very same Mac right now. I am impressed and amazed that I have had a computer this long and have never had to call tech support and have not had a hard drive blow up, or the back light in a screen go out for no apparent reason other than it just felt like dying that day. When I went to the genius bar to get my iPhone fixed, the Genius told me I could expect to have my Mac for another three years. I grinned like a kid on Christmas when he told me that.

I love being a Mac owner.

I have been searching for word processing software since I bought my Mac. I wasn’t a fan of Word even when I had PC’s. I don’t really need an “office” suite and OO for Mac is SLOW.

Last year, I bought a competing piece of Mac word processing software and liked it pretty well, but I was having a hard time with organizing my thoughts while working through this year’s NaNo novel. This novel is very important to me, it’s a story that’s been kicking around in my brain for years and I finally decided to get it out of my system and see if I could make a go of something with it. I was getting annoyed with the process of creating in this other software. It didn’t do things that I wanted it to do and was too… featureless.

I broke 50,000 words on November 12. The problem with that, is that what I was writing had no direction, no guidance. It meandered all over the place and didn’t adhere to any sort of time line. There was no good way to organize the scenes I was writing into timeline and write them out of order, which is what I tend to do. Sometimes I want to work on the end of my story first, and go back to the beginning later, or write a scene in the middle and then work chronologically forward from there for a while.

My process has NEVER worked for me when I was using any tools other than a three ring binder, a typewriter and a hole punch.

During the middle of NaNo, I ended up needing to make a day trip out of town, so I updated all of my podcasts and went out on the open road. I was listening to Andy Inahtko talk about the various Mac apps that he loves and he started talking about Scrivener. His praise for Scrivener was just glowing. Then I saw that some authors that I really respected and loved used Scrivener exclusively and then I saw the trial version available for WriMos… I had to at least give it a shot.

On day 14, I downloaded the Scrivener trial and ported over some of my NaNo novel into it.

Scrivener saved my novel.

I was in a place where I was ready to call it done for the year. After I installed it, I ended up organizing the whole thing in the binder. I fit my outline into 11 chapters in the binder with no trouble at all. I cut chunks of text out of my old document and placed them in a new one and it took me about one afternoon to set the whole annoying, frustrating, beast of a project to rights. I wish that I had started the novel this way in the first place.

It’s December now and I’m still working on my novel, which is odd. I love to write, I love being a writer, but I don’t get paid for it. I have always been way too frustrated with the process to try to make it something more than just a creative outlet. It is what I am, not what I do.

Scrivener might just make a doer out of me.

Gizmodo’s Checkbook Journalism.

Come on.

Admit it.

When you saw Gizmodo’s photos of iPhone 4 this week, you thought it. “Way to go Gizmodo!”

Part of me wants to applaud Gizmodo for doing the Lois Lane thing and getting that story no matter what it took. I’m generally okay with checkbook journalism, as long as no one breaks the law in the process of the acquisition of the story.

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Random Gemini’s iPad Review.

Welp… I don’t have much to say about the iPad.

Hubby picked ours up yesterday and I have played with it for approximately oh… 15 minutes. Long enough to tell you that I really dig the IDEA of Netflix App on the iPad… and I really dig the idea of Kindle App on the iPad… iBooks looks really swanky and… the AP Mobile News App on iPad… just… owns.

Otherwise… hubby has not taken his hands off our iPad except for while he was sleeping last night and the 20 minutes that he was in the shower this morning… and the 15 minutes during which he was making breakfast.

So… I have no idea what I can tell you about the iPad and its features… because I have no freaking clue what they are yet.

That’s it.

Happy Easter!

E-Reader Debate Decided: Why I Hate My New Kindle

My wonderful husband chose to get me a Kindle 2 for our anniversary this year. I felt so shocked. I hadn’t quite made up my mind on what was the right e-reader for me, he had spoken out harshly against the Kindle, but when I opened the box, I just stared at it, sort of numb. Of course, I kissed him a lot and truly appreciate the gift. I immediately slid my new Kindle into its cover and downloaded some books from Feedbooks and went to town. So if you see my “reading list” page expanding rapidly this month… you now know why.

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My Pink Hoodie

Now and then, the graphic designer in me gets bored and wants to come out and play. When this happens, I usually end up designing new blog graphics.. and wallpapers. I haven’t posted any wallpapers online in a long time, but this one was fun and didn’t take long, no emotion invested here.

I made it because it matched my hoodie. Not just any hoodie… my favorite pink hoodie.

Check it out, and if you like it, feel free to download it from my flickr page. Screen res is 1280×800 because that’s what fits my mac. If you’re using another res, post it in the comments and I’ll see about getting a resized version for you.

Life is Different in Mac Land

A dear friend of mine, and I call him that in spite of all the arguments we’ve had lately, has been considering the idea of getting a Mac. I think part of the appeal to him is that Macbooks are lightweight, versatile and well, he’s probably heard more than a bit from me telling him to just dive in and drink the kool-aid, but we’ve run into a few problems that have caused him to drop names at me like, “Mactard” and this drives me insane, and oddly enough, he finds this amusing. I think the guy gets a kick out of seeing me get passionate about the things I love.

When I first got my mac, I was confused about some things. My macbook is the first mac I have ever owned. I’ve used a couple, but those were always in school labs because Apple donated computers to public institutions for years. I had never had to seriously live with Mac OS before and I didn’t understand how to do very simple things and once I was told how to do it, I felt like a complete idiot because it seemed so obvious to me afterward.

One of the first issues I ran into was installing software.

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i Love Katamari!

I just got word that Bandai Namco released i Love Katamari for the iPhone on the App store.

It’s 7.99$ and the word on the ground is, the thing was optimized for the iPod Touch, which has a faster processor than the iPhone, but still… Katamari crack for iPhone lovers!!! WOOHOO!

I might have to go drop 8$ on this ridiculous little game.

Regular People Do NOT Understand Geeks.

Let’s be realistic about how we get involved in relationships that work.

We find someone that we like the look of, we learn if they have things in common with us, and if we find enough commonality to build a foundation upon, we can have a successful relationship with that person. This is true of friendship, family and romance. It’s actually really very simple, but people get so wound up about romance and dating that they can’t see the forest for the trees.

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Some Crazy Asian Finally Invented the Persocom.

Now, of course, I disagree that she’s perfect but I know a lot of guys who will appreciate this article in which a man has built himself a wife. via /.

What more could a guy want, really?

This gal is attractive, reads you the morning headlines and has a smokin’ hot bod, but he can’t have sex with her yet. Much like Chii from Clamp’s manga, Chobits. I always felt so bad for Hideki. He had all that porn hanging around, he was clearly not in control of his hormones… and he couldn’t have sex with his girlfriend because she was a robot.

Netflix Silverlight Plugin for Mac is in the Wild.

Netflix announced that its silverlight plugin that allows Mac users to use the Netflix Instant Watch feature is available today, as in like.. right now. If you go to netflix from a mac, and click on “Watch now!” on any instant play title, it forwards you to a page where you can download the silverlight plugin.

However… I think I am going to wait a week and see how this one shakes out first. The early reviews from beta testers of the Silverlight plug-in were not at all positive and one guy complained that he actually had to reboot his mac. Given than I haven’t had to reboot my mac once in the last week or shut it down, I find there to be something inherently wrong with that idea… so I’ll wait.

What about the rest of you mac users out there?

Are you brave enough?