You have an existing LaTeX document, and would like to create an EPUB document from it. LaTeX creates gorgeous printed works, but predates e-books by several decades. On the other hand, LaTeX is a markup language, and EPUB is basically XHTML, which is also a markup language, so there is a path. This article describes that path.

When I began writing The Dictator's Handbook, it seemed clear the project would take place on my Linux computer. And it did. We've got a Mac in the house too, but I'm in front of the Linux box more often than not, and in fact my Linux desktop gave me some tricks and tools that made the process of writing and researching a snap. Here they are.

The least interesting tech narratives to read — and write — are the ones where everything worked well. Where's the narrative? Where was the challenge? But I want this on the net so searchers find a success story.

I got a Huwei E1552 Modem to work on Linux, and it took no trouble. Read on.

Juxtapose the magic of a successful ping from the middle of West Africa's outback with the buzzing of an old serial modem making a connection. Add in the frenetic flashing of the lights on the cable modem, and the amazement of connecting to the internet over a device that fits in your pocket. Here's my take on how it's all worked out:

Mellel is a powerful word processor for those of us who need to write long works that include cross references, bibliographies, internal citations, tables of content, and whose contents require carefully structured parts, sections, and subsections. And it’s unsurpassed for working with multiple languages in a single document – particularly if one or more of those languages are Middle Eastern. Mellel provides comprehensive tools for creating, organizing, and applying text styles, but it takes some thought to get it right. Here are some guidelines.

If you use Vim for coding, you might find it equally useful for writing text and longer works. If you don't use Vim and appreciate fast, efficient writing and editing, you might want to give it a try.

In either case, I highly recommend the Vim text editor for authors, writers, and anybody working on long text and prose works. And I've put together the 13 page Woodnotes Guide to Vim for Writers to set you on your way.

This is in the tradition of my Woodnotes Guide to Emacs for Writers, Woodnotes Guide to using Jedit to Code Manuscripts for Avalon Travel Publishing, and article Editing Avalon Docs in Vim.

Find the Woodnotes Guide to Vim for Writers here: (PDF(128KB)|HTML).

This document is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 licence..

Back in 2000 I first ventured onto the 'Net via a 56K dial up modem over telephone lines, and the Internet was mostly built around those needs. Times have changed, and the idea of dialing up a connection seems quaint, even antiquated. With some careful planning, dial up isn't so bad at all. But in a world where the average webpage is now an order of magnitude heavier than it was back when everybody dialed up, some planning is indeed necessary.

Linux to the rescue. It's easy to set up a Linux computer to run a downloading mission every time it connects, and take care of your mail and even your basic web browsing, all in one fell swoop. Here's the secret:

This short article describes how to get a Zoom 3095 USB Modem working on Linux. This cool little USB telephone modem sells for about US$50 and proclaims proudly on the package that it is compatible with Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. That was clearly the work of the marketing team, as in reality, we Linux users need to do a bit more work to get on line. I bought one of these modems in order to rescue an old Linux box (PIII 555Mhz, 128M RAM) running SuSE Linux 8.2 and was immediately frustrated to learn it was going to take more work than I'd been led to believe.

Do not despair. This guide is going to get you connected.