Mac OS X is the most satisfying compromise I've ever come across in the computing world: Unix underneath and Apple's slick attention to detail and the end-user's experience on top, all built on the top-quality hardware for which the folks at Cupertino are famous, my Powerbook G4 became a fast friend and a faithful ally. For a Linux user, experiencing a computing platform where everything just works is pretty stunning, and as an added bonus, most of the software I grew to love on Linux is available for Mac OS X as well through the Fink and MacPorts projects. Here are a couple of my favorite applications:
Continue reading "Software for your Mac"
I am a big fan of the Mutt email client on Linux/BSD and Mac OS X. It's a pleasure to use, but can be a devil to configure. So I wrote a 40 page Woodnotes manual by the name of "Using the Mutt Email Client" detailing how to configure and run Mutt as your email client. And amazingly, as of March 2010 well over 30,000 people have downloaded it.
If mutt has ever tempted you, this might help you figure it out. If Mutt has never tempted you, perhaps I can give you a sense why it's the single most useful piece of software I use on a daily basis.
Last revision: 2 December 2009.
Continue reading "Woodnotes Guide to the Mutt Email Client"
I'm happy to announce the latest edition of the Woodnotes Guide to Emacs for Writers, available at this website. It's been downloaded over 15,000 times since it was first made available! Emacs is a complicated but extremely powerful text editor with a number of valuable tools for folks that make their living off the written word. Last updated: 31 March 2011.
This document is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 licence..
Continue reading "Woodnotes Guide to Emacs for Writers"
I use Jedit regularly, and relied on it exclusively while writing Moon Handbooks Nicaragua and Moon Living Abroad Nicaragua. If you write books for Avalon Travel Publishing, let me show you an easy way to deal with the codes that make these manuscripts so cumbersome.
Continue reading "Woodnotes Guide to Using Jedit to Code Manuscripts for Avalon Travel Publishing"
I dislike receiving Microsoft Word documents because I neither use nor like that piece of software, and too many computer users think that Word documents are a standard format. Because Microsoft refuses to reveal the details of that file format, competitors' software is doomed to work almost but not quite as well.
Microsoft Word's file format is not a legitimate standard because it is not "open." Other software companies are prevented from knowing the format, and as a result their software can not perfectly read and write Microsoft Word documents. This subterfuge has enabled Microsoft to lock users into its software. In fact, Microsoft regularly changes its formats to cause incompatibilities the user is forced to resolve by purchasing the latest version of their software (There is no technical reason why file formats must change).
Continue reading "Microsoft Word Docs are not a Standard!"
