Thursday, December 22, 2011
Bender in the year 10,000
In a Futurama episode from a couple of years ago, Bender and a couple of others are stranded in the year 10,000 (the professor had the 'brilliant' idea of a time machine which only goes forwards). This future is somewhat apocalyptic, but it tickled me to see that amongst the precious books our friends are burning to keep warm is a first-generation Kindle, accurately rendered! Well done, Futurama creators, you are first class geeks. (They really are, some of them of the kind who can recite pi to the 400th decimal place.)
Good writers?
I can only come up with two names for consistently interesting writers in the tech field: Andy Ihnatko and David Pogue.
Does anybody know anybody else worth following?
Does anybody know anybody else worth following?
Read magazines in your iPad Kindle app
For the longest time it has been an oddity that you could read Kindle subscription magazines on Kindle devices and on Android devices, but not on iPad!
I honestly suspected something "political" behind it, like related to Apple's commission policies re content bought inside an iOS app. But maybe not, because along with other interesting developments, this whole thing seems now to be fixed in the 2.9 version of the Kindle iPad app, it's a big update.
I honestly suspected something "political" behind it, like related to Apple's commission policies re content bought inside an iOS app. But maybe not, because along with other interesting developments, this whole thing seems now to be fixed in the 2.9 version of the Kindle iPad app, it's a big update.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Word processor for e-text (updated)
Somebody pointed out in an article that word processors are an endangered species because they were designed for print. I hadn't thought of that, but that immediately gave me the idea; hey, isn't it time we got a Word Processor which is from the bottom up designed for e-text? Something for writing, which will give you the formatting options you need for blogs, twitter, web articles, and of course ebooks!
I would love that. I almost never write for the page anymore. It would be especially good if the thing would have the power (though it would not be easy to make) to export to multiple ebook and other formats, ePub, Kindle, and whatnot.
UPDATEs:
Will recommended Scrivener, which I have heard many good things about as a very powerful and flexible tool.
Anon said:
Not sure what you are after but, how does Apple's "Pages.app" do what you want to accomplish? It too was probably designed for print but since it's WYSIWYG isn't it suitable for e-publication as well?
Yes, actually Pages sounds like a good thing. I know that it produces ePub files which are good enough that Take Control Books use the app, and that's a strong recommendation since they do technical books (tables, links, etc) and are quite demanding.
But notice it's called "Pages"...
I was thinking a bit abstractly, rather than looking for an app for a specific purpose. Sort of wondering, when will apps start to loose the anchoring in paper and pages and fully embrace the rapidly growing age of digital publication, where printing on paper is not the first use but a rather specialized one if it's done at all.
I would love that. I almost never write for the page anymore. It would be especially good if the thing would have the power (though it would not be easy to make) to export to multiple ebook and other formats, ePub, Kindle, and whatnot.
UPDATEs:
Will recommended Scrivener, which I have heard many good things about as a very powerful and flexible tool.
Anon said:
Not sure what you are after but, how does Apple's "Pages.app" do what you want to accomplish? It too was probably designed for print but since it's WYSIWYG isn't it suitable for e-publication as well?
Yes, actually Pages sounds like a good thing. I know that it produces ePub files which are good enough that Take Control Books use the app, and that's a strong recommendation since they do technical books (tables, links, etc) and are quite demanding.
But notice it's called "Pages"...
I was thinking a bit abstractly, rather than looking for an app for a specific purpose. Sort of wondering, when will apps start to loose the anchoring in paper and pages and fully embrace the rapidly growing age of digital publication, where printing on paper is not the first use but a rather specialized one if it's done at all.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Clean Writer 2.0 for iPad
Clean Writer 2.0 for iPad. (On sale now, dirt cheap.)
Even though one might say that the Macbook Air is much better for a traveling writer, with more power and flexibility, I dunno, there's just something about 1: using something for something it was not *really* meant for and using it well, and 2: Simplicity. One app at a time and the general simplicity of the iPad interface, used powerfully with an external keyboard, just appeals to me. (Apparently many people do very well even without an external keyboard, I envy them.)
... Of course there are many factors to weigh in, such as what apps you like and need, and that a laptop is faster to pack up and away than an iPad with keyboard, etc. But I just think this has some unique charm. And you can pack away the keyboard and use the iPad as ereader and all the things it's good for.
Even though one might say that the Macbook Air is much better for a traveling writer, with more power and flexibility, I dunno, there's just something about 1: using something for something it was not *really* meant for and using it well, and 2: Simplicity. One app at a time and the general simplicity of the iPad interface, used powerfully with an external keyboard, just appeals to me. (Apparently many people do very well even without an external keyboard, I envy them.)
... Of course there are many factors to weigh in, such as what apps you like and need, and that a laptop is faster to pack up and away than an iPad with keyboard, etc. But I just think this has some unique charm. And you can pack away the keyboard and use the iPad as ereader and all the things it's good for.
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