Dave – Page 112 – Dave Briggs

Better blogging: separate writing and publishing?

January 15, 2014

I wonder if one way of helping the process of blogging is to separate the tools you use for writing and for publishing.

Here’s what I mean – when I use WordPress’ editor to compose a post from scratch, I am using the same software to write my content and to publish it.

I have nothing against the WordPress editor, by the way – it’s excellent. But I find that when I use it, I feel under a bit more pressure to get what I am writing finished, so I can hit that big publish button and be done with it.

Using a separate tool to compose the post, then transfer it to WordPress for publication makes the writing process a bit of a calmer affair.

I can still edit my content in the WordPress editor where I spot mistakes, or to add images, links and that sort of thing. The bulk of composition however, takes place in a different editor.

At the moment I mostly use Byword on the Mac and iOS for writing posts, which are then copied to WordPress.

What do you think? Am I talking nonsense – or do you also find that separating writing and publishing is helpful?

My current favourite toy

January 14, 2014

apple-ipad-mini-black Just before Christmas, and as a bit of a Christmas treat for myself, I bought an iPad mini with retina display and 3g mobile broadband access (ie not the wifi only model). I love it.

Up til now my tablet of choice was a second generation Nexus 7, produced by Asus but sanctioned by Google as the best of breed Android tablet. That I found to be my favourite tablet device so far, better than the full size iPad. However, while I used the Nexus 7 fairly regularly as a device to quickly check emails or check something on the web, it never became a vital piece of kit for me.

Since I have had this iPad mini though, it has barely left my side. Why is that?

The size – and weight is absolutely perfect for pretty much any task. It is finally an iPad that works as an e-reader in that I can hold in one handed without getting a wrist strain. The smaller screen size doesn’t really matter to me when the resolution is as good as the retina one is on this thing and pinching and zooming is fine when I need something to appear a little bigger.
The apps – is still where the iPad wins against Android devices. Sure all the big ones are on both platforms (Twitter, Facebook etc etc) but it’s the iOS only ones which you may not have heard of where the iPad stomps all over the competition. I’ve not come across an Android editor that can beat Byword, or an RSS reader as good as Reeder 2 – just to name two examples.
The 3G – as mentioned above, my iPad mini has mobile data access for when I am out of range of a wifi network. My Nexus 7 didn’t, and it’s a game changer. A tablet is basically of little use without the net, and being able to access it pretty much anywhere significantly enhances the usefulness of the device. By the way, here’s a tip from your Uncle Dave – make sure your phone and your tablet use a different carrier for mobile data. That way, if one has a shonky signal, the other one ought to be ok. Mine are Vodafone for my phone and 3 for the iPad and I’ve never been without signal on both.
The keyboard cover – After a couple of weeks, I picked up a Logitech slim keyboard cover for the iPad, and it is great. This being a mini iPad, it’s a pretty mini keyboard, although after a couple of days with it I could type fairly quickly on it- and much quicker than I could using the on screen keyboard. An additional bonus is that using a hardware keyboard with the mini frees up some vital screen real estate. The case works beatifully, snapping shut with magnets to protect the screen, and also using a magnet to hold the screen at a helpful angle when typing. It does all this without adding much to the size and weight of the device, which is fantastic.

I should probably think of a fifth thing, but these four pretty much cover it. What tablet do you use, if any? Do you love it like I do this one?

Link roundup

January 10, 2014

I find this stuff so you don’t have to:

Is technology killing books and reading?

January 9, 2014

A fairly interesting, if somewhat confused in places, piece in The Guardian a few days ago from the author Philip Hensher.

He starts by pointing out the rather glorious way that slightly niche publishing projects can get off the ground thanks to crowd funding websites such as Kickstarter, and also the way in which it’s now possible to buy and download electronic versions of a writer’s entire output for a couple of quid thanks to the ebook stores.

So far so sensible, but Hensher then goes on:

Ruth Rendell was commenting on one of the beneficiaries of the “long tail”, a once forgotten novel by John Williams, Stoner. Rendell suggested that it has become a huge success in 2013, compared with its small impact on publication in 1965, precisely because it celebrates the power of reading and the value of literature. In 1965 that was taken for granted. Now, Rendell suggested, reading has become a specialist activity, and Stoner is more “needful”.

He goes on to suggest a literary equivalent of the doctor’s recommendation of five-a-day, replacing fruit and veg with books – and hopefully a slightly longer timeframe.

I personally find that there are some works that I am perfectly happy to read on an electronic device, whether a Kindle e-reader or the app on my iPad (mini – the regular sized iPads are far to cumbersome to work well as a reading device).

There are other books, however, which I need to be on paper in front of me. I’ve recently been reading the letters of DH Lawrence – which I heartily recommend – and it would be a far poorer experience were I to be reading them on a screen rather than being able to thumb through the pages.

The sheer accessibility of literature now, thanks to the internet and resources such as Project Gutenberg, make it a fantastic time to be a reader. I suspect it is also a great time to be a writer, as the ebook market allows those authors who might never have got a book deal to find readers and perhaps make a living from their words.

As to whether the distractions of the internet are stopping people from reading… well, I dunno. I have a sneaking suspicion that those who do not want to read have always found something else that they would rather do; and those who love books will always find the time for them, no matter what is happening elsewhere, virtually or otherwise.

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