Writer's Home Gym

What is he talking about this time? Is the current book-project to taxing for him? ;-) No, not at all; OK maybe a little, but I digress. What I'm talking about is the fact that there is (at least sometimes) the need to do a little training, this holds true for most aspects of life, if we like it or not. Be it sports, be it driving, be it (you already guessed it, didn't you?) writing. Most of us know one or more techniques to get the creative juices flowing. (Maybe I should have tagged "know" with an emphasis?) Seriously, when was the last time you used one of the techniques you learned in "Creative Writing 101" or some book / article / take your pick? Don't be afraid, no one will hear your answer. Thought so. Same goes for me, by the way. One major drawback is time we couldn't afford to spend, because it might interfere with our daily work. On the other hand, as outlined in the post about writersblock, we don't have a choice anyway, at least sometimes. But this is not the subject of this post. Moving on.

Time-constraints are to be taken seriously by any writer, since we get paid for the work we are supposed to do. That's the reason I call this home gym, as in doing it while not at work. My best guess is, that all of us need to keep up with some types of events, the subject of said events is not important in respect to this exercise. This means though, we are processing information—in one way or another—not related with the work at hand, usually while we are not working. One well-known exercise is to take a news-item and write a short story about it; I don't know about you, but I always develop a kind of guilt writing some longer piece while I'm supposed to finish something else, could be just me, though. I therefore came up with a simplified variant of aforementioned exercise.

I take a book, the newspaper, or whatever seems convenient and put pencil-markers without looking in the text, usually five to ten. I then write down the marked words and eliminate everything thats not an adverb, a verb, or a subject. The first three hits win, everything else is discarded without looking. The exercise is to write something meaningful in five to ten sentences using the three words. If the result seems to be interesting, it gets filed into my ideas-folder. Done.

This technique might be in the wild already—it feels like a given to me—but still …

Happy exercising in your own "Writers Home Gym."

I came up with a couple of other exercises, if I don't feel too embarrassed, I'll share them with you in the coming weeks.

Technorati Tags: writers home gym, writing, writing exercise

Scrivener: I have seen the Light!

I wrote about my outlining tool earlier, and how I do my writing at the moment. I'm still convinced, that this is the way to go.

Are you the "index-card shuffling type?" Or do you like the fact that paper can be rearranged to play with different flows of a plot; maybe get even new ideas from doing so? Do you prefer to have the details of your characters in plain sight, maybe on printed sheets? Next to an outline of your story? I do, and I've been told, that I'm an analog writer, who should resort to a keyboard in the drafting-phase of my work and keep the research on paper. (OK, I kind of stereotyped a bit, so?) Anyway, this way of working on my stories/articles/etc. seems to mirror the way my brain is working, I feel comfortable this way. I might be even more productive, but—frankly—I don't like this term in respect to the craft of writing. Or should I say art? Don't get me wrong here, I prefer my Mac to a typewriter, but creative writing and "where is the file I wrote the opening for chapter four again?" doesn't feel right for me.

Quick intermission:
If you do not use a Macintosh computer to write—one which runs at least 10.4 (Tiger), to be precise—don't read on, you'll regret it. Don't complain, that you haven't been warned. On the other hand, maybe you should read on and just keep in mind, that I placed this Link. Do not click on it! Read on and remember that it's there. Use it, if you should get the feeling you might have made a mistake in the past.
Back to the regular program.

The thing I was missing was a program that mimics these habits when it comes to getting my notes into the computer. Until a couple of days ago, that is. At that time, I found the program Scrivener. Actually, I did not find the program itself, but people raving about it (does that matter?). I downloaded the test-version, followed the tutorial and about thirty minutes later I saw the light. Finally a piece of software that allows me to work like I do. Everything belonging to a writing-project is neatly tucked away on the left-hand side of the window, and with "tucked away" I mean hierarchical folders, one tree called "Draft" and another one called "Research." Everything can be dragged and dropped there and incorporated in the workflow. Got a sound-file which would play on your Mac? Drop it in and listen to it while writing the summary of it. The first thing that comes to mind is, sound-file? I can put my interviews into the same application I'm writing about it? Sure, go ahead. What about the controls? How do I pause and play said sound-file, without switching windows? Your are able to split the main editing window up to four times, great to keep an eye on outlines, character-bios and the playing sound-file. The whole project is auto-saved, one can concentrate on writing the next blockbuster. "Blockbuster?" Right, I think I forgot, Scrivener is not only great for writing novels, articles, etc. it also allows you to switch to a "screenwriting-mode" or even to "stage-play mode" (US and UK) to cater to the needs of scriptwriting. Imagine for a second, you load your best-selling book into Scrivener, split the main window and start to craft the script in the upper or lower part of your screen (depending on your preferences). Scrivener allows to export the work in a variety of formats (even LaTex) and to be typeset by the program of your (or your publisher's) choice.

I could go on for quite a while, but my suggestion is: Go to the Literature and Latte website, click on the Scrivener link and download the try-out version. It's fully functional and there is nothing more convincing than seeing with ones own eyes, is there? I have a couple of final tests to run, but I think I will switch (provided I can make the program work with subversion).

No, I don't get paid for this article, I just love the program. What about the link in the upper part of this post? Well, if you should use a non-Macintosh computer, go up, and if you click it, you'll find the information to make the program work on your future computer. ;-)

Technorati Tags: script-writing, Scrivener, Writing

Read the Contract

The brains of most writers are not equipped to deal with contracts, since we are in a profession that requires to craft artful sentences, paragraphs, etc. to please the respective reader; contracts on the other hand are supposed to cloak most of the meaning by using a kind of language that is simply mind-numbing to phrase it really friendly.

There are two posts on Pub Rants that every writer should read, especially the ones trying to make it without an agent. The first one is called Agenting 101 Revisited—Author Warranties and the second Agenting 101 Revisited—No Compete.

Read them, seriously.

Technorati Tags: Writing, Author, Contract

Movie: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

I finally had the chance to watch The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. (I know I'm late to the party, so?) It's hard to describe this movie to someone who has not seen it, but here it goes:

The humor is subtle and this is not a bad thing, IMHO. It is not the kind of movie where everyone in the audience bursts out laughing, but all people "getting" the humor will smile for most of the 120 minutes. It's been a long time since a script managed to get me smiling almost all the time.

Some comments I found compare the movie to Brazil, but I think it's more in line with The Royal Tenenbaums, the latter is no real surprise—both movies were co-written and directed by Wes Anderson. The writing is flawless and the cast is a perfect match to the story to be told, it's futile to name names here, every actor / actress fits perfectly for the respective part.

My Take: This will be a movie with a cult-like following. Go see it, if you haven't already done so.

Technorati Tags: The Live Aquatic, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Cate Blanchett, Anjelica Huston, William Dafoe

Happy Holidays everyone!

Nothing else to say. ;-)

Joseph Barbera 1911 - 2006

I just got the news, that Joseph Barbera had died on 18. December. Now both fathers of the Flintstones, the Jetsons and Scooby-Doo are gone.

Thank you Joseph, for everything.

Good Writing/TV: E-Ring

The TV-show E-Ring is [IMHO, of course] one shining example for good writing. Granted, the better the writing, the higher the probability to get some people on the fences. I'm not talking about the subject, I'm talking about the execution of the job, it is flawless. Why don't we see more fast-paced TV-shows like this?

A quick detour: Fast-paced—in that respect—does not imply 120 cuts per minute (or more), as sometimes shown in CSI:NY. I like all incarnations of the CSI-franchise, but CSI:NY always goes to the bottom of my subjective list, if the editors think they need to do faster cuts to increase the pace of the story. But that is another post … ;-)

Back to E-Ring. It might be easier for the script-writer(s) to compose a convincing story, if they can rely on excellent actors. And E-Ring like, e.g. The 4400, has an excellent choice of actors and actresses. Dennis Hopper as Col. McNulty and Benjamin Bratt as Maj. Tisnewski are to be considered a gift for every writer. The same goes for Aunjanue Ellis and Kelly Rutherford. OK, I have to cut into this list; there has been no actor or actress in E-Ring (regarding the episodes I've seen so far) who seems to be wrong for the part or wouldn't have been my first choice, as well. It would be interesting to hear from the writers, if they would have casted someone else for certain parts, though. I'm not saying that I know all actors and actresses available, but it simply fits.

This is a TV-show which I consider as a good example how things should be done.

Technorati Tags: TV-Shows, E-Ring, Dennis Hopper, Benjamin Bratt, Aunjanue Ellis, Kelly Rutherford

A peaceful Thanksgiving to all

May your turkeys be big ;-)

Gadget abuse?

Don't get me wrong here, I love my gadgets as much as any other guy (I don't think it's a guy-thing any more, by the way), but the article Knock off the gadget abuse now gave me some food for thought.

My new way of writing shuts off some of the distractions, and I think most writers are with me on that one: Being interrupted while writing is a Bad Thing™. So what about other times, e.g. research? Sometimes we are able to work our way through the material without being disturbed, at other times, though …

OK, one has to differentiate: There are people we should be available for, but at all times of day, or night for that matter? As I said, it's a judgement call, isn't it?

Technorati Tags: writing, being disturbed, gadgets

Writing: Doing it the Analog Way

I started a new book a while ago — no computer-stuff this time — and decided to do it in a real old-fashioned way: I'm writing longhand (for all the computer-kids out there: using pen and paper). Hearing that Neil Gaiman does the same thing, more or less, when he was interviewed at Cranky Geeks 30, just helped. ;-)

The whole thing started out with one of the most feared things while writing a book[scary music, please]: THE BEGINNING. I had pondered over several versions, but came to no conclusion how to tackle it. Then the usual happened: Inspiration hit me while sitting on a train; my 12" has been acting up again (does not recognize the battery any more) and the only thing in reach was a legal pad. I grabbed it and wrote four pages in one go, besides one short interruption by the conductor, that is. The experience was wonderful, no distractions, no IMs, no e-mail, nothing. Words or phrases I wasn't sure about got a curly line, to be looked up later. I was able to write down my thoughts without any detours. Don't laugh, try it yourself. It is quite a different thing compared to hacking away at the keyboard.

The process (might be refined in the future, I'll let you know) works like this:

1. I write on a legal pad or my Moleskine.


2. After a while, I read the material again and


3. type it into the computer and


4. do the re-writes as I go.

Seriously, give it a try. Comments via e-mail, please. I'm still fighting with the comment-function.

Technorati Tags: Writing, longhand, writing a book in longhand

Books: 'American Gods' by Neil Gaiman

I finished reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman a couple of days ago. Actually, not the edition the link in the sentence before points to, but a paperback edition containing the authors preferred text, means the book contains material which was edited out of the original prints. Let's call it a directors cut for the sake of simplicity.

As mentioned in the post Some Books are like old Friends, I am a big fan of Neil's collaboration with Terry Pratchett. American Gods was the first book I read written by Neil alone.

So what is my verdict? I ploughed through the book in three days, reading at every occasion that presented itself. It is fantastic. It's some kind of mystery-thriller with a good sense of humor, and that is all I intend to say about it. I don't want to talk (write?) about anything else of the story, because I fear I would spoil a great experience for all people who didn't read the book, yet. I would even recommend to everyone not to look to closeley on the book's website, you might rue it, because you found something, you're not supposed to know yet.

The only author posing a similar problem (regarding his books) I know, is Tom Holt. If you ever tried to describe one of his books in enough detail to interest someone in a book written by him, you know what I mean. If you never read a Tom Holt novel, get one while buying American Gods. We are done her, head for the bookstore!

Technorati Tags: Neil Gaiman, American Gods

It's not only web-design

The post If Architects Had to Work Like Web Designers provides an interesting insight into the downside of designing an website. But the scenario can be applied to almost all creative works to be executed, IMHO.
It actually reminds of a writing-project I did once. ;-) On the other hand, my experiences in the last couple of years have been positive, due to competent editors. Nothing beats an editor who understands you and what needs to be done for a book.

Writers-Block is a Myth!

Don't shoot! Hear me out. Granted, the thing called Writers-Block can be a real problem for everyone putting words on a screen or paper for a living. The term describes the fact that the writer is stuck in the flow of the story and does not know how to continue or is simply lacking inspiration. Writing is a craft, an art form, but why haven't we encountered the term Painters-Block then? Or how does a painter / graphic artist deal with a lack of inspiration? I've been told that they start drawing doodles or something completely different; basically they try to get the thing which hinders the flow of creative thoughts out of their system. Interesting, isn't it?

Let's get back to the loathed writers-block. The writer tries to focus on the storyline, wants to further it and zilch, nothing, nada. What happens more than often, in my experience at least, is not that the brain is suddenly devoid of all inspiration, but some other idea is creeping through the mind, blocking the flow of thoughts regarding the story we are working on. Sounds familiar? Thought so. Why don't we borrow from the painters and try to get this idea out of our system by writing it down? Trying to avoid it and focus on something else doesn't work most of the time – been there, tried that. Even if we think that we lost all inspiration, think harder, isn't there something else blocking your flow? Writing this thing down helped me tremendously and I thought I should share the idea.

Technorati Tags: Writers-Block

If these guys are right…

…we'll see a lot more movies and books about kids growing up. Oh wait…r>;-)

Writing: Is the Process the Solution?

It seems like that, if you take a closer look at Howard Michael Gould on "Page Fright", that is. To be honest, this is pretty much the way I'm approaching my own book-projects or articles (the longer ones; blog-posts are handled in a different way, or not, it depends ;-)). Every writer should read the above mentioned post. But (you guessed it, didn't you?), there is something I have to add and spare you the learning-experience in the process.

Especially when starting book-projects, Backups, no BACKUPS, no [louder] BACKUPS. They not only give you some peace of mind, they are an insurance for everybody involved, thus they should be distributed to another location (hint: gmail for example). Let's face it, even the most elaborate work ends up as a couple of kilobytes, or a megabyte max when zipped, so what's keeping you from storing it somewhere else? Right, nothing. What about the format of the backup? Either XML or some other format that transports well between different programs (with the added bonus that you're able to compress it into really small files).

The proof of the pudding was the size of the compressed XML-files of a 400-odd page book compared to the same book in Word-format, the former was about 500 KB, the latter some two to three megabytes. It might be not your cup of tea (or coffee), but, in worst case, XML can be changed in almost any text-editor available on a computer. This is not to suggest, that everyone should start writing in XML, but to take a closer look if the software used for writing is able to export the data in this format (and read it back in without loosing anything, of course). It might save your day, when your writing-software wants to phone home before letting you make an important change and there is no way of connecting to the Internet. Just a thought.

Technorati Tags: writing, backup, XML

Technorati Tags down? [update]

Is it just me or is there a problem at Technorati and the tagging system? I just researched (OK, clicked) the Vampire Chronicles tag and have been told, that there are no tags for the subject. Strange, indeed.

For the un-initiated, searching for a tag displays a list of blog-posts tagged with this, well, tag.

Everything is working OK again, no idea what happened.


Technorati Tags: Technorati, Tags

Some Books are like old Friends

I mean it, seriously. The current project is (almost) finished and I wanted to read a book. The question is, am I able to really enjoy reading a new book, or do I need something familiar, a.k.a. one of my all-time favorites? I don't think I'm ready for option one, yet. Working on a book is just that, work. Appreciating the narrative of a new book requires, IMHO, a different mindset than the one I have right now. Therefore I decided to search my all-time favorites and found just what I needed:

Good Omens

I bought the UK-paperback years ago – the first edition is from 1990 – I went through the book at least three to four times and enjoyed it immensely. The same goes for this time around, I really love this book.

Back to my opening statement, isn't it nice to open a book, feel right at home, paired with the expectation of the things to come? Basically the same as watching one of your favorite movies, you know what to expect, you know how it ends, you're free to enjoy this work of art. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett delivered just that – if you are into British humor, of course.

The book is still available and there will be a new paperback edition hitting the US-shores in December, if I understood it right. So, if you never heard about this book, take a look.

Technorati Tags: Books, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Good Omens

A Glitch in the Matrix, no Template, Sorry.

There was a little glitch in the template, that prevented not only the viewing of the blog, but seems to disable the Atom-Feed, at least temporarily. Apologies for that.

Still, the new Blogger is awesome. I'm almost done with a bigger project—more work than it seemed when I took the tast, but to whom I'm talking to… Sometimes it's simply hard to judge a writing project.
:-)

I'll be back soon, promised.

Movie: National Treasure

I watched National Treasure for the fifth or sixth time yesterday (DVD). I know it's an older movie, I'm still trying to get through my backlog. ;-)

IMHO: It is a story well told. Not flawless, but really gripping. I wouldn't watch a movie that often if it's not well written, even the comical sidekick works (something I'm not always too fond of). Kudos to the actors / actresses / actorpersons(?) as well, the story wouldn't work without a good cast. The well written dialogs and the impecable timing of the cast executing them carries the story over a couple of, let's say, hard to believe plot points, that would not work otherwise.

For example: Nicolas Cage's and Diane Kruger's characters should sport a visible download-socket. Why? Because they seem to have the contents of Wikipedia and Enceclopedia Britannica available for their perusal at any given moment. Granted, there a people in this world with a lot of knowledge at their disposal, but still… On the other hand, seeing the cast spending lots of time in a library might be believable, but is boring to watch. It would slow down the story to a grinding halt. The camera-work and the production design adds to the believability (is this a real word?) of the film, I'll try to catch a re-run in a movie-theater—if possible—just to see the sequence when the treasure is found in its full glory.

I really like the movie and would recommend it to everyone with a fable for fast-paced action which tells a story as well.

Technorati Tags: National Treasure, Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, good writing, Movie

Books: Finished reading Blood Canticle by Anne Rice

I finished reading Blood Canticle by Anne Rice, the latest incarnation of the Vampire Chronicles I got hold of. As mentioned in this post, I really liked the book. Now I'm done reading and I have to say: I really like this book.

IMHO, it maintains a subtle balance between the style of the first couple of books in the Vampire Chronicles series and the more contemplative tone of the later ones. I'm not saying that I didn't like the narrative used in the later books, but I'm still not done with Blackwood Farm, yet. BTW: It seems to me, that having at least an idea what is going on in another series called Lives of the Mayfair Witches by the same author helps to enjoy Blood Canticle even more.

I recommend this book to all readers of the older books, new readers should start from the begining, means start reading the other books first. Interview with the Vampire is still an all-time favorite of mine, the same goes for the other books in the series.

Technorati Tags: Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice, Books

RSS looks weird

Yes, the RSS-feed looks a bit weird at the moment. I switched to the blogger beta and the blog was transfererred. All posts seem to have the same publishing date in RSS. New posts should not be affected.

Just in case you need to know. :-)

Layout changed, Content stays

Longtime readers might notice that the layout has changed, the content is still the same. I'm still fighting with the new system to add an e-mail address that is not that easy to harvest for spammers.
Cross your fingers, please. ;-)

A Faster Way to Train the Spellchecker in OS X

Every author has to love the built-in spellchecker in OS X. Sure, most of the applications in use by authors come with their own spellchecker, isn't it fun to add new words to all of them? That's what I thought. I don't know about you, but I prefer the systemwide solution any time. ;-)

It is just a question of right-clicking to add new words to OS X's spellchecker, but what about transferring lists from one Mac to the other, or bulk-insertions? Let's try the Macintosh-Way™: There has to be a dialog somewhere. Sorry folks, not this time (I could not find a GUI-way of doing this). OK, we have to follow the path of the Geek.

If we never added a word to the custom dictionary in the past, we have to do so now. Type a word, e.g. the name of one of the characters in the new book that's always garnished with this wiggly red line, distracting our attention. Right-click and add to the dictionary. Now comes the geeky part, go to the Library folder in your home-directory and into the folder named Spelling contained in there. You should find a file named en (if you should work in more than one language, then there might be other files as well). Open the file with a suitable text-editor, e.g. TextWrangler or BBedit and you'll see that the added word is in the file followed by a delimiter (looks like a question-mark turned upside-down). Now you're able to add new words to your hearts content (don't forget to copy the delimiter) or paste the words from another machine into this file.

Check your spelling while doing so! ;-)

To cut a long story short, this seems to be the easiest way to add new words to your custom dictionary, used be all well-groomed Cocoa apps.

Technorati Tags: OS X, OS X Spellchecker

Do you want syrup with this book? (On-Demand printing woes)

Lee Goldberg writes about the Espresso Book Machine in his post The End of Book Warehouses?. There are some valid considerations to use such a system, but I buy most of my new books because I had a chance to leaf through the pages first.

Call me old-fashioned, but discovering new authors/books is a hands-on experience [at least for me], so if a book-merchant – utilising said machine – is willing to produce all the books I might be interested in for me to have a look first, I'm fine with the system.

I have to agree, though, that the method allows to purchase books faster that are on my shopping-list anyway. But the latter would pose a problem for the likes of Amazon, printing a book in a matter of minutes beats overnight delivery all the time. ;-)


Technorati Tags: Books

Books: Blood Canticle by Anne Rice

I recently got hold of the book Blood Canticle by Anne Rice.

I'm into the first 80-odd pages of the book and have to say: GREAT! Great story-telling, great scenes, in short: I love this book. It is so different to Blackwood Farm. The main difference – at first glance – is the fact that Lestat does the talking again, means he has written the book.

I found the book by accident, I wasn't actually looking for another book by Anne Rice since I was not able to finish Blackwood Farm, yet.

I'll keep you posted…

Technorati Tags: Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice, Books

The Top-Ten Geeks on TV

How are Geeks portrait on TV, how believable are they? What is missing in this list are Geeks in Sci-Fi Shows, it is just not that easy to judge someone reversing polarity on a warp-engine.

Here are, without further ado, counting down from 10 to 1, the Top-Ten of the TV-Geeks. [IMHO, of course ;-)]

• 10. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) (The X Files)


• 9. Dr. Rodney McKay (David Hewlett) (Stargate: Atlantis)


• 8. John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) (Lost)


• 7. Dr. Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) (Stargate SG-1)


• 6. Gil Grissom (William L. Petersen) (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation)


• 5. Greg Sanders (Eric Szmanda) (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation)


• 4. Charlie Eppes (David Krumholtz) (Numb3rs)


• 3. Detective Robert Goren (Vincent D'Onofrio) (Law & Order: Criminal Intent)


• 2. Marco Pacella (Richard Kahan) (The 4400)


• 1. Dr. Nigel Townsend (Steve Valentine) (Crossing Jordan)

And as honorable mention for coolness: Dr. Al Robbins (Robert David Hall) (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation).

Technorati Tags: TV, Geeks on TV, Top-Ten Lists

OS X: Supplied Scripts

From the stating the not so obvious department: There is a plethora of scripts on every Mac, waiting to be used. Thing is, they are there, but you'll have to know where to look. The key to activate them is the AppleScript Utility app in /Applications/AppleScript/. Start the application and activate Show Script Menu in menu bar, this gives you a new menu-item (looks like a scroll) with all kinds of menus in it. Happy exploring.

I never thought of that feature as unknown, until a friend asked me about the menu.
;-)

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OS X, AppleScript

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Laughter

The post Can the canned laughter by Kevin Levine is a very interesting read. You should read it in its full glory. My favorite part is quoted here:

Can the canned laughter:

…
One final note: On CHEERS and FRASIER we used recorded laughs from our own shows. Not so with other series. A lot of the laughs you hear were recorded fifty years ago. Many of the people you hear laughing are now dead.

Talk about leaving a legacy. Grandma may now be a distant memory but she’s still with us, every week, laughing at Jim Belushi.

(Via By Ken Levine).

Kind of scary, isn't it? OTOH, who would notice?

Technorati Tags: Sitcom, TV

Who is to blame for a bad Story?

I just finished reading the post Q: Who's Fault Is It When The Story Of The Movie Is Bad? at The Artful Writer. I have to say, that I agree with the final statement, but, seen from a writers point of view, some of the people involved with the development of a story are in the same responsibility as the editor at a plain vanilla book-project. It's their decision if a story or a subject, for that matter, sells. I know, doing something creative (like writing) and sell in the same sentence, but, let's face it, writers have to eat, too. ;-)


My point is, no book or film (besides the well-known exceptions) is created by one person alone, be it the input of friends or co-workers or the guiding comments of the editor (or whoever has to make the decisions while writing a script), there will be influences from the outside nudging, or even steering, the development of a story. If everything goes well and the whole project is a success, everyone is happy. If not, one or the other will utter 'told you so! So, yes, Failure is an orphan.

Technorati Tags: Writing

Books: The Map is Missing!

My girlfriend started reading the latest book by Jilly Cooper titled Wicked!. Jilly Cooper is one of her favorite authors and she waited for four years to get her hands on the book.

She told me, that really likes the book, but that one important feature (present in all other Jilly Cooper books) is missing: The map that shows the location of the houses the acting persons live in.

I have no idea if the publisher just dropped it, or if the author herself decided not to use it this time, but readers tend to notice the little things. Something, we as writers, should keep in mind; needless to say, that the same holds true for the publishers, as well.

Technorati Tags: Books, Fiction, Jilly Cooper

HDTV: Did they blew it already?

According to Bud Meyers' article The End of the Early Adopter or A Declaration of Independence, they did.

A thought-provoking opinion piece, which should be placed – for everyday viewing – over the desks of every single executive working in the entertainment industry (the name says it all, doesn't it?).

Technorati Tags: HDTV

Hackman Double spotted at Soccer-Match

I don't know much about Soccer, but I saw a guy – the coach of Portugal's national team, apparently – who is a spitting image of Gene Hackman.

His name is Luiz Felipe Scolari. They could be brothers, seriously. The other thing I noticed, is the fact that both of them have a Steven Hill-like on-screen presence. ;-)

[IMHO: There are not to many actors sporting a presence like Steven Hill in, e.g. Law & Order or Gene Hackman in most of his acts.]

My favorite quote from Luiz Felipe Scolari during a press-conference is (asked why he turned down the job as coach for the british national soccer team): I want to work somewhere, where I can wear shorts all the time and need the sea in close range. The only other team I'd be interested in would be the one of the Maledives.

Technorati Tags: Actor, Gene Hackman, Luiz Felipe Scolari

John August: I want a cheap, slutty DVD player

John August is obviously looking for a DVD-Player:

I want a cheap, slutty DVD player:

I don’t want a princess. I want a whore.

…but I’m officially sick of trying a disc in three different players before finally getting it to work on my MacBook.

I suspect my ideal DVD player is a no-name made in Guangzhou which can play drink coasters. If anyone can point me towards it, thanks in advance.

(Via johnaugust.com).

IMHO: Smart move, the DVD-Drives in the computers my brother is using die periodically thanks to the copy-protection schemes on commercially available DVDs. Swapping the slot-in drive in a laptop is a PITA (excuse me). The other thing is: DVDs written in a computer – given that the writing machine isn't brand-new – tend to be a little bit off track, tricking the internal DVD-drive to get off track, too. I can't prove this theory, but I got the feeling that the loss of a couple of DVD-drives had something to do with that. Still IMHO, mind you. ;-)

…and Amanda's Answer

To be found here.

[This could unfold into a full-blown Soap-Opera, couldn't it? Let's sit back and watch/read. ;-)]

BTW: I will not take either side, because I don't know the persons in question personally, and thus won't be able to judge the validity of the statements. (Just to make sure.)

Rocketboom: The other Side of the Coin

There is an official Response to Amanda Congdon's announcement on Rocketboom's main page.

What do they say? There are always two sides.

[Who are they, by the way?]

Amanda Congdon is leaving Rocketboom.

I'm sad to hear this, but I'm looking forward to see her again somewhere in the Net.

Amanda Congdon is leaving Rocketboom.:

Amanda Congdon is leaving Rocketboom.

(Via Scripting News).

[Getting rid of old habits is harder than it seems, apparently. ;-) I'm not complaining, the man, let me rephrase THE MAN brought me to blogging in the first place, soߪ
I will really miss reading Scripting News if Dave should stop blogging for good.]

upmarket hamburgers

I just found this while testing a new feed-reader:

upmarket hamburgers:

Finely chop a couple of shallots and a clove or two of garlic. Put them into a saucepan with a lot of red wine, and some salt, some pepper-- a teaspoon of brown sugar helps too. Boil until the reduction is syrupy, about 3/4ths of a cup. Cool a bit.



mix with a pound and a half of good lean minced beef. Form into patties. Grill to desired doneness.



toast some focaccia. Brush the cut side with a little extra-virgin olive oil mixed with fresh-chopped rosemary. Top the burgers with mature cheddar and a rasher of smoked bacon.

(Via Nibblous).

The site is great, but now I'll have to get something to eat instead of working; does this mean, the site is not safe for work?

[The feed of Nibblous obviously went straight into the new reader. :-) ]

I'm back

I was busy and neglected this blog, sorry.
New posts will show up within the next couple of days, I probably found an editor (for blogs) to my liking. More coming up soon, promised.

TV: Philips and the Reactions

I stumbled over the post Philips' Stupid Move and I have to say, that Lance Ulanoff has a point here.
Just a hint: Read carefully ;-)

Moving Books in the Store

This is from the Things you learn about eventually, while reading other writers blogs department. The post Confessions of a book mover made me aware of something I did not know. Really, I had no idea.
Bang, there goes my believe in another myth. I thought the placement is about being new and/or good. All-right, I suspected it. Somewhere deep inside.
;-)
Don't pity me, read the post!

What Logic?

Kevin Levine's post It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a logic problem about the original (?) Superman series got me into a reminiscing state. I'm too young to have watched them when they first aired, but I really loved them when I was old enough to watch the re-runs.
Sure, from a logical point of view some of the super-hero's powers would fail for environmental reasons, but this is supposed to be fiction, right? BTW: one thing that Kevin missed was the fact that, using tele-vision (was that the term?), would require the hero to look through parts of the earth's core, e.g. when watching something in India from the office in Metropolis.
Anyway, let's see what comes up when the new movie comes out. To put it bluntly, I prefer the old King Kong from 1933 over every other incarnation it went through, though.
[Is it just me or do the last two words look funny when just separated by a comma and a blank?]

Good Writing: Who Is Cletis Tout?

I stumbled over Who Is Cletis Tout?[imdb] yesterday, while watching TV. I've never heard about this movie before, but I think that it is worthy to be bought on DVD and to be part of my permanent collection.
I really like the setup, especially Tim Allen Critical Jim, a hitman/movie-buff. My favorite quote is The new movies start with a good first act, but then the story lacks and everybody goes 'let's blow something up' to cover up the faulty story-line. I won't go into more detail, because it would spoil the story for you. Chris Ver Wiel did an excellent job as writer/director, in my (humble) opinion.
If movies like Lock, Stock and two smoking Barrels, Pulp Fiction, or Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang are examples of your taste, have a look, really.

Stories that stand the test of time

Fun Joel wrote an article called Good vs. Great?. Spot on! IMHO, Big Fish and Pulp Fiction already stood their test of time, though. But that's just me.
;-)

OS X: Logging Mail.app's Activities on a Port

Another one for the command-line geeks. If you want to log what Mail.app is doing on a specific port, launch it from a terminal like so:

/Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail -LogActivityOnPort 25

Mail.app will start as usual, but all activities regarding port 25 (smtp) will be logged into the terminal window. Another port of interest would be 110 (pop).

I found this in one of my one-liner-docs. As I wrote in the "Unix/Linux Survival Guide" (link on the right), always keep a text file with one-liners you stumble over handy. I forgot to take note where I found this hint, though. Whoever wrote about this somewhere in the Internet, thanks a million.

OS X: Mac without GUI

While rummaging in the (developer-)documentation of my Mac, I found an interesting technique to get rid of the GUI without resorting to single user mode. If the sheer thought of a Mac without mouse-control scares you, take a deep breath and read on, if you think that this is a cool idea – the box is running BSD anyway – don't forget to breathe.
:-)

The following implies, that your Mac is asking you for a username and a password after booting or after you logged out of your account. When the Username and Password window appears, type

>console

as username and press Enter. The bigger than sign is needed. The system switches to command-line mode, mind, not single user mode, but command-line mode. Means everything is running except the window-system. If you should read this on one computer and already tried it on another, how to get the windows back will be the subject of a post next week.
:-)
Just kidding, if you are done with the *NIX command-line stuff, just type

exit

and the system will revert to the usual behavior. (No surprise if you know your way around a *NIX based system.)

Knowing how to switch off the GUI will come handy, if e.g. your "Finder" starts acting up on you and you have a clear idea what needs to be done to rectify the problem.

Learning about Film without going to school?

The article A Film School Education Without Film School should stir up some controversy in the business. I'm not sure about my take on this, actually. Means, I'll make up my mind and comment later.
:-)

TV: Doing the obvious is left to Apple

The article Apple TV: wait and sue is an excellent rundown why the TV-networks have no-one else to blame but themselves. Nothing to add, really.
Oh wait, maybe one thing: We are told ad nauseam that we are living in a globalized economy, why can't we buy everything in every iTMS worldwide again?

Blogs: Footnotes

There is an article over at Darwinian Web called Nativetext: Delivering RSS feeds to the rest of the world which refers to an idea outlined at Nativetext, translating RSS-Feeds.
I like the idea, but, being a part-time translator myself, I have to admit, that I'm somewhat skeptical. Doing a quality translation not only takes time, but a good understanding about the cultural differences to create a meaningful result. The need of understanding the differences may vary in regard to books, but the more successful blogs usually use all kinds of puns and wordplays that don't translate that easy. Means, a five word punch-line might require a two paragraph explanation for readers not familiar with the underlying assumption and might bore another set of readers into switching websites, because they are familiar with the underpinnings that make the pun work. When doing translations myself, I take the easy, some might call it cheesy, way out: footnotes.
No flames please, I'm aware that the use of footnotes divides the writing community into two factions, fighting over the feasibility of the use of them. I might be influenced by books like Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy or Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, granted, but they work for me. Here comes the problem, there is no blogging software with a decent way to create footnotes, I could not find one, at least. On the other hand, how could footnotes be incorporated into RSS? RSS is supposed to be kind of a streamlined way of distributing information, and this implies no footnotes, just the facts.
Time will tell if there is a way to overcome this dilemma. If you should know about any approaches to incorporate footnotes in blogs in a feasible way, the e-mail is at the bottom of the blog, thanks in advance.

Where are the Comedies?

We watched a couple of older movies this weekend and stumbled over a question: Why this lack of comedies requiring the viewer to think?
Don't get me wrong here, I really loved "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang[imdb.com]" last year and… Bingo, there is my problem. If I go (way) back in time, there was "Life of Brian(1979)[imdb.com]", "Young Frankenstein(1974)[imdb.com]", "The Blues Brothers(1980)[imdb.com]", "Airplane!(1980)[imdb.com]", you get my idea, don't you? (Provided you are old enough to have seen these movies, of course.)
Sure there are movies using humor like "State and Main(2000)", but again, five years ago. To be frank, I don't enjoy "humor" as in "American Pie" that much, I've seen it, I laughed, but that was basically it. Watched it once, wondered if I would watch it again and came to the conclusion "not really."
I wasn't aware about missing the kind of humor in the aforementioned movies until I watched "Love at Stake(1988)[imdb.com]" last weekend. Granted, not a real masterpiece, but it used a kind of humor that made my girlfriend say, "We should watch this again some time."
We tried to figure out why theses movies still are that much fun to watch. They are politically incorrect, the don't slap the humor in your face as in "let's explain why this joke is funny, shall we?" They expect the viewer to think along, draw conclusions based on miss-pronounced words and sometimes even stereotypes (without trying to explain them!). In short, they force you to think while watching and the complete lack of political correctness seems to help, a lot. Fast forward to now. Where are the "politically incorrect" movies, it's like no-one dares to make them anymore. Where are the producers (I really don't think that the writers are to blame here) bold enough to produce movies where not every joke is explained until nobody is laughing any more? It seems that being politically correct implies to explain a lot – to make sure everybody "gets it".
Is trying to be that politically correct in every aspect spoiling the fun out of watching movies? I'm not sure, but my gut-feeling tells me, it might be the case. Trying not to explain every funny situation, could be a start. The viewers are not stupid, they want to be entertained while using their brains.
My 2 cents.

Dave Winer about RSS

We all know what these little orange icons on the different blog-sites mean. I hope, at least.
Here are some words from the inventor what happens money-wise in this area, the piece is called How much has been invested in RSS? on his blog. A very interesting read.

TV: Good Writing

I had a chance – due to re-runs – to watch Crossing Jordan[imdb.com] in the different stages the series went through. The story-lines are an example for exceptionally good screen-writing, in my opinion, of course.
Is it just me, or were the dialogs toned down a bit in the later seasons? Anyway, really fun to watch. Too bad there are no season-boxes on DVD, yet (?).
Kudos to the cast as well. Every member is well-casted, they just work. I wonder if there is a Nigel-fanclub somewhere in the world. (He is part of my dream-team of investigators, but that is another story to be told …)
;-)

regex in Perl

While looking over code I created some time ago, I stumbled over a Perl-script to plot some vital data of a machine. I used Tobias Oetiker's excellent RRDtool to store the data and create the graphs.

BTW: The "Round Robin Database" is something you should definitely investigate if you need to store any kind of numerical value, graph the stored values, and especially if you don't want to make sure that only the current values are stored in the database. Believe you me!

The Perl-script contains a construct I'd like to share with you. The COMMENT modifier in RRDtool 1.2 and later does not like un-escaped ':' in the string to be printed. Here is the Perl code to do so:

$graphtime = localtime(time());
$graphtime =~ s/\:/\\\:/g;

That's regex in Perl, I really like it. Just don't forget to use Time::Local if you want to deploy this code.
;-)

Interesting "Astronomy Picture of the Day"

There was one sentence that came to my mind while watching this Astronomy Picture of the Day:
You guys watched Aliens, right?
:-)

Caffeine-Addicts unite: We are not alone!

There is a website called CoffeeGeek with every information one needs to make a really good cup of coffee. Sometimes they are going to extremes, but hey, so do I!

Movies: Even more of the same?

The last year sported a healthy dose of part twos or remakes and not so much new, original material in regard of the movies shown in theaters. The year we just entered looks pretty much the same. At first I thought I might get picky or that I was just cranky, but most of my friends agreed with me. John August, he wrote the screenplay for "Big Fish", by the way, has a good article on the subject called What’s with all the remakes?.
The fact that I got a clearer picture now, does not change my resolve that I will watch many of the new releases this year on video or DVD instead of going to the cinema. There is not too much in the pipeline that convinces me to shell out the money at the ticket-booth.

PodCasts: Three I can't do without

My list of PodCasts I listen to on a regular basis is much longer, but here are my favorites:

1. NIGHT PASSAGE JAZZ PODCAST
   A great PodCast from Rome, Italy featuring all types of fantastic jazz music. I really like Renato's taste.


2. Daily Sourcecode
   The PodFather[wikipedia] himself. Nothing to add.


3. From our own correspondent (BBC)
   A very interesting and very personal look of the BBC's correspondents on the regions of the world they are in.

Web: I knew 'slashdotted', 'boingboinged' next?

One of my favorite sites, Boing Boing, seems to have raised its power to the likes of slashdot. A website its pointing to loads really sloooooooooooooow. The bad thing about Boing Boing is, so much to see, so little time. The site in question is Pictures of Pennies. OK, that's not the homepage of the site, but this is where Boing Boing points to.
Your site might have been boingboinged has a nice ring to it, don't you think?
Come to think of it, it could be the cache-policy of my ISP as well, but I don't think so.

TWM: "Brothers Grimm", "Big Fish", and "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

TWM (This weekends movies), in order of appearance:

1. Brothers Grimm[imdb].
   Based on what I've been told by others about this film: Did we watch the same movie? I really liked it. I have to think really hard to find a Terry Gilliam movie I didn't like, though. Nope, couldn't find one. The story progresses just in the right pace to enjoy the scenery of the movie, never boring and always amazing to watch the sets. It just works. The story goes, that the parts of Heath Ledger and Matt Damon were planned the other way round, but I think the way it ended up is one of the reasons this movie is so much fun to watch. Interestingly a comment on imdb links this film somewhat to the next and I kind of see the point here.


2. Big Fish[imdb]
   Awesome. If you haven't seen this movie, try to watch it ASAP, you won't regret it. This is how movies should be done. A fascinating story, wonderful sets and great acting. Seriously, read the rest of this post and try to see this movie. Tim Burton did it again. I liked the story so much, that I'm inclined to get the book, just to see if John August had a hard time adapting it to the screen.


3. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy[imdb]
   My girlfriend didn't catch it in the theater and I don't mind watching it over and over again. Just a question: What about part two?

Before someone starts to blame me not to criticize, but to simply hype things here. I usually don't comment on movies I didn't like for a simple reason: maybe they weren't made for me. Means, either I didn't get it or my mindset is just not compatible with the film and/or the story. This stance might change occasionally, but not today.

Telling convincing Stories

I happened to catch the movie "The Woman in the Window" [imdb] yesterday. I think it is brilliant. It is a thriller, it is shot extremely well (sadly it was the colored version, though), and it gripped me right from the beginning. Colored version? I hear you say. The movie was shot in 1944/45. It was colored in 1996, as far as I know. Not that the company did not an excellent job in painting over the grayscale, but some movies should be left as they are shot and not altered later on. (Do not get me started about the color-version of "Casablanca"!)
The Woman in the Window does not need splashy special-effects or too much blood. OK, someone dies, but this murder is not the fifteen minute blood-fest we are so used to from current films; the murder happens and that's it. This movie is about what happens after it.
If you should have the chance to catch it somewhere, take a look. I don't want to tell anything else about the story, it would spoil the fun.

When should a DVD be released?

After reading the article Fixing broken windows (and the comments, of course), a couple of thoughts popped into my mind.
If the DVD would be on sale in the theater, then I could make a decision right away. I would ask if I'd be harassed by either one of the ridiculous You paid to see the movie, you must be a pirate commercials or by some person nagging me about my cell, if so – and I'm still interested to see the movie – I'd buy the DVD. If I happen to be in a bad mood, then I could do the same thing I do with DRMed CDs, ignore the movie and do something else.
Let's face it, going to the movies with my girlfriend and/or a couple of friends is not the same experience it used to be. Especially if I'm not in the country the movie is shown first. If the film should not be available in theaters in the country I'm in at the moment, and won't be so within a week or two, then I prefer to watch it on DVD in the week it came out instead of getting the plot spoiled via TV or any other medium. Secondly, an evening in the cinema usually costs the same amount I'd have to shell out for the DVD anyway, and I'm talking the first couple of weeks the DVD is available.
I understand that theaters have to make money, but do the have to bombard me with commercials for a solid twenty to thirty minutes? I don't think so. I skipped some movies in the theater for that very reason.
BTW: I'm BFC (before first coffee) right now, I might add some more thoughts later.

Scriptwriting: The Sequence of Buttons

While watching "When Worlds Collide (1951)" [imdb] something odd struck me: why do all controls in the space-ship have to be pressed in another sequence than they are built into the console? Every time, if I'm not mistaken.
It could be for the dramatic effect, some idea of the director (Rudolph Maté), or something completely different, but still …
My theory is: it is done this way to demonstrate that not every ordinary person would be able to press the right buttons in the right sequence. This very behavior sticks with the genre and always puts a smile on my face. The sheer thought, that an engineer would create a console with the controls out of a meaningful sequence on it, seems to be a bit far-fetched, don't you think?
On a related note, the story is in production again. Script by Stephen Sommers [imdb]. I hope the spirit of the original will stay. I really like the movie, you know.

grep with color?

I just found this on Robert's Blog, grep understands the --color flag. So, no Robert, you are not the last to know, and, yes, pretty much live-changing. Best of all, it works on Linux and OS X, that's all I need at the moment.
One has just to use:
grep --color <search_pattern> <files_to_search>
<shameless_plug>BTW: I had the honor to do the German translation of his book.</shameless_plug>

The BBC should be taken as an example

…not only for being a credible news-source (some say the only one), but for demonstrating how to give something back to the people who paid them. (The people in the U.K. have to pay a fee for getting the program. Or should I write programme in that case?)
A disclaimer first: if you are not in the U.K., you are not allowed to play (I know it rhymes, so what).
The BBC, or the Beeb, how they are called sometimes, opened up their archive of news footage a while ago. If you are in the U.K., you are allowed to download the material in the Open News Archive under the Creative Archive Licence and use it according to the set terms. A real case of putting your tax-money to work.
Keep up the good work, ladies and gentlemen.
BTW: Check out my favorite station BBC Radio 4, they even have PodCasts. News can be interesting and fun to hear.

Mac: 12" inches its way back to trusty, but isn't there yet.

For those who want to know: I was able to start the 12" again, no coffee-grinder sound-effect so far. Actually, the bugger acts as if nothing has ever happened. Not that I would store anything important on it before swapping the hard-disk, but it seems to be willing to work again.
Kudos to Apple for coming up with Target-Mode, means press down t after the startup-sound and make a Mac behave like a firewire hard-disk. It made the recovery of all the data not included in the last backup a breeze.
I'm trying to figure out what happened for the time being. What seemed to have helped was storing the 12" in a pretty chilly room in the apartment. I'm not sure if the unexpected resurrection is related to that, though.

A Happy New Year

to all readers. Sorry for not writing so long, but the incident with my 12" (described here, actually one post below) took a lot of time to resolve. The usual holiday-turmoil didn't help to speed things up either.
Again, I wish you a healthy, successful 2006. May the backup be with you, just in case.
;-)

Mac: It could happen to YOU, as well!

How's your backup? It's current, right? Well, let me tell you a story:
It happened during the silent days before Christmas. Life was good. The last backup a couple of days old. Nothing new here. My 12" PowerBook rested next a really noisy SUN-box (with noisy I mean Gee, are we that close to the airport? You get what I mean.). The resting place of my 12" (you notice that I omit the word trusty, do you?) was, as already mentioned, next to that SUN-box. It has been sitting there, peacefully, for about two weeks. To be precise, I sometimes lifted it to my lap (hence the name Laptop) to do some typing, next to the SUN-box, mind you.
While doing a print-run, three days before Christmas, it started to act up. The RAM was maxed out, according to Apple's specs, but some of the programs cannot get enough of it, so I thought that I had taxed it a tad too much. Acting up means that I had to see the Spinning Beachball of Death more often than usual. I closed a couple of programs, we are talking *NIX here, after all, to see if everything else starts to run more smoothly. Things simply got slower. Now I got suspicious. Caches to full? /tmp directory overflowing? I fired up a terminal-session to have a look. I watched the program jumping in the Dock merrily, but no window appeared. I tried to launch Safari, out of curiosity, same thing here. Let's reboot.
It took ages until the PowerBook came up again. A quick check in the /var/log/system.log showed no errors. But it felt different. Something emitted a strange noise. I unplugged the PowerBook to take it someplace else to investigate.

Imagine your favorite suspense music, now!

When I left the room with the SUN-box, the PowerBook emitted a noise similar to a coffee-grinder. It came from the front-left corner of the case (the home of the hard-disk, for non-Mac-users). I placed it on my lap, thus in a slight angle (Laptop remember?), the noise intensified. I tried to hold it straight, the noise changed, but did not disappear. Neither Terminal nor Console displayed any errors, none, zilch, nada. Enough joking around, reboot to Verbose Mode, this mode, in a nutshell, makes OS X behave like any other *NIX system, means you get a lot of diagnostic messages. Nothing to see here. Still grinding. All right, Single User Mode. No errors reported, according to the logs. What is going on?
I rebooted the system using the DVD, DiskUtil told me, that I am not in possession of a hard-disk, great. I mean, it made its presence heard, believe you me! I zapped the PRAM, booted from DVD again and, tadaaaa, a hard-disk. You guessed it, noise but WITHOUT ERRORS.
According to Apple - Support - Discussions - PowerBook G4 12-inch I'm not alone, not that I felt better, though.
I bought a Mac mini to have a backup system and I will try to repair my 12", giving it a chance to earn trusty again.
To be fair, it helped me in the writing of three books and a lot of consulting stuff, but it was always treated with respect.
I'll keep you posted.

*NIX: SUN bashed in Survey

The Register comments on a survey about *NIX vendors called Sun ravaged, IBM lauded in Unix server study, which makes SUN look kind of bad, compared to IBM and HP.
There is one fact that needs some extra consideration IMHO, though. Solaris 10™ is a fantastic OS, but it has two drawbacks:

1. It does some things differently


2. It does require more recent hardware

Number one is some kind of drawback because there are usually more flavors of *NIX in a datacenter, means the admins (FYI: those are the overworked, time-starved folks trying to keep everything up and running) need time to integrate it and will only do so if it really pays off in the not so distant future. There is a solid share of machines still running Solaris 8, believe me. The usual practice to install every new incarnation of an OS, so prevalent in the other OS-camp, does not exist in the *NIX world. It even changes, albeit slowly, among the MS-Windows™ user-base, as well. So, *NIX admins have to switch modes, we are talking of the never touch a running system ([my take:] if it does what it should) world, mind you.
Number two is even harder to tackle, most sys-admins do have some kind of staging system for the various *NIX flavors in production, but more than often not the kind I described in my book (in a nutshell: the little brother/sister of the production system). Means they are not able to test-drive and evaluate the OS. Then there are the–smoothly running–production-machines not capable of running Solaris 10; an upgrade would essentially mean getting new hardware, doing burn-ins, testing, installing the software (maybe doing an upgrade), testing again, and, in worst case, rewriting all kinds of scripts and programs to deal with the changed software; think about time-starved and on a low budget.
To cut a long story short: switching to Solaris 10 would mean a lot of effort and re-learning. These are things sys-admins like; it's the reason they took the job. Provided they have the means, budget and time. Go figure!
The fact that most respondents think that SUN will be the dominant supplier of *NIX systems in five years time shows, that the sys-admins would be willing, if supplied with the two things which are usually cut first: man-power and money.
Just my two cents.

A Writers Wish-List

There is one omission in the wish-lists of Fun Joel, the book is called What just happened?. Maybe it is taboo in Hollywood, but I found it at a local bookstore and read it in an afternoon. My verdict: very entertaining.
Check out the other lists here, here and here.

Links: Ken Levine

I added a new link to my list on this blog, By Ken Levine. He worked on some of my all time favorites like Becker, Frasier, Cheers and M*A*S*H.

(Screen)Writing: Writer/Re-Writer

I found some very interesting thoughts in the article The Myth Of The First Martyr...I Mean...Writer at The Artful Writer.
The article deals with the writer/rewriter myth. IMHO: yes, it is much harder to do a re-write than creating an original manuscript; been there, done that (I might expand on this at a later date, but don't hold your breath).

Musings: Programs are the Means to an End

I wrote the section Which Editor to choose? in the Unix/Linux Survival Guide based on discussions, flamewars and the rest of the whole shebang. But I recently discovered, that this type of discussion seems to spread out of the realm of computers. Sure, everybody thinks that the e.g. car that one owns is the best, or the computer, the T.V., you get the picture. But this is not what I'm talking about at the moment. I'm talking about an unsuspecting customer confronted with We are using [insert your favorite operating system/software-package here] and therefore the end product is far superior to what you can expect from [insert the operating system/software-package you really hate for whatever reason here].
Reality-Check: A customer does not, I repeat, does not care about how something is created, most of the time, that is. The German version of the aforementioned book was written in XML using Emacs (no, I won't tell you which flavor [if you really don't know why I won't tell, look here and here]) and the American version in MS Word. The publishers couldn't care less about the program used to create the manuscript, all they were interested in was to get it in the right format, period. The editor used was a tool, the result was a manuscript.
On a side-note: Try writing a text about *NIX commands like date, apropos, etc. and run Word's grammar-checker on it ;-)
Back on topic, as long as your customer wants an end-product, means no further processing on the customer's side, do not bother, or worse, annoy, him/her how you will create said product. It really does not matter if we are talking graphics, layouts, photos, manuscripts, movie-scripts, buildings, cars, airplanes, or cookies (the baked variety). (Try to avoid the if all you got is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail trap, though.) The worst thing that could happen is an—for whatever reason—annoyed customer.
Quick example: I don't feel that good going to the ATM since I learned that most ATMs are running some kind of MS Windows ™ these days.
:-)

Writing: Setting the right Mood and stick to it!

This is something I found out while working as a programmer, but it applies to writing as well. If you are listening to music while doing one of the aforementioned tasks, there will be a noticeable influence on your writing/coding style. DUH!, I hear you say? Right, but sometimes this fact can be used to your advantage.
Let's say you are supposed to work on something really wild and adventurous and you are actually feel a little more mellow than the work at hand allows – or the other way round for that matter. My cure are specially crafted playlists in Apple's iTunes (also to be found on my iPod, of course). That way I have a weapon against my current mood and, especially effective, against the background music in the different coffee-houses I'm writing in.
Too simple? You bet. Give it a try.
BTW: Regarding coding style, check your variables. Mine were called damn1, damn2, etc. for debugging when I was in a very bad mood, looks ridiculous when doing a code-review later, believe me.

Blog: It's nice to be mentioned

Fun Joel added this very blog on a list of blogs he reads, thanks a million El Duderino.
The downside, there are so many blogs in this list I did not know, that the next couple of days will be hard on my usual schedule.
;-)
Thanks again.

Solaris: Simple Display of logged Entries in SunScreen

This is another entry for the I could remember this, but why should I? I have it on the blog. category.
I already wrote about the firewall in Solaris 9 called "SunScreen" here and here. Now a quick reminder for me and others who tend to forget the syntax of commands.
To display a list of all denied connections, the following chain of commands can be used:
ssadm log get | ssadm logdump -i - -t a logwhy 256
This command results in a list of denied connection-attempts to the machine, provided the entry for denying contains LOG SUMMARY or any other valid specifier for the LOG command. log get instructs ssadm to (no surprise here) get the log. It is then piped to another incarnation of ssadm which is instructed to read from standard in (-i -), to convert the seconds stored with every entry to a meaningful time and date combo (-t a) and to filter the entries for a why-code of 256.
BTW: One thing that seems to be really hard to remember for me is the way the numerous options of ssadm are named in the man-pages, e.g. man ssadm-logdump. Who would have thought of that, a hyphen, outlawed in *NIX to prevent confusing the different shells. Hm.

It starts to get annoying!

I'm about to cancel my subscription to the Music Perspectives PodCast. Don't get me wrong, I've been listening to it for quite some time now and I think it is excellent, BUT I can't take the lame Don't steal music stuff any longer. It's probably not even Ed Justen's fault that I am annoyed, but everybody has to draw a line somewhere and the last Music Perspectives PodCast contained this stupid line and this time it was one to many.
I DO NOT STEAL MUSIC! And I really don't like to be a suspected thief, either. If the record companies consider me a paying enemy, then I'm not interested in doing business with them.
My stand regarding DRM is simple – really simple in fact – if a CD contains DRM I ignore the artist. Completely, zilch, I'm not interested. The artist does not exist for me, period. I won't download anything from the artist, I won't buy the CD, I actually will switch the channel on the radio or TV when said artist appears, end of story.
This may sound extreme, but as I said, everybody has to draw the line somewhere. If I really care about an artist, then I will send an e-mail, explaining my view of the world to the artist. I do not expect an answer, though.
I am a published writer, but I would never think of putting a Don't copy my books, please anywhere, neither spoken, nor in writing. It is a matter of trust, you know.
;-)

Mac: Are we really that different?

The article Dear switchers remembered me of one occasion I found out (again), that we Mac users seem to be really thinking different.
I started working with Macs in '86 and continued to do so on and off until now. After an absence of about four years from the Mac-Scene, I got my first PowerBook in 2000. I really liked it and used it to work on a game-design document on a flight from L.A. to London. The flight was over night and the crew shut down the lights in the cabin after a while. I noticed that some people wandering in the plane gave me a Thumbs-Up when passing my seat. I tried to place them, but never met one of them to the best of my knowledge. Number ten or eleven solved the riddle for me: How do you like the Pismo?
I didn't knew about the glowing apple logo then.

InDesign CS2: Inherit Color solved!

I received an e-mail a couple of days ago from Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion of DesignGeek Central fame (if you are into design, check the site, seriously).
The solution to the problem described in this article, can be solved easily, if you know how. I was wearing my programmer hat as I tried to tackle the problem, I guess. If you CMD-click on the offending swatch in the GUI used to define the character-format, the setting reverses to the inherit state. It's that simple!
There goes the plan to create an AppleScript app to fiddle with this (and other) settings, though.
;-)
Thanks again to Anne-Marie.

Priorities: To Noodle or not to Noodle…

A client bailed out of an appointment this morning. Confronted with two days to spare, a tough decision has to be made: How will I spend the time at hand?
Cleaning the apartment? Yeah, right. Actually, I could work on my book (something I had planned for next week). Factually, I think I will do a bit of noodling (I learned about this word at Franklin McMahon's excellent PodCast Media Artist Secrets). It refers to play around with something in a creative way to find out about new and interesting uses for it. For example: I couldn't find the time to nose around in the new features of Reason, there are a couple of approaches to investigate them:

1. Read the manual (could be interesting)


2. Read in a book about it (could give another view on the subject)


3. Noodling

A real puzzler, what would be the most fun thing to do?
;-)

Mono: Yep! Works!

Title says it all. The -r switch did it.
BTW: This is an update to the post below this one ;-)

Mono: Compiling a WSDL

This post belongs to the I had a hard time finding this information so I put it somewhere I can easily find it again category.
I tried to compile a WSDL with mcs like this:

wsdl Service.wsdl
mcs /target:library Service.cs

and always got this error message:

Service.cs(22) error CS0234: The type or namespace name `Services' could not be found in namespace `System.Web'

I found this command after a long search on the Internet:

mcs /target:library Service.cs -r:System.Web.Services

Now everything seems to compile O.K. Let's see if the resulting .dll works.
I'll keep you posted.

InDesign CS2: Inherit a Color

I'm currently working on a book about using XML/XSLT with Adobe InDesign CS2. I have worked with the program and its competition like Quark XPress and FrameMaker (no link here since the Mac version ceased to exist) for quite some time now and I think that the XML support has matured quite a bit. It's not FrameMaker yet, but I keep my hopes up high that the program will eventually get there.
There is one aspect of the Character Formats which puzzled me, though. I could not find a way to change the color of such a format to nothing, the setting the format uses when it is created. If you change the color-assignment for the format in the GUI once, there is no way to get back to nothing, means the color from the enclosing paragraph format is inherited. Sure, one could simply create a new format and exchange it for the now non-working one. But in my case, the format is used (and mis-used) in a number of ways and I really don't want to check in all the places. So I came up with a simple AppleScript to do the switch:

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS2"
set myDoc to document 1
tell myDoc
set myCharFormat to character style "insert_cstyle_name"
set the fill color of myCharFormat to nothing
end tell
end tell

Yes, I know that this could have been done in a single line, but this line would not fit in this layout. (It might not fit on certain browsers anyway.) But still, here you go, switching back to nothing.

Writing: Organizing Ideas

After reading The end of One Big Text File at MacDevCenter.com, I found that I'm not alone in my approach. But (a big one, as always) I still advocate using lists, more than one, that is. As I wrote in my book Unix/Linux Survival Guide, I tend to keep lists leaning to a certain subject. They hold all the bits of information I deemed interesting at a time, but are too small or insignificant to create a whole file for one of them alone. On *NIX, these directories can be greped, on OS X they can be spotlight(ed) or greped.
Bigger ideas (think information spread over more than one paragraph) go into their own files with a speaking name. This mode of operation allows me to browse the little ideas or information on a certain subject for inspiration. No, they do not migrate into their own file if I expand on them. I want to preserve the bits a subject started from, when you start polishing something, a.k.a. rewrite it to fit a special purpose, some of the original information could get lost. Said information might give me an insight from a different angle and I don't want to loose that.

Movie: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

I went to see Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang a couple of days ago. Go and watch it, seriously.
A quick test if this movie is for you:

• If the first word that came to mind after watching Pulp Fiction was WOW!


• If you tried, like me, to buy another ticket for the same movie after watching The Usual Suspects.

Go see it, the script is great and I actually could not find anything that I did not like about the movie. Okay, there is one thing, no release date for the DVD, yet.
This movie is so not Hollywood (Will the audience get that joke or do we have to re-write?; OMG, the girl is naked, what shall we do about it?; What would be the target audience for this movie, and isn't it to intelligent for them?). In short: this is how movies should be made!

Confusing Adverts by IBM

Is it just me or should the guys in the new ads for the IBM Blades take a look at the link pointing to Tivoli?
The ad with the runner states: "If we are using Blade-Center, then we don't have to run to the machines." Didn't IBM buy Tivoli for that reason?
Just a thought.

What's next, ASCII?

Read the article Who owns XML?, maybe it furthers the understanding that the whole system is flawed.

All the World's a ... Noise?

The article called "You Know What? Just Shut Up" over at Wired hits it on the spot. Point in case, some of my neighbors use their car-alarms to wake up the whole neighborhood at 3 AM, maybe it's not their fault, maybe it is.
While agreeing with the article, I have to admit, I wrote an AppleScript that makes my Mac call (as in shouting) me if mail from certain people arrives. Gives me freedom to roam the apartment, you know.
;-)

The Curse of the Power-Supply

Yours truly treated himself to a new switch for the office. If you should be into making music or using things like hubs, switches, or something in that line of electronica, then you might already know what this rant is about.
Power-supplies that plug directly into the socket, just wide enough to block the neighboring sockets and render them unusable. The manufacturers of these things seem to believe that their appliance will be the only one in need for electrical power. Makes sense, people using things like switches will never use other devices that might need power as well. Who would use a switch to connect, I don't know, let's say computers for example?

Writing: First Review on Amazon.com

I got my first review on Amazon for the Unix/Linux Survival Guide.

Opinion: TV-Shows on Video iPod

The excellent Register has an opinion piece called Apple and Disney's two-inch disappointment. Granted there is a lot of truth in there, but (a big BUT) I'd be actually glad to pay for this content (being able to watch it the day after it aired) and not wait for an eternity, until some TV exec decides to show it in the part of the world I am at the moment. Regarding high-profile series like Lost or 4400, it is really hard not to stumble over spoilers that ruin all the excitement before I even had a chance to watch.
The article addresses this topic as well, but in the view of the world any TV exec seems to have, I'm not the customer, the ones that pay for the adverts are.
Just my 2 cents of wisdom ;-)

Internet Stamps?

My first reaction after reading the article Internet Stamps at ongoing was, this could actually work. On second thought, though, I really don't think so. (I want recognition for not using I don't think so, Tim. Did it anyway, damn!)
My point is, changes to websites would cost stamps as well. How will the cost (the needed stamps) be measured? Per link? Good, that would avoid link-farms – and punish people for linking into the Internet; who needs links anyway? Per website-change? What about link-farms?
Either I don't see it (only two cups of coffee so far) or the idea needs some more work.
IMHO, of course.

Listing Network-Connections

There are many ways to list the open connections on a *NIX-based system, the first option that comes to mind is usually netstat. The article CLI Magic: Trojan Scan at linux.com talks about two important things to keep in mind:

1. There is always more than one way on *NIX


2. There are tools on every *NIX box, waiting to be chained together to achieve results

I did not investigate the program the article is talking about, I will later, though. What tickled my fancy was the fact that I almost forgot that lsof can be used as well.
In a nutshell: lsof -Pni gives you a listing of the currently opened connections.

OS X: Getting used to Speech too much?

I found myself trying to instruct my Linux box via voice-commands this morning (before the first coffee). Am I getting too used to my Mac? Speech works like a charm. As long as my Sun does not start to do some serious work, that is. The frequency of the fans seem to cancel the reception of the microphone in my trusty PowerBook; same goes for loud traffic noises.
OTOH: If I'd start to talk to my Mac in the coffee-shop, who knows what people would think or do, anyway.

Writing: YES!

It's not my first, but it is always exciting when an author gets to actually hold the result of countless hours in his hands.

You cannot Escape?

Sorry, long time no post ;-) (Excuse: books to read / books to write / Reason / DVDs to watch / take your pick)
Anyway, I rediscovered Speech on my Mac. Why rediscovered? Because I simply forgot about that feature and Apple emphasizes it not enough in their marketing material, IMHO.
To cut a long story short, I was punishing some more incompetent ad-servers in my hosts file and, all of a sudden, couldn't escape out of the insert-mode of vi.
<conspiracy theory>Should some of the bad guys know about my little secret? Duh! I already wrote about it.</conspiracy theory>
Then it struck me: Speech uses the ESC key to control if and when my Mac should actually listen to me! But I don't use the key, since I want the machine to listen continuously. You already guessed it, the key is blocked anyway.
The conclusion: you should really check out this feature, but don't forget to remap the ESC key if you are using vi.