May 20, 2013
Taking your pen to hand - or more often keyboard, in these times - is not always a simple undertaking. That's not to say writing is bothersome. No, rather the opposite. Writing is wonderful, awesome, enchanting, and a hundred other things. The problem then is that there are too many distractions. Loud noises, flashing lights....not just outside of your window, but on your computer as well.
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May 19, 2013
Windows’ Notepad is one of the first accessories that I learned to use on my Windows 98 machine. Notepad is possibly the most simple and easy-to-use application that ships with Windows still today, and it’s tough to pick at any of the features or functionality. It is the most-used text editor in the world and [...]
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May 14, 2013
If you do any form of writing on the web – as a developer, or as an author – it's about time you became familiar with one of the more lightweight languages out there. Markdown is a simple markup language that's easier than HTML. In fact, you can think of it as a big brother to plain text writing. Developers know all about it. It's time, we simple writers became familiar with it.
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May 7, 2013
Apple doesn’t offer an all-in-one office suite, so users who want to handle these tasks on their tablet must turn to a third-party solution. One of the most popular is QuickOffice Pro HD, a $19.99 iOS productivity suite that is actually owned by Google. The app promises the creation and editing of Word, Excel and Powerpoint files and lets users save documents to .PDF. All of which sounds great – but does it actually work?
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April 16, 2013
A text editor should not get in your face. The more you notice it, the worse it is. The best ones are nearly invisible, staying out of the way and letting you become one with your prose. For an application as simple as Notepad, that's easy. But it becomes a trickier proposition if you're trying for this level of simplicity while still offering advanced features like Dropbox sync and instant Markdown preview. LightPaper is a $2 text editor for Android that rises to the challenge.
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April 13, 2013
When it comes to using a simple text editor, Apple's TextEdit application feels outdated for me. It seems like Apple has forgotten about it while other third-party developers have gone on to produce more advanced text editors that work seamlessly across Mac and mobile platforms. One such example is the distraction free writing program, WriteRoom ($9.99), developed by HogBaySoftware.
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April 6, 2013
Try out a simple word processor for Mac. Maybe you're unwilling to fork out the funds for Apple's Pages or Microsoft's Word. Maybe you're looking for something lightweight and speedy? Or maybe you just like the idea of using simple software to get things done. Whatever your reason, Bean is a great alternative word processor for Mac users everywhere. Bean is not a full-fledged replacement for Word or Pages – software it claims "try to be all things to all people".
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April 4, 2013
A great amount of productivity comes from writing tasks, whether it be for school assignments, articles for your blog, or much more. While full-featured office applications tend to be the norm for such tasks, it may sometimes be a good idea to go in the opposite direction and use some simpler or specialized tools, depending on what you’re working on. Often, this can either help you focus more on the work that's ahead.
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March 27, 2013
Use an advanced text editor on your Mac, free of charge. TextWrangler comes complete with code highlighting for most major languages and a whole lot more – and it's free. If you even occasionally edit any kind of code – even just HTML – this is worth having around. This is not a word processor – it offers no styling options whatsoever. This is a text editor, meaning it handles only plain text .
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March 21, 2013
Traditionally, writing is a solitary affair. It's just you and the screen, or a piece of paper. Man versus text in a battle of wills, wits, and emotion, until suddenly – you're done. Now it's time to show the world, to put your text out there and watch what happens. But in these digital times, that's not the only way to go about writing.
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February 20, 2013
Writing is almost like meditation. The mind whirrs around a million thoughts, but anyone who has been in the zone will attest to the fact that the calmness enveloping it shuts off the writer from the rest of the world. Creative work needs silence and a distraction free environment to connect those million thoughts. I am a writer in the very basic sense of the word and I have gone through my basic share of distraction free editors.
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February 19, 2013
If you've frequented any forum in the past couple of yours, you're probably familiar with BBCode. BBCode is a markup language that many message board systems, such as vBulletin and phpBB, used to make it easier for their users to format their posts with HTML. Basic HTML, like changing your font size or font color, is already extremely easy to learn, but BBCode makes it even easier.
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January 16, 2013
If you are using your iPad like a laptop computer or notebook, Apple's iOS version of its word processor, Pages ($9.99), is exclusively designed for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. In its most recent update, Pages received improved capability with Microsoft Word and the Mac version of Pages.
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January 2, 2013
As mobile devices become more and more prominent as productivity tools, so an increasing number of apps offering solutions become available. Earning my living as a freelance writer, I’m particularly interested in word processing on my Android tablet, which I use as a proxy laptop computer. Thanks to a selection of useful apps – native and third party – I’m able to work from just about anywhere!
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December 7, 2012
Distraction-free editors are all the rage these days, and I’m fully aboard the train as a raving fan. I love the fact that these editors block out everything else on the computer so that you can write in peace. There’s a lot that could be said regarding our culture, that we need distraction-free programs in order to concentrate, but that’s for another article entirely. In terms of software programs, there are a bunch of different distraction-free editors you can pick from.
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