Category: Computers

  • Recommending a Search Engine

    I’ve discovered Clusty — very fast, does not track you as you use it, is not plagued by endless advertising, seems to have respect for copyright, returns good results. Clean interface, some nice add-on features. I’m comfortable recommending it in place of search engines that do not have those features or that do not respect…

  • Sony Root Kit Warning

    This is passed on from Jerry Pournelle, who is as unimpeachable as sources get. Does not affect me — I work on a Mac. Could very well affect you. This is a Chaos Manor Warning. I would be shouting if I were not concerned that it would trigger your spam filters. You may or may…

  • Redundantly Backed Up Data Will SAVE YOUR SANITY

    The weblog was down. I thought it was dead. Gone. Doomed. And then I remembered that I still had fresh, un-screwed-up copies both on my back-up hard drive, and on the other computer. Uploaded file, problem gone. ALWAYS BACK UP EVERYTHING.

  • Back

    Both the 40GB main drive and my 120GB backup drive are now all spotlessly clean and shiny on the inside, and things are once again working the way they should. Somewhat later than I’d like, then, I’m getting to work. And I should be ashamed of myself. While I was sitting here waiting for opportunities…

  • DiskWarring

    My usually rock-steady Mac is hanging up following my dumping of a bunch of programs off the hard drive. Suspecting that I messed up permissions somewhere while haphazardly ripping things out, I’m going to spend the first part of my working morning today cleaning up my hard drive with DiskWarrior. More in a bit.

  • Technology May Have Bypassed Me

    One of my best friends sent me a link for the TouchStream LP ZeroForce Keyboard I looked it over, thought it was terribly cool, considered it … and then realized with horror that I would not be able to use it. I’m sure it would remap to Dvork — that isn’t the problem. The problem…

  • Clustering Techniques for Breaking Writing Barriers

    How ’bout that. Not only that, but pain and all, working today is actually soothing. Remember yesterday’s little image cluster? Well … it grew. And I’ve had a couple of story breakthroughs because of it. Here’s the same thing in outline form — a little less overwhelming. Gifs and outline and the HTML for it…

  • Fighting the Unwilling Brain

    My mind is refusing to cooperate on rethinking the outline. So I let the subconscious pick pictures out of Inspiration’s collection, and I’m forcing the conscious part of the brain to give me new directions for the story based on these odd images. Thought I’d share the mostly nonverbal bit I’ve done so far, simply…

  • A Little Inspiration

    Playing around with character background and cultural stuff for my female protag tonight. The whole focus of the book has shifted. Primary storylines have become secondary, secondary lines have moved to the forefront requiring deeper exploration. It’s a big hairy hell of a mess, but it would be a lot worse without Inspiration. Excellent piece…

  • Little Bit of Playing

    Redid my Geeklog installation to match the rest of the site. I like it much better without all the metal boxes. This day off is pretty much like the day off of any other writer just off a hard deadline with another two looming — I’m catching up on housework. Feh! But it’s a gorgeous…