Skip to main content

Software reflections

As usual, the end of the year makes me thoughtful not only about what I do, but also the tools I use to do it. Much of my life is spent with computers, and so it makes sense to take a step back and look at the larger picture of that from time to time.

I now use four operating systems: Windows 7 at work, Ubuntu 12.04 at home, iOS on iPad in many locations, and my Android smartphone.

A great deal of my work has moved to the cloud, where I can gain access to it from all these devices. Google has my Calendar, Tasks, and Contacts. the calendar syncs to my Exchange server at work (although I understand that Google doesn't offer that program anymore).

Many of my working files are on Dropbox, where I work with them from Office suites on all the individual platforms (Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, Polaris Office, QuickOffice). There are difference between them, but all of them do the modest work I need from them (mostly editing small word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation files). I keep a lot of little files on Evernote, mostly haiku.

I use a fair number of cross-platform tools: Notecase Pro for Windows, Linux, and even Android (although it's a little clunky on the phone). It doesn't exist on iOS, although Plaintext is kind of a workalike. Notecase Pro remains my primary work/task management tool, a combination outliner, text database, and journal. I use the Xmind mindmapping program for Windows and Linux, with work-alikes on iOS (iThoughts HD) and Android (Mindjet). I see that SimpleMind, another mind mapper, is now on Windows, iOS (where I use it a lot for talks), and Android (although it's really too small on my phone's screen). I use Kompozer to edit my web page on both Windows and Linux, but not iOS or phone.

I have clients for my email on all platforms. I have eBook reader clients on all platforms (Kindle, Adobe, 3M, DCL).

I have Twitter clients on all platforms, sometimes through a browser, sometimes not. Mostly, I use Chrome, but the browser doesn't really matter that much.

The only other tool I seem to reach for is a single pane outliner. They're just wonderful tools for thinking. I've got tkOutline on Windows and Linux, the marvelous CarbonFin Outliner on iOS, and the Android Outliner. Moving things from one to the other - importing and exporting, synching - gets to be more important all the time.

Bottom line: I'm using more software than I used to, and by preference, it's open source, or cheap. But the focus is more on the file than the tool. Most of the work I do is ephemeral (browsing, email). The few things that aren't need to be stored and backed up where I can access them from anywhere, and in a file format that permits the easiest portability.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Uncle Bobby's Wedding

Recently, a library patron challenged (urged a reconsideration of the ownership or placement of) a book called "Uncle Bobby's Wedding." Honestly, I hadn't even heard of it until that complaint. But I did read the book, and responded to the patron, who challenged the item through email and requested that I respond online (not via snail-mail) about her concerns. I suspect the book will get a lot of challenges in 2008-2009. So I offer my response, purging the patron's name, for other librarians. Uncle Bobby's wedding June 27, 2008 Dear Ms. Patron: Thank you for working with my assistant to allow me to fit your concerns about “Uncle Bobby's Wedding,” by Sarah S. Brannen, into our “reconsideration” process. I have been assured that you have received and viewed our relevant policies: the Library Bill of Rights, the Freedom to Read, Free Access to Libraries for Minors, the Freedom to View, and our Reconsideration Policy. The intent of providing all tha

Installing Linux on a 2011 Macbook Pro

I had two MacBook Pros, both 13" models from late 2011. One had 4 gigs of RAM, and the other 8. Both of them were intolerably slow. In the first case, I wound up installing CleanMyMac , which did arcane things to various files, and put up alerts to warn me about disappearing memory. But it made the machine useable again, albeit not exactly speedy. I changed some habits: Safari as browser rather than Firefox or Chrome. I tried to keep tabs down to four or five. The second Mac had bigger problems. Its charger was shot, but even with that replaced, the battery tapped out at 75%. More importantly, the whole disk had been wiped, which meant that it wouldn't boot. Recently, I had downloaded a couple of Linux distributions ("distros") on USB drives. Elementary OS 5.1 (Hera) was reputed to be a lightweight, beautiful distro that shared some aesthetics with the Mac OS. So I thought I'd give it a try. Ahead of time, I tried to read up on how difficult it might be to

The enemies of literature

Every year, apologists for the restriction of reading stumble over themselves to "mock" Banned Books Week. Walther (Oct 1, 2023's " The Enemies of Literature ") upholds the grand tradition. Complaints about banning, the argument goes, are simply false. Walther writes, "In zero cases since the advent of Banned Books Week has a local or state ordinance been passed in this country that forbids the sale or general possession of any of the books in question." Yet Texas HB 900 was passed on June 13 of this year. It requires book vendors to assign ratings to books based only on the presence of depictions or references to sex. If a book is "sexually explicit" and has no direct connection to required curriculum, it must be pulled from the school. (One wonders what happens to the Bible, and its story of Lot's daughters, first offered by their father for gang rape, and whom he later sleeps with.) In Arkansas, legislation stated that school and pu