For the most part, niche applications  like PowerWriter attempted to capitalize on the "more is better" syndrome that affect applications at the time. For the experienced writer, this wasn’t an issue. Most professional writers had their own tools and process for writing and needed little in the way of gadgets and gimmicks to be productive. What gimmicky applications did however, was to instill aspiring writers with the perception that they needed expensive, complex tools to be a successful writer.

It’s nearing the end of 2007 and while I still see many of those applications kicking around, there are also a handful of applications that forsake complexity in favour of minimalism — "less is more…".

Not surprisingly, most of these applications tend to be developed for the Mac OS. Perhaps this is simply and example of inspiration (Apple is well known for their minimalist approach to hardware and software), but whatever the case, the trend seems to have caught on, and there seems to be more applications out there that shirk complexity.

Mac OS Applications for the Creative Writer:

Here are some examples of Mac applications that follow a "less is more" philosophy (in comparison to MS Word and other word processors):

Avenir

What they say: Avenir is a new kind of software for writers. Part word processor, part database, completely focused on the creative process. Whether you are brainstorming for your first short story or putting the finishing touches on your latest best-seller Avenir provides the tools you need to manage the creative process from inception to publication.

Scrivener

What they say: Scrivener is a word processor and project management tool created specifically for writers of long texts such as novels and research papers. It won’t try to tell you how to write – it just makes all the tools you have scattered around your desk available in one application.

Ulysses

What they say: Ulysses was developed mainly for writers who work creatively with text and want or need to realize large amounts of text. With traditional word processors and text editors, the user is either being promoted to the job of a type setter or needs to bother himself with other inadequacies those applications have.

Writeroom

What they say: WriteRoom is not Microsoft Word. It won’t generate a table of contents, it won’t place borders around your documents, and it doesn’t have an animated paper-clip looking over your shoulder. Instead WriteRoom just provides the essential features required to get words on the page. Stay focused with WriteRoom’s distraction free environment. Stay on track with word count. Stay safe with autosave. You just type, and WriteRoom will do its best to stay out of your way.

Z-Write

What they say: Z-Write is a unique word processor designed for creative writers. In the process of writing a story, writers tend to create dozens or even hundreds of pages of notes, character bios, rewrites, reminders, and bits of research info. Organizing all that material within the linear structure of a traditional word processor is awkward at best… Z-Write changes all that. It allows you to create an unlimited number of Sections and each Section can have as much or as little text as you’d like.

Windows Applications for the Creative Writer:

Here are some examples of Windows applications that follow a "less is more" philosophy (in comparison to MS Word and other word processors):

PageFour

What they say: PageFour is a tabbed word processor and outliner for writers. It has a simple structure based around Notebooks. Each Notebook contains as many Folders and Pages as you wish, and is structured in whichever manner best suits YOU. Every writer works differently, and PageFour recognizes this.

JDarkRoom

What they say: JDarkRoom is a popular, simple full-screen text file editor with none of the usual bells and whistles that might distract you from the job in hand. If you are writing a novel, essay, thesis or just need to be able to concentrate on your writing, then JDarkRoom may help you.

DarkRoom

What they say: Dark Room is a full screen, distraction free, writing environment. Unlike standard word processors that focus on features, Dark Room is just about you and your text.

…

That’s it in my opinion. Sad isn’t it?

Windows continues to foster bloated applications, and when it comes to software for Creative Writers, it becomes increasingly frustrating to find anything that’s remotely productive. Recent versions of windows haven’t overcome that hurdle. Keep in mind however that this does not really take into account text editors.

I love text editors simply for the fact that most of them claim to do only one simple thing, and that is to edit text.

Software developers seem to overlook the fundamental task of a writer: to write. And really, if you think about it, what more does a writer need than something to capture their ideas and thoughts. In the publishing world, they have typesetters who specialize in formatting. It’s what they are paid to do, and it is what they excel at doing. Writers need not deal with formatting to the extent of becoming typesetters. About the only time that writers can legitimately (and successfully) attempt typesetting, is when they’re ready to submit and so, must follow some basic (very basic) formatting guidelines for their finished pieces.

While it’s true, some text editors overstep their bounds — most of these text editors are aimed at developers (see: Text Editors on 43Folders) — there are a handful that do what they’re intended to (I’m not going to promote MS NotePad — it’s just a P.O.S in my opinion).

Examples of Windows-based text editors:

Here are some examples of text editors that I use for various purposes, but have at one point or another been my tool of choice when writing.

MetaPad

What the developer says: Once upon a time, one of the most useful programs for everyday use was known as Microsoft Notepad. I realized that Notepad was quite powerful and did a lot of what I wanted in a simple text editor. Yet I found the user interface to be unlike most 32-bit Windows applications and actually quite poor…

MetaPad is a small, fast (and completely free) text editor for Windows 9x/NT/XP with similar features to Microsoft Notepad but with many extra (and rather useful) features. It was designed to completely replace Notepad since it includes all of Notepad’s features and much, much more.

Phrasis

What the developers say: Phrasis is a is a stripped down text editor. We want to remove any feature that might hinder the productivity of a professional (or serious amateur) writer and add any feature that would increase the efficiency (of must our users). Therefore, we’ve created an interface with only the bare essentials, no menus, no formatting features and no nonsense.

The right tool for the job

I leave it up the individual writer to select their tool of choice; I’ve worked with almost all of these packages at one point or another, and many of them have great features and strengths. I continually find myself coming back to text editors. If you’re sick of both word processors and text editors, you can always fall back onto older methods — hello, DOS applications!

If you have come across applications that you feel meet the task of a writer, please feel free to comment. I would love to compile a more comprehensive list of applications that other users have experienced and are satisfied with, rather than trolling Google and reading dubious reviews.

At the recommendation of a friend, I decided to give Windows Live Writer a whirl. After getting past my initial frustrations with installing the software (I’ll detail that shortly), I’m actually quite pleased with the product. I know it’s only beta, but it runs and feels like a solid Release Candidate. The UI is pretty typical of Windows Software in terms of look and feel, but they’ve opted for a less is more mantra in this particular case. The toolbars are absent of the dozen or so controls and icons you might expect of a Microsoft product, instead there are only the typical options for formatting that you might see in a TinyMCE editor (found in most blogging platforms). On top of that, Windows Live Writer can interface with some of the most popular logging platforms currently available.

What I like about Windows Live Writer:

Note: my comments and opinions are largely coloured by the fact that I prefer WordPress over most other blogging platforms, and so if it seems the review is particular skewed towards WordPress features — it is.

• Multi-platform support: Easy setup with popular blogging platforms such as WordPress – I would never have bothered to evaluate this software if it didn’t at least include WordPress as a supported blogging platform.
• The Editor: WYSWYG Editing – say what you want about this feature in other software, I personally like to see what my blog postings look like with my style sheet applied to it. One of my minor frustrations is seeing my titles and headlines wrap onto multiple lines leaving widows (single words on a new line). With Windows Live Writer, I can adjust my titles and headlines in real-time to my satisfaction. WLW has built-in support for toggling between rendering modes (Normal, Web Layout, Web Preview, HTML Code).
• Keyboard Support: Inserting objects and links are easy with accelerator key support – Ctrl + K (insert link), Ctrl + L (insert image). There is also additional support for embedded media, tables, etc. Most of this you can get online already, but it’s nice that the software took this into consideration and provided it in a single place in the UI.
• Formatting: Windows Live Writer uses the style sheets you are currently hosting online. While I’ve mentioned it’s WYSWYG features, this again shows how something as simple as seeing your custom block quotes in the editor, exemplifies attention to detail. The same applies to links. I have an inline style for my links in my posts and they show up in the editor exactly as they would appear in my browser.
• Blog Post Meta: WLW supports many of WordPress’ "post meta" features such as: the ability to enable/disable comments; allow/deny pings; set the post slug; set the post excerpt; specify Trackback URL’s.
• Reminders: If you take the time to set your application’s preferences before you start using it — you probably won’t, but it’s something you can do later — you’ll notice that in the preferences window, you have the option to set reminders for simple things such as: reminders for setting categories; reminders for setting tags. I always forget this stuff and end up going back later on to update the post. I hate reminders in most cases, but this I can live with if it saves me the hassle of dealing with it later.
• Saving: WLW allows you to save drafts of your postings locally or to your blog host. This means if my wireless craps out I can continue editing offline and publish once I get back into a wifi zone. Not such a big deal, but its a benefit of the software that you don’t always have to rely upon a network connection to write a blog post.
• Linking: A nice little productivity feature of WLW is its ability to let you insert links to your previous postings by letting you browse your postings inside the insert dialog (insert>Hyperlink Dialog>Link to). What this means from an editing standpoint is I no longer have to open another window or tab to browse my archives and copy the link, then jump back to my post and insert the link through the dialog.
• Spell Checking: Yes, I know, it’s not the holy grail of all features, but it certainly helps that the spell checker works as a spell checker aught — at least what we’ve been conditioned to expect with Windows. Still, it’s an expected feature that’s built into the software and another nice consideration feature for those blog authors who think faster than they type.

What I don’t like about Windows Live Writer:

• Installation: I had to run the installation twice because the first time I ran it, I was asked to install additional software (for Live Spaces), which I did not want or would use. Since I refused to install the additional software, the installation refused to proceed instead of defaulting to just installing Windows Live Writer.
• Dependencies: Windows Live Writer is built on the .NET framework (as are more recent windows applications). I work on a Vista-based system and the .NET framework was pre-installed. While this isn’t a major point of contention for me (I’ve installed other frameworks to evaluate software in the past), I would have preferred the application be as standalone (read: portable) as possible. Users on systems without the .NET framework will need to install the software before they run the installation. WLW will download it for you…
• Screen Jumping: There are times when the editor will simply jump to the beginning of a post or to some seemingly random place on screen and I’m left wondering what the hell happened. This typically occurs when I apply formatting to a piece of text.
• Cross Platform: okay, this is a pretty typical gripe and coming from someone who is completely Mac-tarded, it may mean very little. But to my point: I’m really loving the user experience with WLW and I think this is something that other user may very well appreciate. It’s unfortunate that Microsoft has to conquer the world before people can share this experience without issue.

Final Thoughts

While I have my particular gripes about working in a browser for everything, I understand there are folks out there who don’t mind it at all. With the gulf between desktop and web-based applications decreasing, it’s not implausible to think that this software may very well appear in other incarnations like a version of Flock.

Windows Live Writer is a comfortable application that I can confidently integrate into to support my blogging habits. It doesn’t ask more than what your current experience has conditioned you for. It’s intuitive enough that new authors who prefer desktop applications of their web-based counter parts, aren’t intimidated and may even encourage blogging as a regular activity.

Give Windows Live Writer a whirl. It will not cost you more than a single test post, and if you’re disappointed by it, you can chalk it up to another Microsoft product and toss it in the recycle bin.

Mind mapping is not anything new — it has been around for quite some time and while I cannot attest to the degree of its current popularity, I will admit that it has greatly improved my productivity.

By nature, I am not so much of a linear thinker – at least most of the time. Depending on the task or discussion at hand, I may think in circles; I may run off on a tangent; I may need to follow some linear progression, but all the while still keeping other concepts and ideas in the back of my head.

Traditional note taking is fine in most cases, but once I get into brainstorming mode things start to fall apart.

I stumbled upon MindMeister whist searching for freeware mind mapping software, and while there are a few nice packages available that do the job (such as MindJet’s “MindManager” suite of tools), I needed something immediate, and accessible by my team and clients.

MindMister is a web-based mind mapping tool with a service model that is both economical for the average user, and affordable for the power users. There are three packages to choose from:

1. Free - you can create, share, import/export and collaborate on maps;
2. Premium - I have not actually upgraded my account so I am not quite sure what additional features are offered here, but the price is hardly something to balk at;
3. Team - which has enhanced functionality for collaborative environments.

Enjoy one of three simple packages, each offering a respectable feature-set of what you would expect from desktop-based software and more.

I had a recent opportunity to work with a client in the UK (I live and work in Canada) on a collaborative map, and the real-time updates were a great little feature (while using the free account). The application was responsive, very intuitive, and had great keyboard support. This third feature was the selling point for me as I hate to click around screen too much. Most web-based applications fall on their face when it comes to the user experience, and small things like integrated keyboard support, proper tabbing, toolbar layout really work to round out the whole experience.

The aesthetic quality of the application is just pure candy for the eye. Kudos to the design team who worked on it.

On top of the aforementioned features, MindMeister offers some invisible features such as state/editing history, autosaving (for those still paranoid about losing data) , and strong export/import support for existing users of desktop-based software (MindManager, FreeMind, etc.).

Now, for those Mashup feinds out there — MindMeister also offers an extensible API for creating your own applications as well as a robust library of gadgets for integration into your workflow.

Overall, it is rare that I come across a well-rounded productivity tool — desktop-based or otherwise. When you get a chance, give the free account at MindMeister and whirl. It wont cost you anything but a few minutes of your lunch break.

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They’re still out there, multiplying in mass quantities in some Mexican sweatshop or being imported from another one in Borneo . They’re debatably hideous, but you have to admit there’s a certain allure to the imagery of exaggerated rebellion against life, love, and the American way. Most of them are pretty butt ugly but I came across a site about a year ago that seems to take it in a new direction; one of artistry and design. American Fear Clothing has a great selection of tees, hoodies, tanks, and baby tees redone with style.

The style of the illustrations veer away from much of the blood and guts and snakes protruding from bleached skulls and instead favors more symmetry and subtle symbolism in a monochromatic rendering. The guy who silk-screened the first of these shirts must have crapped himself good and decided to keep a few for himself to make up for it.

Break out your inner rocker and order yourself a few prints if you get a chance.

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