The ironing is delicious

So a few years ago I posted about resurrecting this blog. Then I posted about minimalist writing environments, and concluded that Byword was interesting but too expensive to justify a shot-in-the dark purchase to try it.

Now here I am, posting from Byword to test out it’s new functionality that allows you to write in Markdown and then post directly to your blog…

Minimalist editing

After playing with the full-screen editing modes of both Scrivener and MacJournal, I started to wonder if there were editing environments that were even more free from distraction. Turns out there are. The ones that I've looked at this week are:

• Byword http://bywordapp.com/
• FocusWriter http://gottcode.org/focuswriter/
• Ommwriter http://www.ommwriter.com/
• WriteRoom http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom

What I'm looking for here is a return to the way that I wrote documents in the 'old days'; first concentrating on the text in a word processor, then concentrating of the layout in a desktop publisher. This is what I discovered for each app.

Byword

This is a paid app, available through the App Store for £5.99. It has Markdown support, which is neat. It can fade all of the paragraphs except the one you are editing, which is a feature I've not seen elsewhere. However, I've not found a free trial version and so it's hard to be sure how easy it is on the eyes in real use. From the screenshots, I'm not convinced.

FocusWriter

This is an open source program, seemingly based on Qt, with precompiled binaries for Windows and OSX and source code also available. This isn't as aesthetically pleasing as the other applications here — the user interface is less polished. However, feature-wise it's a strong contender. It has RTF support, you can customise the UI, and it has a pleasant (optional) typewriter sound effect. Oh, and it's free.

Ommwriter

Here we have two versions: the free Dāna I and the purchasable Dāna II. The purchased version has more backdrops to the writing area and sound effects, and will relieve you of a donation of your choice of $4.11 or more. I've tried the free version, and it was nice to write in. However, only one of the sets of backdrops and sound effects were tolerable to me, so I don't know how much use I would get out of the paid version. A lot of work has gone into making this one look superb though.

WriteRoom

The first thing that I noted about this app was the compatibility with DropBox, SimpleText and TaskPaper. These are all nice apps in their own right. Running the app for the first time was far more 'Matrix' than 'Zen writing environment' and the font was too small. It's all changeable, through the standard preference settings, but it's not as easy as FocusWriter let alone Ommwriter. As a paid app, this doesn't really have anything to elevate it above the capabilities already in MacJournal. At $24.99, I'm not going to be considering this one further.

Wrap up

For now, I'm going to use FocusWriter and give Ommwriter another go. $4.11 is something that I could risk to see what improvements the paid version brings. Byword is also interesting, but slightly more expensive — I need to know more about it before I take that plunge. After all, TextMate has good Markdown support and I already have that.

Resurrection ...

... as Raise Dead just wouldn't cut it after this long. Excellent, the blog lives again.

I finally have my grubby mitts on a print copy of the Serenity role playing game, after tracking one down for sale second-hand in the States. Opening the packet with some trepidation, I discovered that it was in immaculate condition. Many thanks to Stacey W. at Paper Cavalier (Green_point on Amazon).

Directionality of Mac Pro Bluetooth

So I finally got round to testing my theory about the Bluetooth on the 2009 Mac Pro. I reorganised my desk so that the Mac Pro is behind my 24“ Mac Cinema screen with the right hand side (as seen from the front; the side with the panel) facing me. I’ve had no keyboard dropouts nor jerky mouse movement yet. The mouse was almost unusable with the Mac Pro in the same position but with the other side facing me. So it seems that the bluetooth signal can only penetrate out of one side of the case! That must have been a facepalm moment for the designers.

Happy Mac

Well, the Mac is working much better now that I have stuck a Bluetooth dongle into it. I think that the antenna design in the Mac Pro is poor from what I am reading on the forums. The keyboard and mouse are working flawlessly now.

Mac troubles

Well, I’ve tried reducing the power on the wireless network to 28mW from 70mW, enabling Bluetooth Coexistence, moving the cordless phone and putting some white paper underneath the mouse. I’ve not had the keyboard drop out tonight, but it isn’t a perfect mousing experience either. More tinkering needed.

Imported some photos to iPhoto. I can’t seem to zoom into them and it imported circa 800 items from a directory containing 1200... yet more tinkering.

I did fix the calendar on my iPhone by finding out which entry had a start date after the end date though. Tinkering successful!

I did decide that I liked MacJournal enough to buy it though :)

MacJournal

I’m going to give MacJournal a try now that I have a Mac sitting on my desk at home. It is certainly prettier than Journal4 running under Windows. It is also more journal oriented than Notebook. I have 15 days to see how it goes.

Finishing CryoSat

For the last several years, I've been working on the IPF2 software for Cryosat. Well, I think that I just finished it. Tonight I did a test compile of the final release to fix the problems spotted in the test meeting this week. Everything seems to be fixed. I'll sleep on it, check again and then the next stop is the launch of the satellite this autumn and the start of the commissioning phase.

It looks like Monday will be the first day in over a month upon which I will do no Cryosat related work.

Blogging from Word

Word now has the ability to post to a blog. Why on earth would I want to use it to do so, apart from trying it out this one time?

XEPC for EEE

Going to try XEPC and see if that works, because that will give me Wine and a newer OpenOffice in one hit.

Posting these from The Journal .. mostly seems to work...

The experiment with the EEE didn't go so well.

The experiment with the EEE didn't go so well.

• Tried installing wine via adding the repository directly
• Then added a bunch more debian repositories from somewhere
• Did an upgrade all...
• Filled up the 4Gb disk and nuked the system
• Restored from DVD
• Sighed and went to bed

My first attempt at using my EEE 901 with Wine to run the journal. Seems ok so far.

Learning Google Earth

A quick look at some of the KML samples on the Google site show that it is quite easy to plot a track of points as WGS84 lon,lat,height and extrude a plane to the ground. This could be used for plotting satellite orbits. I can't see any way to overplot datasets yet, but then I've not looked very hard either.

The universe is laughing at me

So I decide to write some stuff on my blog in the hope of getting other people interested in science, maths and academia in general. I think 'I'll stick some Google ads on the page and see if I can generate some cash to pass on to worthy causes'. The first ad that comes up? "Degree essays uk Guaranteed 2:1 and 1st Class Level £1000 No Plagiarism Guarantee". These people are the problem that pointy sticks were invented to cure!

Maths and me

Thought that I'd best make some notes on what I know about maths, just in case anyone wonders:

1. GCSE - Doddle. Grade A without much effort due to a fantastic teacher and a school that taught in small(ish) classes of similar ability.
2. A-Level - Tougher. Managed the 'mechanics' part ok but struggled with the pure. Grade C. Now wish I'd done the further maths paper as well, the extra lessons might have helped.
3. Degree - Whoops! The first year maths course was taught by a maths professor. To physics students. Lost me in the first lecture and I didn't realize that the stuff he was saying was relevant to the subject until the middle of the second year. B.Sc. Physics with Astrophysics (Third)
4. Couple of Masters degrees, not that much maths content.
   
5. Real life - Improving. Set myself the task of improving my maths skills. Ten years of an hour per day with the Open University later, I'm about to get my second (undergraduate level) degree, B.Sc. Mathematical Sciences (Upper Second)

As far as the puzzle was concerned, I tackled it because it reminded me of stuff we did back at GCSE level (almost 20 years ago...). I resorted to more advanced stuff for the later parts of the question though.

So, I've done a lot of maths, and I use it quite a bit for work, but I'm no maths genius. It's something that I have to plod though slowly and check my working. Hence my comments about not expecting to get the whole of the puzzle correct.

Chinese Maths Puzzle

It's been an odd week. After attempting the (now famous) 'Chinese Maths Puzzle' while eating my lunch one day last week, I discovered on Monday that:

1. I'd actually managed to get it right, and
2. They had pulled my solution out of the hat and I was the prize winner

My phone never normally rings at work. This week I've had to answer the damned thing. Yes, Newsnight can come and film. No, I don't mind having some photos taken for the Brighton Argus. Ring, ring, ring...

I shouldn't complain, because I did volunteer to do some publicity for the RSoC when I spoke to them on the phone. It's an important message that they are trying to get across: if we don't sufficiently challenge our students at GCSE and A-Level, then they aren't going to be able to cope at degree level and our supply of new British engineers and scientists will dry up. That would be a shame, because science and engineering are two things we're good at in this country.

It's starting to look as if the media are reporting this as either a) Yay, we beat the Chinese, or b) RSoC were wrong, we can do maths. Neither of these quite get the point behind all of this, unfortunately. I may have a go at putting my thoughts down later.