Posted by johnnie
Even given the geek-skewed bellcurve of my friends and stalkers, this one will appeal to maybe one in a hundred readers. Since only three people actually read this blog, that basically means that it will keep Keiran amused for about three-eighths of a second. Nevertheless, Keiran, this is for you: Open Source Superstar and GNU facist Richard Stallman sings The Free Software Song. Nothing can prepare your ears for this.
Posted by johnnie
Most of you probably know my feelings on the subject of wikis. If you don’t, it means you’ve never been cornered by me at a party. Just be grateful.
I don’t like wikis because I think they slow you down rather than speed you up. You have to learn an entire new syntax just to use them. If you want to link from one thing to another, it should happen automatically. You shouldn’t have to worry about whether you’ve formatted the link correctly. The amount of housekeeping that a wiki requires just to stop these sort of unintentional errors is staggering. Wikis are a great idea, terribly executed.
Zulupad is a personal wiki. It runs in your system tray and allows you to store notes quickly and easily. It also automatically creates links between pages and hyperlinks URLs. This is all I want from a wiki. I’ve been using Zulupad for a couple of weeks now, and it’s quickly become indispensable. Every time I want to note something down, I just fire up ZP. It’s quicker than post-it notes or the back of an envelope, and it’s cut down on the number or random text files polluting my desktop no end.
It’s free for now, although there are plans to split the program into a free (presumably crippled) version and a paid-for version.
Posted by johnnie
Now, what in the name of Harvard is this?
I was rooting around in the OOo menus looking for a function that I couldn’t locate, when I came across the Bibliography Database tool. How long has that been there? Why couldn’t I have found it before I had to write a 20,000 word dissertation? It seems like it’s a database tool specifically designed to maintain a bibliography and list in using Harvard style (the most widely accepted citation style, for the non-academia-tainted among us). Exactly what I would have used, had I known about it. My dissertation was done entirely in OOo, but I never came across this tool. I want to do another degree now, just so I can use this.