My early thoughts on the first iteration of Writer Pro from iA.
All posts in writing
With the additions of services like 500px [http://500px.com/], many have predicted the demise of Flickr [http://www.flickr.com]. Yet it is still here. And it has received more attention in terms of development and design in the last couple of years than the five previous. I'd suggest that the Yahoo leadership has some sort of vision for the service and community … finally! The recent new redesign of the service, as well as a great iOS app, has people reconsidering it once again. I've never used…
Finding words can be hard. Finding the just perfect words even harder. But given enough space and time, experience has taught me that I can find them. But what about when the space is extremely limited? That's the situation I currently find myself in. I'm working on the marketing site for a new personal project. Marketing sites are tricky. First, I personally have to feel really good about the product or service … I have no desire to shill needless items on people in order to earn an income. B…
Imagine someone using a headline or statement like that? As if a hammer, or any other tool used by a craftsmen of wood products, would be given so much credit that it greatly affected the usefulness and quality of the end product. Let’s use an example that’s closer to home. Copywriting is taking the life out of web design! Right. As if well written, carefully crafted words that evoke the right tone and cleverly communicate the nature of the business or service contained within a web site will r…
Federico Viticci, in a response [http://www.macstories.net/links/improving-the-ios-keyboard/] to my thoughts about the iOS keyboard [https://chrisbowler.com/journal/ios-keyboard-has-room-for-improvement]: > I think the discussion on the iOS keyboard often mixes writing with editing. Personally, I believe the iOS keyboard is great for writing, because it’s just a normal keyboard, but iOS text selection is in serious need of an update, because it feels outdated. He makes a good point, if you only…
The more I write on my iPad, the more I appreciate the device for this type of creation. It's portable, easily accessible, and I'm less prone to distraction. And with writing applications making great use of iCloud and Dropbox, my data is always there and always in sync with my Macbook Pro. The negative with writing on the iPad is typing. It's a bit of a mixed bag experience — the iOS autocorrection is (at times) brilliant and I can fly along with confidence, knowing the OS is going to correct…
What else is there to say about the latest essay [http://craigmod.com/journal/subcompact_publishing/] from Craig Mod? Everyone I follow seems to have read it, loved it and linked to it. If you haven't yet read it yourself, do so at your first available time slot. All I'll add to this conversation is this: the solution Craig believes is coming is something I need. I've been working on a new project, one that requires a way to do two things — deliver content and charge for access. Sadly, there ar…
It's term that has changed a lot in the past ten years ago. Even five years. One way to approach self publishing is to host a personal blog, like this site or Shawnblanc.net [http://shawnblanc.net/]. This type of setup is fun because it's so flexible. Running a site under your own name allows you to write on any topic that interests you. Another approach is to be focused. Take one subject that you're passionate about and stick to that. I like this concept as well because, if the publisher foll…