In the second chapter I introduced a few extra characters to fill out a dinner party scene.  One of them said his bit, bowed, walked off stage and we’ve never heard from him again, as is good and proper.  One of the other ones,  however, attached himself to my protagonist and rapidly became his best friend.

At first I smiled at this little slice of life, but as it became clearer and clearer that this interloper wasn’t planning on going anywhere I started to look for ways to gently get him out of the story.  The problem was that he and my protagonist were now fast friends, and what’s worse, this new guy was actually pretty well developed and fit into the story like a gear in a Swiss clock.  Trying to pull him out would bring the whole thing down on my head.

A few chapters later the new guy gave us his life story and to my astonishment it was better than some of the life stories I had been working on for years.  My attitude to this little me-tooer switched from a slight desire to chase him off to a more appeasing stance, making sure he was comfortable, got enough face time, because he’s made the whole story work better and has just quietly suggested ways in which he can be helpful in wrapping up all the loose ends.

So, the  moral of the story is: Don’t belive you are in control of fiction during a first draft. You can be in control during the later drafts.

The good news is that I’ve written over 32,000 words out of 50,000, which means I should be done with the NaNoWriMo challenge a bit earlier than the end of November and can probably get a few words about this whole Papermaster thing up before it blows over.  Is it just me, or does Papermaster sound like a terrible hybrid Print Shop/Filemaker program?  Everytime I see his name on news sites I wonder how he got it.  I can only think it was a joke at Ellis Island some years ago.

Anyway, be good, have fun, I’ll be back with some Not-Entirely-Sane Apple News soon.

“C’mon! Write a book. You’d write a good book! You should write a book!”

Eventually he agreed. I’m sure his book will be better than mine.  That accomplished, I next set out to perform the most perilous part of writing a novel: choosing a novel writing program.  This is no small feat.¹  There are so many good choices, like StoryMill, Scrivener, Pages, Mellel, WriteRoom, most of which I er, already owned.  So I decided to go with Scrivener, based on its amazing flexibility, stability, ease of use, and  the fact that I would then have an excuse to purchase a license.  So far I have been glad about that choice.

October 31: Fear set in: What if I lose my novel to a random and spontaneous hard drive failure?  I spent four hours setting up an SVN repository and making sure that I have copies of my novel on all three macs, my iDisk, and of course checked into SVN.  There. My ideas are safe.  Now I just need to actually have some ideas.

November 1, 1:27 AM: Gripped by insomnia, I get up and write around 500 words.  Later that morning I go back and change all of them.  “Don’t write under the influence of insomnia” becomes my new motto.

November 2: I start to get really sick, and notice that I may not be doing well when writing about my main character undergoing surgery nearly makes me lose my breakfast.  I lie down on the couch and write the next few pages on my laptop.

November 3: I am unable to go to work because of the Martian Death Flu that I have contracted.  I write about 2000 words on the third, most of them pretty good.  I eat roughly two bites of food this entire day.

November 4: Home sick again.  Worried about dehydration (one of the characters in my book suffers from it) I send my wife out for “eleven million bottles of Power Aid”  She returns with two, which is more than sufficient. Thus re-hydrated, I go back to writing.

November 5: I go back to work. My writing suffers, as I am still somewhat sick and not all that able to keep code and novel straight in my brain this day.  My comments in the code I’m writing start shaping up into a pretty interesting story featuring a guy named API and his girlfriend, Ruby.

November 6: Due to a sporting event at the university where I work I am unable to write more than about 20 words this day.  Not that I cared all that much about the sporting event; but I was required to do tech support during the event, and a crowded football stadium is not the best venue for writing about Americans recuperating in the Philippines. Fortunately, I have the next five days off of work.

November 7: I am back on track, novel-wise.  I have a pretty good writing day, and also buy a Coldplay album, a Jack Johnson Album, and an EP by The Flaming Lips.  Two of the three are good music for writing.  Guess which one isn’t.

November 8: I write the day’s 1667 words and realize I’m still about 3000 words below my goal for this point in the month.  I sit back down, and with Jack Johnson blasting through my headphones, fall asleep on the desk.  I wake up, switch albums, and get back to work.  By evenfall I’ve closed the gap to 1500 words, which I should be able to make up in the next few days.

So that’s where we stand.  There are all sorts of interesting things going on the world, and if I get caught up with the novel I plan to write about a few of them, like the AT&T dude’s predicitons about what iPhone 3.0 will be able to do for you.((”It’ll start your car. It’ll do your taxes! It’ll translate conversations you’re having with Japanese people on the fly, provided you don’t mind saying things like, “I would like to super-fun the racoons twice mostly” when you meant, “I’ll fax the contract this afternoon.”))  Thanks again for your patience!

1. Size 11… oh right, feat, not feet.  Sorry

The Zombie of RMS

This week, with the iFAQ falling on Halloween, who better to answer your questions than ZRMS, the reanimated corpse of Richard Stallman? And what better product for him to answer questions about than AbiWord, the half-dead Open Source word processor?

Q: Why does AbiWord look like crap?

A: I blame Raymond.  He keeps pushing that “bazaar” garbage, when some of us are trying to build cathedrals for everyone to worship in. And AbiWord is as Bizarre as they come.

Q: So open source should be tightly controlled open source?

A: All source should be in the hands of the FSF, so that we can give the people what they need, and they give us all they can.

And then I’ll eat their delicious, succulent brains.

Q: What was that last part?

A: Nothing!  Seriously, the problem isn’t control, it’s patents.  If I had all the control back when I was alive I wouldn’t be stalking Larry Wall right now to convince him to join me on the other side.  Perl would have been an FSF project and I could have told him how to get version 6 done in less than 10 years.

Q: How’s Hurd coming along, by the way?

A: That’s GNU/Hurd, and it’ll be done any time now.

Q: Huh. So, back to AbiWord…

A: No, look, you mac people act like you’re all friendly to open source with your MacPorts, and your built-in ruby and python and stuff, but really all you want to do is look down your noses at those of us who want to live completely free of patents.

Q: Is “live” really the right word for you to use, all things considered?  And I thought you’d softened towards us.

A: It’s the iPhone, man. Yes, it’s pretty. Yes, it “just works”. Yes, it’s on a large network that works everywhere and you can get a gazillion awesome apps and games and everything. But why you apple folk gotta keep dumpin’ on the G1?

Q: Oh, did the bearded zombie get his feelings hurt?  Did some bad commenters say mean things about your phone on a naughty ol’ forum somewhere?

A: *sniff*. I mean, you’ve won, okay? Can’t you just leave us second-placers alone? You think we don’t know there’s problems? You’d think a forum like “iPhone Friends” would  be more friendly!

Q: Well, you gotta consider the source, Richie. Mac people can be like that sometimes.  You can’t let it get to you.  Your phone will grow up and be the pride of geeky nerds everywhere, just like Linux…

A: GNU/Linux…

Q: …Just like Linux has become.  And your open source revolution will continue in the glorious tradition of never making any real money.

A:  You…you think so?

Q: I know so.

A: Awww, thanks. You just made an old, crazy zombie’s day.

Can I eat your brain?

Q: No.

A: Just a nibble off the right frontal lobe?

Q:No.

A: C’mon! Gruber let me eat his!

Q: That explains a lot.  Look, if  you’re hungry, go chew on Doctrow.

A: Ewww, I try to stay away from junk food.

Q: Look, can we just end this post?

A: All right. But brain jokes are so much fun!

Q: Fine. Go eat Merlin Mann’s brain. He’s been expanding it lately so there should be some scraps lying around.  He won’t miss ‘em.

A: Woo hoo!

50,000 words, 30 days.  I got some characters. I got an idea for a story. I got the software, I got the drive, I got the ambition. Sure, it’ll be a sacrifice.  I won’t get to write long, loving posts about my G1 when it gets here on the 10th. I won’t get to start the tradition of letting the Ruby Ninja Androids write a post on the day after Thanksgiving.  But it won’t be that bad. After all, It’s only 1666.66 words per day, and this post is already up to, what… 190 words² I’m in trouble.

I’ll post things here until November 1st, to get in shape and give you something to look back on during November. I’ll write posts next month as well, but they’re gonna be more novel related than Mac news. So if you hate terrible amateur novels, please tune back in on December 1st.  I don’t blame you. For those brave souls who hang on, don your sailor’s caps, because it’s Terrible First-Draft Prose ahoy!³

1. If I was into special effects there would be, like, fireworks or something here.
2. I write posts non-sequentially. There were two sentences after this one when I wrote that.  I also added some stuff before it. Stop trying to figure out the numbers. Like counting John McCain’s houses: It’s just not possible.
3. not that this is a major departure from my usual writing. It’s just less mac-themed

This week: the Beauty from Britain: RapidWeaver!

Q: Alas! I fear me that I hast not the knowledge requisite to avail myself of yon weaver’s rapidity!

A: Fear not, fair maid, but take heart, for I am here to instruct thee in the art of speedy creation of glorious tapestries of light. Disclose thy mind unto me that I may more readily put thee at thine ease.

Q: Nay, it is not seemly impose upon so great a scholar as thine illustrious self, whining and mewling like the discourteous cat, seeking a pittance from the tables of thy wisdom. Pray expunge from thy mind the very thought of my question and let it not prey upon thee more.

A: By’r lady, tis not so! Surely, the crown of wisdom is the sharing of’t, and he that learns but turns not again to teach is as the soughing wind in the marshes of the north, where the rude blast pummels and rattles the bony trees, but brings not the life-giving rains, nor cleans the sky of tattered clouds, that the sun may be felt again.

Q: Your words do shame me, Sir Wizard, and I see that I must also learn humility, and let not my noisome and petty pride stand in the way of proper instruction. to this end then, will I ask my questions, that in the answering you may more fulsomely burnish your knowledge even as I profit thereby.

A: Ask then, and what slender learning I have acquired from my slight studies shall be thine for the asking.

Q: This then, is my question: Whilst rapidly weaving a web page dedicated to the weaving of tapestries, I find that I have need of dynamic, ever-changing data, such as can only be provided by PHP. Though I have some slight skill in the creation of PHP classes and sites, I find that, upon uploading my creations to my server, they are marred and deformed by lewd <? tags, and my code is indecently displayed as though my site were some unsavory tart.

A: If I may but inquire, dear lady, as to the nature of your web hosting service. I have hope that such knowledge would prove beneficial in putting your questions to rest.

Q: As I have been instructed in the ways of Apple Righteousness since my tender youth, I do host my pages on my Mobile Me account.

A: Alas, it is as I feared! Unhappy is the fate that has brought me to this point, that I must be the bearer of such tragic news! And yet, if we can but look beyond the vale of tears, it may be that some glimmer of light lies beyond.

Q: Pray, do not keep me thus entangled in doubt and hope, Sir Wizard! What darkness is set to befall me, and what light is it that you glimpse, albeit if from afar?

A: Mobile Me, though noble and upright as all Apple products, has not the ability to parse your PHP files, and so it thus displays your code as a costermonger his wares.  While you use that service your tapestry site shall be all unraveled.

Q: Than am I the unhappiest of souls, to have my dreams thus dashed by the very ones I love, and my sites relegated to the world of the static and unflexible web of our forefathers!

A: But soft! let us speak of the light I have hitherto mentioned!  It so happens that I, too, create sites for others to behold, in the hope that I may shed some small joy into their lives.  Though I love and revere the Me that is Mobile, I have found that there is no stain on my honor resultant in using the hosting of another. Furthermore, I vouchsafe unto you that there is space sufficient in my servers that I may host your site; to the end that your PHP code will be properly and beautifully rendered as your bright and keen imagination has intended. Indeed, this most rapid of weavers will handle such a change with ease and grace.

Q: But this cannot be! I am undone by your generosity! Words are not equal to the thanks I seek to convey to you, Sir Wizard! Truly, thou hast saved me. Take, then, my favour, and know that with it go my undying thanks.

A: It is a trifling thing, my lady, and not worth so great and beautiful praise. I shall set up your domain name and FTP account forthwith. Your tapestries shall be displayed to the world this very day.

“You can walk around and be insane, and people will think you’re just another person with a headset,” Enderle says, revealing a strategy that has worked for him for years. But why is he singling out the iPhone, in the midst of so many other prestige-based handsets? Why not pick on the Blackberry, which appeals to corporate ladder-climbers, or the geek-centered G1¹? Our crack reporters went undercover and slept for 8 hours². Then we called him and asked.

“You mac people have it so easy,” he whined. “I mean, every time I even look at an iPhone I get a threatening email from Thurrott reminding me of my duty to be a Windows bigot. So I’m stuck with this crappy Treo running WM6, while all you princesses waltz around with your functional and beautiful technology. And that hurts, man. It hurts bad.”

We suggested that Enderle could stop being such a fawning little Microsoft-boot-licking toady, but he shuddered at the thought. “You don’t know how Ballmer can be when he’s angry. I couldn’t face him. I want to, oh, how I want to, but I…I just don’t have the guts.”

Apple refused to comment, but at the bottom of their refusal email were the words, “Sent from my amazingly functional and beautiful iPhone. Deal with it, you have-not caveman.”

1. ours should get here “on or about” November 10
2. Good health comes first!

RNA: Okay! It’s time for the iFAQ! Wakey-wakey!

N: ZZZzzzzzzzzZZZZzzzzzzzzz…

RNA: C’mon! Up and attem!  Let’s just answer some questions now! we’ll even ask easy ones, like, “who’s cooler, Ballmer or Schilller?”

N: Snrk. Gslerm. zzzzzzzzzzzwrtlZZZZzzzzzz.

RNA: this isn’t working.

RNA 2: better break out the big guns.

RNA: you don’t mean…

RNA 2: I’m afraid so.

N: zzzzzz. Snt. Mmhmm. Hamsters! Evil French Hamsters are ruining my economy of scale! Don’t let them escape… club… zzzzzz.

RNA: Well, alright. We’ve gotta get a few sentences out of him at least. (clears throat) Yo! Rapmaster General! Vanilla Ice just called you a poser!

N: What! That foo don’ know who he’s messin’ wit’! He best jus’ step off before… Where am I?

RNA: iFAQ time!

N: Wha? oh, oh, the thing, with the words. Right, right. okay. Ask away.

RNA 2: He’s already nodding. Make it quick.

Q: Okay, question number one: how will the new glass trackpads affect corporate purchases of the MacBook?

A: Just don’t stick your tongue on the metal case in the winter! Hee hee hee.

Q: I’m worried that the new MacBooks will fail more often because they’re bricked at the factory. What can I do to make sure I get a good one?

A: We recommend shaking it several times before purchasing it. If you hear rattling noises, it’s probably already defective. Stare hard at the Apple store employee and ask, “what do you think you’re trying to pull here? That may have worked on some switcher, but I’m a fully registered user of Mellel, so I know my macs! Macs don’t rattle!” then fold your arms across your chest and tap your foot as if waiting for a reply. When the befuddled nineteen year old asks what Mellel is, demand to see his manager. If he (or she) is the manager, demand some pudding, then storm out in a rage before they can ask any more questions.

Q: How will that help?

A: I’m sorry. I forgot what the question was. Did you want some pudding? Because the Apple store isn’t the place to get it, lemme tell ya. They make terrible pudding.

Q: Umm. Moving on: do you feel that the new glass screens will improve the durability of the new MacBook line?

A: if they said “rigid” one more time in that “town hall” meeting, I swear I was gonna scream. Tell you what, next year they should be forced to release ridged laptops, like Wavy Lays. Just so they have to say “ridged, not rigid” over and over again.

Q: Okay! well, I think that’s all my questions! Thanks for your time!

A: Any time! any…time, at…mall……..rats…….terrible film! terrible…zzzzzzz

Today we take a look at QuickTime Pro.

Q: So, how is QuickTime Pro different from regular QuickTime?

A: QuickTime pro takes your video experiences to a whole new level, with a stunning H.264 codec and concurrent viewing/editing features.

Q: So I can watch one movie and edit another at the same time?

A: Yep.

Q: That’d be great, if I was Data from Star Trek.  What kindsa features you got for normal people?

A: Well, I shouldn’t tell you this, but, (whispers) You can record QuickTime videos off the Internet!

Q: Um, Apple advertises that on their site. It’s not a secret. And it’s really not a big thing, either.

A: Good, good, play it cool. We don’t want everyone to know, or it’ll cost $1000 to go to a movie¹ next year.

Q: You stole that from Apple’s site, didn’t you?

A: Yes, Ironically enough, I did. But as you can see, there are many good reasons to purchase a Pro license. You can record video from your iSight camera, and send it to your friends! You have friends, right?

Q: Yes of course I have friends.  That’s not the question.

A: Because a lot of people who question Mac products don’t have friends.

Q: Wha?

A: Paul Thurrott, for example.

Q: Nobody said it was worthless, I just…

A: Rob Enderle questioned the majesty of Apple, and look how he died.

Q: He’s still alive, last I heard.

A: That’s not the point. Do you want to end up like Rob Enderle or do you want to record movies from your iSight and send them to your friends?

Q: You make a compelling argument. I can see how QuickTime Pro would be useful if I made small simple movies, but I’m tired of movie makers that don’t have adaptively tuned in-loop deblocking filters, or 4×4 integer transform.

A: Now who’s reading Apple’s website?

Q: What does all that stuff even mean?

A: I told you: Use QuickTime Pro, or end up like Enderle.  That’s what all that stuff means.

Q: Okay, you got me. I’ll buy a license.

A: Good. All your friends will thank you.

Q: I don’t actually have all that many friends.

A: Tell me about it.

1. Exaggerated estimate.

Today, in honor of Freeverse giving discounts on things to people who know things, we decided to give you the heads up on one of their least expensive applications: Think. Freeverse was kind enough to let us route our questions to Grug, the IT orc!

Q: Does Think really make anyone more productive?

A: Not Grug, that for sure.

Q: Why is that?

A: Grug constantly switching windows: now read Slashdog, now read Armor Technica, now back to playing Hordes of Humans, Grug needs to be able to do it all.

Q: So… you don’t support your own company’s product?

A: Oh, Think fine.  Good for redhead girl. Monkey likes it too.  But Grug gotta be free.

Q: So, Think boxes you in, huh?

A: Look, Grug not need focus on one project to be productive. Grug hyperthreaded!

Q: You implement an outdated Intel technology?

A: Okay, okay, Grug written in C++, so Grug just threaded, but hyperthreaded sound cooler.

Q: So, you can focus on many things at once, and Think just makes that harder for you.

A: That about right.  Sometimes, Grug take call, write iFAQ, and beat Luna at Checkers all at same time. How screen backdrop help me there?

Q: You’re not really selling me on the product here.

A: Why bother? Think free. You like, you use. You don’t like, no big deal.

Q: Well, that clears that up. One more question?

A: Shoot. Hahaha.

Q: What’s the best way to go: Fire, Ice, or Lightning?

A: Radiation.

Once there was a dorky man named Mister Gates.  He wrote software on punch cards.  Everyone thought he was a geek, but they were kind to him because he made lots and lots of money.

One day Mr. Gates found a bald monkey living a sad and dejected life. The monkey had no name, so Mr. Gates called it Ballmer, because it was, well, a bald monkey. For years Mr. Gates tried to teach Ballmer to behave properly around people. He spent his time teaching Ballmer how to speak, how to walk, and how to motivate people, until one day he decided to let Ballmer out in public.  It didn’t go well. Ballmer got scared of all the people looking at him, started sweating profusely, and suddenly started clapping his hands together and shouting “Developers! Developers! Developers!” while dancing around in a circle.

Mr. Gates was sad, but he took Ballmer back to his home in Seattle and worked with him for several more years.  It got to the point where Mr. Gates couldn’t even clean his Windows because he was spending so much time trying to get Ballmer to act like a human.

Finally, after years and years, Mr. Gates believed that Ballmer was ready to be let out into the real world.  In fact, he was so confident that as he left his company he gave Ballmer the keys, and told everyone to listen to the monkey.  Everyone was surprised; the monkey had learned how to form full sentences, and even some basic math:

“Forty percent of servers run Windows, 60 percent run Linux.  How are we doing? Forty is less than 60, so I don’t like it. … We have some work to do².”

Although some of his sentences are a little convoluted:

“We want software more powerful than software that runs in a browser³.”

In the end, Ballmer hauled Mr. Gates back from his retirement feeding starving children in Africa and working on a cure for AIDS so that Mr. Gates could star in a pointless series of commercials with a comedian from New York. And while nobody laughed at the commercials, once again everybody laughed at Ballmer.

The moral⁴ of the story:  Don’t dress a monkey in a suit and call it a CEO, lest it start flinging things in the board room((Like this. Caution: linked story contains naughty words that Steve Ballmer allegedly said to an employee.)).

Okay kids, settle down now, it’s time for bed.

1. courtesy of the Apple built-in dictionary
2. from Macworld
3. also from Macworld, but a different article
4. Does anyone remember the Wheel of Morality from Animaniacs?