Why Would I Write

Category: Technology

  • FocusWriter

    You know what’s better than owning a nice keyboard? Having things to type on it. Something about hitting keys and watching characters appear on the screen is so satisfying. It also helps that both my hobbies and work requires me to type.

    These days I write my blog posts in a program called FocusWriter (btw when did the term app come to replace programs? I use it to differentiate programs on phones/tablets with desktop programs but I believe they are interchangeable now). I discovered it a few years ago when I saw it being recommended for writers to use during Nanowrimo. It has a handy wordcount feature at the bottom which helps you mark your progress for the day (you can decide what your daily goal is).

    It is extremely customizable in terms of looks – it even comes with some preset themes for you to use (I created a blank one for myself and increased the font size due to the default size being too small on a high-resolution display). Other than the basic dictionary and chapter dividers, it’s a pretty barebones writing program that gets the job done. It maximizes itself (you can’t change this) so it completely covers your desktop, including your taskbar; to keep you free from distractions. No more blinking icons or pop ups on your screen until you alt+tab away from the software. I guess it is named FocusWriter for a reason.

    However, it’s not magic. It won’t make you write better or suddenly fill your head with ideas. No program can do that. But for what it sets out to accomplish, it gets the job done. Since I learned how useful it was to have a distraction-free workspace to get my writing done for my first Nanowrimo, I’ve been using it to write everything else (except those days when I felt like writing directly into WordPress’ editor. It’s now one of the programs I need installed on any computer I use to write.

    It’s free (donations are encouraged) with no adverts, stable and bug-free. It’s definitely not for everyone – if you need to have multiple windows side by side while you write, FocusWriter isn’t for you. But if you just want a blank space while you transfer all your ideas from your head to the screen, you should check it out.

    FocusWriter is available now for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
    [Official Site]

  • Macroblogging and Dead Links

    Every now and then, I read through some old posts on my blog and go through the comments section. Commenting on blogs used to be a thing. I remember. That’s how I made some friends on the internet. These days, people just comment on the Facebook post about the link instead. If not comments, you just get likes or some reactions.

    I guess it’s just how things have evolved. Back then there was no such thing as microblogging. The only way you could update people about your life was through MSN nickname statuses or blogs. I remember, almost everybody had a blog back then. It was the normal thing to do. Now I think having a blog is probably out of fashion. But that’s okay, it’s my way of practicing writing and putting out whatever is in my head.

    Anyway, back then when people commented on my blog, they would leave links to their own blog so I could check them out. That was one way of meeting new people online. I could check out their writing and if I found it interesting, I’d leave a comment and link their page if I liked it enough. Friendships would live and grow in the comments sections of posts.

    I guess all the long breaks I took in between blogging kinda killed off the steam and interest people had in visiting this page. Blogging is kinda like the YouTube of the past. If content creators don’t constantly churn out new content, they’d be forgotten. It was even worse for blogs because unless you had an RSS reader or subscribed to email updates, you wouldn’t have any way of telling whether the blog had new posts short of manually checking it out yourself. At least with YouTube you get emails or notifications on the site itself telling you about new videos on channels you subscribed to.

    But then again, who has time to read these days? I’m blogging for an audience of less than ten people daily (haha) but that’s okay. It feels good to write anyway. And I might as well make up for all the times I didn’t blog in the past. I mean, keep throwing shit against the wall until something sticks right?

    I don’t even read many blogs these days. I do read a lot of posts on Facebook though. It’s the modern version of blogging. And I don’t have to exit Facebook to read them. I guess that was the Zuck’s plan all along – keep everybody on the site so they don’t have to leave.

    Anyway I was prompted to write this post when I was clicking on links left by people who used to comment on my blog and realized that they were all dead links. IMO blogging died when everybody started doing advertorials instead of content about their lives. Shout out to Albert for keeping it real!

  • Erase Me

    Remember the days when internet marketing wasn’t so prevalent? Marketing campaigns made use of word of mouth or print and television to spread the word. I remember when The Sixth Sense was showing in the cinemas. Everywhere I saw advertisements for the movie with the message plastered “Don’t tell anybody the ending.” I thought that was a pretty cool way to market the movie. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t manage to catch it in the cinema. I only saw it many years later when it was showing on Astro. By then I had already known about the ending so it wasn’t impactful to me. However I appreciated what it did.

    Other movies that received similar buzz with its marketing tactics were far and few in between. The most prominent ones I can remember – Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, and Paranormal Activity. I never got sucked into the hype that these movies generated, but for the latter two, I enjoyed seeing how people reacted to all the marketing campaign activities thanks to the internet. It was a lot harder to keep track of those things pre-social media. These days, everything gets hyped up on social media, and it’s hard to tell whether something is worth your time or not *cough*Black Panther*cough*. Anyway, thanks to the internet, it’s easier than ever to spread the news to everybody you know.

    Recently I noticed it being used in music (it might have been done a long time ago, but not for bands I cared about). Brand New did something crazy by just pushing their album out online, ahead of their release dates. Fans and critics lapped it up. They debuted at number 1 on the Billboard charts. Today, I saw on Reddit, a thread where a Redditor received a mysterious CD in the mail. The CD contained a sample of a song and written on it was a URL for a website, where a countdown is going on right now. Based on the font on the website and the font on Underoath’s Twitter banner, people have come to the conclusion that it was a teaser for the band’s next record.

    As of this time of writing, the countdown still has 1 day and 7 hours to go. It’s been a while since the last Underoath record, so I’d be stoked if they announced their next one. Here’s to hoping they pull off a Brand New and push it out on the same day instead of just announcing it. It’s been too long! Also, I guess this is me playing my part in putting the word out about a possible new Underoath record. Funny how nobody asked me to do it, yet here I am typing away. Woot.