Writers Rooms, How We Work, and library catalogs

 

The links below are from the Guardian, a blog, and library.thing.com.  I found the original material on Metafilter.  The Guardian article is my favorite, and includes pictures and background information on famous writers offices.  I don't know if you would call them offices per se, but it's interesting because it is where they did the bulk of their work.  Some were shacks detached from their homes, others were rooms in the homes, some were separate offices.  Either way, they are interesting because most used pen and paper, or typewriters to write.

The How We Work are interesting as well.

One of the things I find interesting is how the professional writers (Hemingway, etc) approached writing like a job, they blocked out time on a regular (daily, weekly) basis, and approached it in a methodical fashion. The same is true of Kerouac, despite the impression people have that he wrote "On The Road" as a steady stream of unedited prose.

Writers Rooms
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/writersrooms

How We Work - quotes from artists, writers, and musicians (creative types)
http://rodcorp.typepad.com/rodcorp/2004/12/how_we_work.html

I See Dead People['s Books] - A group for those interested and involved in entering the library catalogs of famous readers.
http://www.librarything.com/groups/iseedeadpeoplesbooks

 

Technorati Tags: literature,creativity,office,process

Google Experimental Search

http://www.google.com/experimental/index.html

Keeping track of new features in Google is almost a part time job.  I stumbled onto the Alternate View for search results and thought I should post the Experimental Search page.

A comprehensive overview with examples was posted on Ars Technica

My first week at Unisys, I took an accelerated Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 course. Craig (the awesome Unified Communications Instructor) pointed out you can narrow searches to just Microsoft or Linux topics by appending 'microsoft' or 'linux' to google.com to get an alternate, filtered search view.

http://www.google.com/microsoft

http://www.google.com/linux

Technorati Tags: Google,beta,Microsoft,search

RSS Web 2.0 Suite for Individuals - NewsGator

RSS Web 2.0 Suite for Individuals - NewsGator

I paid for FeedDemon and I use the mobile client as well. It's a great product and I am lost without it, but the thing that is not pointed out in the press releases is that Newsgator has a great subscription model. You also have to consider the Newsgator applications (FeedDemon, etc) as part of a larger system.

You subscribe to Newsgator, this central subscription on the Newsgator server. Client software can then be installed on laptop, desktop, mobile clients and your view of the central subscription can be managed depending on your client needs. With your subscription, your client (mobile, web, and Feeddemon) will synch with the central server, so if you read a bunch of feeds at work, flagged some for follow-up or saved them to a Clippings folder, when you log in at home, they are already marked as read, or flagged into your Clippings folder.

For me, this is well worth the subscription, not only from a time savings, which is huge in my case, but because review of the Clippings let's me rapidly review lots of feeds and distill and manage the good stuff.

Feedstation is another application that is linked to Feeddemon. It can be configured to automatically download multimedia content of RSS feeds (typically, but not limited to audio podcasts) onto my primary workstation where I sync it with my Zune (I know your a Mac guy, but I *really* like the Zune with 2.3 rev firmware - I can synch podcasts wirelessly and have FM radio for working out on my bicycle trainer (Christmas gift to Dad) at home).

Technorati Tags: RSS,synchronization,tools

Uberman's sleep schedule

kuro5hin.org || Uberman's sleep schedule

I experimented with various biofeedback and sleep mods in college and the basis of this sleep schedule reinforces what I observed. Don't know if its practical with my lifestyle - married (and want to stay that way) with children and long (10-12 hour) work days.

I also realize that now that I am over 50, and as I increase my level of exercise, I need ~8 hours of sleep a night. This is over the 4-6 hours I averaged in my 30's and 40's. The only thing I really miss about being younger at this point is that I didn't need to wear glasses for reading and I can't run without pain in my knees.