Bloggers: Stop Using “After the jump”

rants 1 Comment »

Geez I’m really tired of this. We’re not all corporate lackeys that have to entice someone with a tantalizing leader and follow it with a picture or ad then follow it up with the rest of the story. So why do I see people use “more after the jump” on so many posts?

Maybe I’m missing the point, but we’re supposed to be minimizing, not bloating. Just get to the point without any extra clicks or scrolling.

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Cracked!

General, Tech 1 Comment »

“I don’t like the way it looks now.”

“It feels too bulky.”

These were the phrases I uttered when trying out different cases for my iPhone. Maybe it would’ve protected it from this:

I dropped my iPhone one too many times.

On St. Patrick’s Day, my iPhone took a 4 foot tumble from a counter top to a concrete floor. To its credit–it still works perfectly. The touch screen itself has not been damaged, only the outer glass. It pinches, it slides, it texts, and otherwise works as new, but it has a deathly pall hiding its ingenious beauty. I’ve watched a YouTube disassembly video, ordered the requisite case-removal tool, and am waiting for a replacement glass from Hong Kong, hoping with everything that it fits.

I’ve dropped the iPhone a few times, I guess this was the last straw. I will definitely protect my next one (or repaired one) much better. Surgery video to come soon.

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Where’s the Squiggly?

General No Comments »

A few weeks back, eBay delivered a 1960’s typewriter to me. Finally, last night, I sat down to write.  I churned out 2 pages in about 2 hours, and am slowly realizing how long it will take to write a book. Normally, on a computer, I’m a very fast typer. But I’ve been on a computer for over 25 years. On this, it’s back to the old days–I have to punch the keys with more force than I would on a computer keyboard, so the two-finger peck is working best right now. The two hours weren’t all spent typing, it was a lot of contemplation, reading, and rereading as I tried to develop the story. There were a few moments where I whipped out a paragraph in a few minutes, but for the most part I’m being very deliberate with every word and every line.

There is something very beautiful about writing this way. For one, you’re forced to slow down.  I think of the words and the line, and by the time I punch a few letters, I’ve already thought of a better way to say something. When I finished a page, there was something very satisfying about actually removing the page and starting a new one. There are no power cords to trip over to erase your work–and its portable so I could work anywhere. There is no screen saver to flash or energy saver to dim the screen while you sit and think of what you want to say.

However, the two things I’ve found I miss the most are the red squiggly line for misspelled words, and of all things, global search. I found myself several times last night wanting to search for a word in the text to see if I had already used it. 

My first computer had a button (the “enter” button) that said “CR” for carriage-return. I now fully understand what a carriage return is, and I love getting to the end of a line and hearing it “ding!”  As for typos, I’m experimenting with corrective procedures now. The typewriter was sent to me with small rectangles of corrective tape, but I think I’ll use a fine-tip marker or the XXXXX method to cross-out words or lines I want to throw away.

It’s been a great start to a fun experiment,  I’ll post about it again later in the process, to see if I’m still having this much fun.

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Snow. In Texas. In March. World Ending Soon.

General No Comments »

I know if you live someplace where it snows 3 months a year, you’re really sick of it. But being in Texas, we rarely see the stuff. That’s why I’m pretty pumped about this weeks’ gift of not one but TWO days of big, white, fluffy flakes. We probably had 12 inches of snow this week, and it wasn’t the usual Texas ice-snow pellets, it was the real deal.

I’ve only seen snow like this (here in Texas, anyway) one or two times in my life, so this is a very rare experience. Even rarer is the fact that our usually inept local weather team predicted AND nailed it both days. If this is global warming, I’m going out to look for my SUV today.

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