I use Linux and as a writer, this is a problem. I like using Linux because it’s stable. It never crashes, I never have to worry about viruses or spyware, and I can control what ads I see. In my normal Internet browsing, I see maybe two ads every hour or so, compared to a constant barrage of ads on Windows. Using Linux is much more peaceful.

But there are problems with Linux, and one of them is the word processor issue. Most editors use Macs or Windows, so documents need to be in .doc or .rtf format for them to access my work. Most people who use Linux recommend OpenOffice, which I tried out when I first switched over from Windows. I hated it. It is the most annoying program ever. It has all these strange defaults, like finishing words for you when you start to type them, that forces you to rifle through the options and turn off the annoying stuff. It also has trouble reading .docs and wants everything to be in its proprietary .odt format. Even if you change it over to .doc, you can’t be sure it stays that way. I have sent editors documents in .doc and found out that it switched over to .odt somewhere along the way, and the editor couldn’t read it. This is embarrassing and annoying. So I don’t trust OpenOffice and don’t use it.

For awhile I used AbiWord, which is a simple and stripped down word processor. I like AbiWord as a program, but it doesn’t have some basic things you need as a writer. It also uses the proprietary .abw format, which I found to have all the problems of OpenOffice plus the added issue that no one uses AbiWord, so it can be downright impossible to access your .abw file under certain circumstances. I recall having a terrible time accessing a .abw file from a Windows machine, since Windows doesn’t have anything remotely able to open it. Worse, Windows couldn’t even read the name of the AbiWord files, so they came up as gobbledygook. In short, I need something more sophisticated than AbiWord.

Finally, I settled on CrossOver Office by CodeWeavers. It lets you use Word on Linux. I really like Word. I think it is a good program with minimal problems and I am happy someone figured out how I could use it on Linux. But CrossOver Office has problems too. For example, you can’t open two Word docs at once without it getting buggy and crashing. I have lost a lot of work this way. There have also been problems with it deciding to paste something many many times. I would copy something from a website, hit CTRL-V to paste, and then everything freezes while it copies the text 300 times into my document.

So there are lots of bugs that I have learned to anticipate. Over time, I have developed a hybrid system of Word and OpenOffice so that my work is more stable. If I have to have two documents open, I open one in OpenOffice, which keeps Word from crashing. If I see signs that Word is getting unstable by freezing or using a lot of CPU, I reboot the computer. Etc. Overall, it’s not too bad of a problem, but losing part of an article while on deadline is not fun.

This morning I read that Susan Orlean is abandoning Word to write her next book on Google Docs. I don’t use Google Docs and definitely would not write a book on it. The problem is that their Terms of Service claims rights over your work. To quote from the Terms of Service itself:

You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Service. By submitting, posting or displaying the Content you give Google a worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through the Service for the sole purpose of enabling Google to provide you with the Service.

So it looks like Google is saying it can reproduce or publish any portion of your work that you put on Google Docs! I’m no lawyer, but that’s enough of a red flag to keep me from ever using it. Plus, that’s just a creepy policy, Google. What the heck?

On top of that, according to my computer-expert husband, putting your book on Google Docs poses a security threat, especially if you are a big-time writer like Susan Orlean. Here is part of our IM conversation about it:

(09:14:56 AM) Kyle: what it really comes down to is whether google would ever actually try to do that [publish your work]
(09:15:05 AM) Joy: yeah
(09:15:10 AM) Kyle: and if they did, it may not matter what their terms of use say, you could still sue them
(09:15:35 AM) Kyle: but what it also means is that if they have some security problem (like, say, Facebook has been having) someone could grab a pre-release book from an author and publish it
(09:16:41 AM) Joy: oooh!!!
(09:17:08 AM) Kyle: even if their security is somewhat sound, it doesn’t mean an author’s google password is
(09:17:31 AM) Kyle: and if someone knows your password for google calendar or gmail account (or can hack into it), then they can get into google docs
[Short amount of time passes]
(09:21:54 AM) Kyle: heh this is fitting, gmail had a 4 hour blackour earlier today
(09:22:07 AM) Kyle: imagine if you were on deadline and google docs had an outage
(09:23:45 AM) Joy: wow yeah. that would be horrible.

So there you go. OpenOffice? Out. AbiWord? Out. CrossOver Office: Usable, but buggy. Google Docs: Super-duper out! What’s a Linux lover to do?

I hate to admit it, but this is me: Vehement Anti-Cell-Phone Guy Finally Caves.

Whiting said he was reluctant to accept the “encroachment of technology” into his personal life, and explained that he “[does not] plan on becoming one of those people with cell phones.”

“This is for emergencies only,” he said. “In case my car stalls on the freeway and I need to call for help, or in the event that I absolutely must get in touch with someone but am away from home.”

Whiting first used the phone Sunday night to check movie times for March Of The Penguins.

“In fact, I use it so little that, when I went to the theater, I forgot to turn off the ringer,” Whiting said. “When it started ringing, right away I said, ‘Who’s the jerk with the cell phone?’ and I didn’t realize it was me. Suffice it to say, I felt very guilty.”

“It was my girlfriend, though, so I had to take it,” he added.

I still think cell phones are leashes. I still think they allow us to drift through life in personalized bubbles. I still think their effect on community and traffic is suspect. Nevertheless I was forced to get one because, well, life just went that way. Apparently The Onion gets around to all of us eventually.

I’ve decided to start posting about writing on here again. At least, I will blog about writing when I have something to say about it. (Prior to this, my writing posts have been over at Word Pirates.) The truth is, I am sick of blogs and have been trying to “blog” less. I think it’s a telling fact that bloggers “blog” instead of “write.” Kyle doesn’t have a blog because, he rightfully points out, he can get paid to write the same thing for a magazine. It’s a pretty good argument not to blog, if you ask me.

I recently went through my RSS feed and deleted all the blogs that bore me–gossip blogs, artsy blogs, blogs I feel I should read because I know the people who update them, etc. When I was finished, my RSS feed was about a quarter the size it had been before, but when I next ran it, I was actually interested in the updates. When I go on vacation, I don’t think to read blogs. Apparently when I have outside stimulus, the whole blogging world could fall into the ocean and I wouldn’t care. This suggests to me that I don’t have a deep connection to blogging and much of it is about boredom/procrastination/writerly angst.

Is it obnoxious to write about how you are tired of blogging on your blog? Still, I am. And also, don’t blogs seem a little hyped these days? People seem to take it all so very seriously. I thought this was just a fun thing we were all doing on our computers, but no, it turns out it’s big business. Money, money, money! It’s like Twitter: to me, this seems like a fun (and kind of dorky) thing people do in their spare time, but apparently it is something people want to invest in and fawn over and throw money at. Which is swell and all, but kind of ridiculous at base.

All that to say, I plan to blog on here more and not as much elsewhere. So stay tuned. When I get my camera back from where I left it, I will post about wine tasting, my anniversary, and giant squash. Hurrah!

Funny little video making fun of promoting your book in today’s Twitter/Facebook/YouTube world, while simultaneously promoting this guy’s book in that world. Clever! I tell you, it’s hard to be a writer now when you have to waste time with all this stuff (, she blogs). Whatever… what are you gonna do? (Via)

Let me start out by saying that I’m a fan of O’Reilly Media. After all, Kyle has written several books for them. I have gone to the Maker Faire for the last two years. In fact, Kyle had a booth at Maker Faire last year, which I wrote about here. So, having gone and enjoyed it every time–especially the craft fair aspect of the event–I was happy that Marcia invited us to go again this year. She even offered to drive.

The sign that something was wrong started at the freeway interchange to San Mateo, where Maker Faire was being held. Suddenly, there was a lot of traffic. After slowly driving through it for a half hour longer than felt necessary, Marcia and Kyle started suggesting that maybe the traffic was because of the Maker Faire. I didn’t think so. It seemed impossible that this many people wanted to look at crafts and lasers. The whole DIY aesthetic and geekiness that Marker Faire represents still seems too grass roots and small to me to attract this many people. I mean, this was like being caught in traffic for a football game, not a cute little geeky fair.

But when we pulled onto the off-ramp for the Maker Faire exit, I saw that I was wrong. The off-ramp was jammed full of cars and moving at a glacier pace. For an hour and 40 minutes, we sat on the off-ramp. We were trapped. We stopped and started, stopped and started. People were parking their cars on the shoulder and peeing in the bushes. I was dying of boredom. All I saw for nearly two hours was this:

FINALLY we got into San Mateo, but the craziness continued. Traffic was clogging the streets. There was no where to park. We drove around and around but all the lots were full. My mood started to sour. I can only be in traffic for so long before I start getting upset. I took to desperate measures to entertain myself.

“Help Me! (Trapped in car, can’t see lasers)”

“All these people are coming here? Really?”

Line to get in

At last, we gave up and parked in downtown San Mateo and ate at a taqueria in the back of a Mexican grocery store. Marcia had excellent tamales. The Jesus statue on top of the meat case lifted my spirits.

I would have been happy to go home at that point, but it had taken four-and-a-half hours to get there and Kyle and Marcia still wanted to go, so we walked over to the Maker Faire. Luckily, because Marcia is all connected and important, we had free tickets, so we didn’t have to stand in the line to get in.

Once in, it was… crowded. And yet the faire was pretty much the same. I mean, yeah, they had a few new things, like bands and giant metal statues–

–but overall it was the same. Same giant robot giraffe, same cupcake scooters, same pinball trailer, same $3 water and soda (and $9 beer, I hear). What was different was that somehow–and I admit this is a subjective viewpoint–the joy had been sucked out of the event. Last year, there were people riding around on every weird bicycle contraption you could think of. This year, there were only a few people on such things. Last year, people were so cool and strange that I wanted to take a picture of everyone I saw. This year, while there were plenty of geeky tee-shirts and pony tails, only one or two people struck me as interesting. And also, people were kind of rude.

One of the biggest disappointments was the craft fair. Last year, the Bizarre Bazaar was full of awesome crafts. I walked around and got idea after idea. This year, the overall quality of the crafts seemed lower. While there were some repeat crafters, the new stuff slipped into more predictable craft territory: baby booties, cards, cutesy pillows, etc. And anyway, I couldn’t even look at the booths because they moved the Craft portion of an event into a small building and it was so crowded, you could hardly walk.

(Sample of the crowd in the Craft building)

That said, I’m glad I went because I got to hang out with friends. There were a few other cool things:

1. Giant metal statues, as mentioned before.

2. A DIY mushroom farm where you can grow your own mushrooms at home. Kyle and I bought one. We are growing shitake mushrooms on our kitchen counter now.

3. Goats

4. Various lasers, Tesla coils, robots, et. all.

5. Pops! by Krystina Castella, a book about making popsicles. I was so impressed, I went right home and made popsicles with fresh lemon and grapefruit juice.

Kyle kept saying that I thought Maker Faire wasn’t cool anymore because, like an indie band geek, I didn’t like that my little “discovery” had gotten so popular. Maybe so. It amazes me that that many people wanted to go to it, and I suspect the reason is hype more than anything else. Or, it could simply be that I resent sitting in a car for five hours.

Still, I don’t care if it is a little snotty: like a good restaurant or an indie band, some things start to suck once they become popular.

Starting Saturday, Kyle and I will be embarking on our cross-country vacation. It’s planned to last from September 15-October 3. Here is the basic route again:

We will be visiting the following states:

• California
• Nevada
• Arizona
• New Mexico
• Texas
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• Tennessee
• Kentucky
• Missouri
• Kansas
• Colorado
• Utah

So, lots of driving coming up. To entertain ourselves, we set up a system that will allow us to be completely wired as long as we have cell coverage. This includes Internet access via Kyle’s ENDO wireless internet card and phone-calling ability via a blackberry and calling card. I will also be blogging and taking pictures with my new camera.

But we aren’t stopping there with the gadgets. No! We will also have:

• Our laptops (of course)
• A GPS system borrowed from Paul, along with an atlas, compass, highway stops book to keep us from getting lost
• An Archos media player filled with movies, music, and books on tape.
• A cooler that plugs into your cigarette adapter to keep food cold, which will save us money on lunches and diet soda.
• My knitting, which is kind of the opposite of a gadget, but I feel inclined to mention it anyway.

We’re taking our 2004 Honda Civic, which is currently getting 44 mpg on the freeway. The entire trip should cost less in gas than two airline fares, and we don’t have to deal with airport bs.

Another aspect of this trip is that there isn’t a solid plan. I know where we are going and we do have hotel reservations for certain cities like New Orleans and Las Vegas, but much of this is unplanned. We’re going where the wind blows us! (Don’t worry, we have camping gear so that if the wind gets us stuck, we can set up a tent.)

I may hate this trip. I might be bored and dirty and stressed from not having a decent bed to sleep in. On the other hand, it may be a grandiose adventure to rival Kerouac’s On The Road (which, coincidentally, just celebrated its 50th anniversary).

In either case, you should be able to follow along. Keep coming back to read about and see pictures of this rascally country of ours–or at least part of it.

My Nikon D40 came today. (And I got a haircut.)

So far, it is awesome–fast, clean, and cool to hold in my hands. It’s already taking better pictures than my Canon SD-550 ever dreamed. Now if I can just figure out how to make it stop shutting off the screen every two seconds to save battery…

I meant to mention yesterday that my friend Justin’s blog was hacked, so he tracked down the hacker and posted his name and picture on his blog as well as links to his resume/website.

Now Justin’s post is up on Digg. It’s very funny for me to read all the comments people were making about the situation. Oh the excitement Justin’s blog causes sometimes…

My handsome husband Kyle Rankin signing his books at last week’s LinuxWorld in San Francisco.

Thanks to Kat for taking this picture.