Beckism.com

Although I find my current work as a web designer interesting and occasionally fulfilling, it is not what I want to do the rest of my life. Since I was a snot-nosed kid in fifth grade, I have instead set my sites on being a novelist. I know that I’m capable of writing a novel (learned that thanks to my senior thesis), but up until now my writing has been very haphazard. I’ll write on vacations (sometimes) or when the mood strikes, but anyone who has tried to write a novel knows that you’ll never get anything done doing that. To write a longer work, writing has to be a habit, and I’ve been finding it a difficult habit to form.

So this year, I’ve decided to finally jump on the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) bandwagon in the hopes that the experience will help me settle into some good writing habits, like writing every morning instead of poking around listlessly online. I will, of course, be writing in StoryMill because I can’t fathom writing in any other software (and yes, I’ve tried pretty much all of the ones available for Mac).

But upon opening StoryMill and prepping a new document for the fast upcoming November 1st, I realized that my typical approach to writing in StoryMill simply isn’t going to work for NaNoWriMo. In order to finish 50,000 words in 30 days, on top of a full time job and other distractions, I’m going to need to write, write, write. Outlining, character backstory, notes on locations, research—all of these will be distractions that could well prevent me from reaching the goal, and yet all of these things are tasks that I regularly undertake in StoryMill. In fact, the program encourages it; take a look at its default novel document:

This is no good at all. Keeping track of characters, scenes, etc. is certainly useful, but I’m going for pure word output, and if the option to procrastinate by expanding on my backstory is available, I’ll probably take it. So to start, I decided to axe absolutely everything except the generic Tasks view, which I renamed to Notes (to delete and rename these items right click a view in the sidebar and choose Manage Views; then when you’re done, right click the smart view and choose Remove View):

I can add those views back in when it comes time to clean things up, and in the meantime I can drop any notes on backstory or whatever into the Notes view as I think of them without feeling any pressure to expand on the ideas. Will my story have more plot holes and inconsistencies than if I’d left those views in? Doubtless. But darn it, I want to win NaNoWriMo! I cannot afford distractions.

Next up, I took a look at the chapters view. I definitely am going to want to write my text in Chapters (the chapters editing window, which you can get to by double clicking a chapter title in the list area, offers numerous incentives like highlighting and annotations that aren’t as easy to use in other views). However, worrying about where my chapter breaks fall is going to slow me down and distract me yet again. I suppose I could just write in a single long chapter, but it would get difficult to manage quickly. Instead, I think I’ll add a new chapter every day. That way I can not only see how many words I was able to write in retrospect (which could be useful info), but I’ll have the story broken up into easily skimmable chunks if I need to go back over it to remember someone’s name or whatever.

Just to prevent any temptation, I also right-clicked on the Timeline button in the toolbar and chose “Remove Item”. Sure, it would never have been activated because I don’t have a scenes view, but the temptation to add a scenes view would be there.

Last, but certainly not least, I double clicked the Progress Meter and set my goals appropriately:

And with that, I’m ready to start writing, as distraction-free as I’m likely to get. I’m sure this system won’t work for everyone (heck, it might not even work for me; I’ve yet to test it out), but my hope is that by slimming down StoryMill to the bare essentials I’ll be able to get my first draft in there as part of reaching the NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words, and then I’ll be able to add features like the scenes view, characters, and locations back when I get ready to revise so that I can start cleaning up plot holes and putting a little more thought into the novel. Plus, needing to copy and paste all of my text into scenes will be an excellent excuse to read over it all as part of my revision efforts, anyway.

For other NaNoWriMo participants planning to use StoryMill, here’s a few generic tips to help you out:

• Full screen will likely be your best friend. You can enter full screen quickly from just about any part of the program by hitting command-option-F. Exit full screen by hitting escape.
• As I mentioned above, the Chapters window is probably the best editing experience in StoryMill (aside from full screen). Double click a chapter in the list or sidebar to see what I mean.
• If you’re using a slimmed-down project like I will, you’ll probably also want to avoid spending much time adding tags to things. However, if you drop something in the Notes view it would be a good idea to toss a couple quick tags on it to make sorting through things later easier. For instance, a note about a character could get a “character” tag. Then when it comes time to add the characters view back in you can make a smart view based on notes to filter for all character items and hit the ground running.

Good luck to the other NaNoWriMo participants!

I went to the ExpressionEngine Roadshow today where I learned a couple things, was disgusted with EllisLab for their cop-out non-presentation, and awkwardly stood alone in the corner (or, worse, the center of the room) between speeches while people around me did this thing called “networking”.

I am such crap at networking. I’ve only attended two conferences so far (An Event Apart and EE Roadshow), but at both I came to the conclusion that the presentations aren’t what the thing’s about. Both times only about half of the presentations were remotely worthwhile, while the others were either senseless cruft or so bogged down by the speaker’s fear of public speaking and/or inability to write coherently that by the end I just wanted to bang my head into the nearest wall a few times. Clearly we aren’t here because web developers are charismatic individuals with a flair for speech-writing.

So I can only assume that it’s the times in between, the meal times and parties, that people find the real value. Those times when you’re expected to wander around, get to know your fellow developers, swap business cards, and talk shop.

Sadly for me, I have no interest in approaching complete strangers and introducing myself. I’ve never had this inclination, which is something that puzzles me. Engage me in conversation, and you’ll find I’m not socially awkward: I am, in fact, an intelligent individual with a good sense of humor who loves interacting with people. Observe me with a group of my friends or family, and you may think me highly extroverted. Yet drop me in a room full of strangers, and I clam up instantly. I know these people are passionate about the same things I’m passionate about, but unless one of them seeks me out I find it hard to think of things to talk about.

I was thinking about this on the bus ride home (I left early, having deduced from fifteen minutes standing around alone that I wasn’t going to get anything out of the after-party, particularly since I don’t drink and thus could not take advantage of the free alcohol), and I’ve finally realized the problem: I’m a presenter. A performer. I’m damn good at giving a speech and then talking to people about it afterward, but no good at being just another member of the audience, milling around and networking.

Problem being, of course, that in both the EE community and the web development community as a whole, I’m a nobody. I haven’t written any books, or published any extensions, or been hired by Happy Cog so it’s unlikely anyone is going to invite me to speak anytime soon.

Guess it’s time to either start the difficult personal work necessary to overcome my awkwardness at initiating social encounters or start submitting topic proposals to my favorite web conference organizers.

After working on it for the past couple months, I’m very happy to announce that my freelancing site, One Crayon, has been redesigned from the ground up.

One Crayon now looks several orders of magnitude better than its original design; offers information and documentation for TEA for Espresso, TEA for Coda, and my other projects in a single unified location; and offers numerous other improvements like a news feed for keeping up to date with general One Crayon news and updates to my various software projects.

I’m not actively seeking freelance work thanks to a busy full time schedule, but I’ve been wanting to revitalize One Crayon for a while, not least because I wanted to start migrating some of my sites over to ExpressionEngine and One Crayon seemed like a good place to start.

There are still some rough edges (I’m looking at you, IE 6) and I haven’t added my website or writing portfolios, but I hope you’ll enjoy it anyway!

If you ask my supervisor, she’ll tell you that I’m the Director of Web Services. This is bullshit, but it sounds professional and presumably the clients love it. So that’s alright.

The truth is, I’m a problem-solver. Every day, I sit down at my computer and I solve people’s problems. Perhaps the problem is that Client A wants a site that they can update themselves. Or maybe my coworker needs me to figure out why the heck their code is breaking in some browsers but not others. And sometimes Client C just has to have a rainbow unicorn spring out of the middle of the page and dance on the user’s mouse cursor in a paroxysm of misused Javascript. The problems change day to day and project to project.

I’ve now been solving problems professionally for over a year and a half, and I’ve found that in the course of solving problems I often discover information and tools online that are extremely useful for web work. Up until now, I haven’t done much with these tidbits aside from occasionally bookmarking them.

No longer! I am pleased to announce beckbits, a collection of links, tips, and other tidbits that I discover during my day job and would like to share with other web problem-solvers. Aside from links to useful resources that I’ve discovered, I may occasionally post software or productivity tips, links to my most recently completed sites, and other minor items that relate to my work as a web professional.

Enjoy!

My girlfriend’s and my first Christmas tree together. Happy!

Sitting on the couch we’ve got a view of the Christmas tree with the Space Needle standing tall in the window next to it. I love this apartment.

My girlfriend and I decided to go see The Dark Knight today. We both loved Batman Begins, and the previews for The Dark Knight were exciting. So we show up at the theater, and after being advertised and previewed at for a solid 40 minutes, we finally get to the movie.

And it’s good. Really good. The Joker is a psychotic killer, but he’s an exquisitely well-done psychotic killer. Granted, it’s hard for me to reconcile this gritty Joker with the Joker of the 1966 Batman movie (Batman: “An exploding shark was pulling my leg!” Gordon: “The Joker!”).

But still. Good movie, lots of action, and definitely in keeping with Batman Begins.

Then, almost at the ending, Batman is lying on the ground, possibly unconscious and certainly hurt, while the Joker stalks toward him. One of the Joker’s henchmen (where does he get these guys?) leans over our prone hero, and reaches for his mask. There’s a spark from the mask, the henchman starts jumping back, and at that very instant, everything goes dark.

The audience sits silent for a few seconds while it sinks in. Something went wrong. The timing really was that perfect. Spark, malfunction. Then we realize that we’re likely ten minutes or so away from the end of the movie and the laughter and catcalls start.

Turns out the power went out (the whole block the movie theater was on looked to be out, although it was hard to tell since it was a gorgeous sunny day without a speck of wind; very surreal), so unfortunately my girlfriend and I have still not seen how The Dark Knight ends. Hopefully soon we’ll be able to use the free movie voucher the theater gave us. But still. You couldn’t have planned that kind of timing.

This kind of thing is why I think god probably does exist: if we can believe the Bible, he was into angry, jealous smiting to start (”Worship someone else? DIE!”), then when that didn’t work fell back to cajoling and offering bribes (”Come on, if you believe in me I’ll treat you real nice in the afterlife!”), and finally got old and tired and said the hell with it, I’m just going to fuck with them. Which describes just about every parent-turned-curmudgeon who I know.

I’m not usually a big fan of the realistic anti-terrorist shooters, but Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for the Xbox 360 (and other systems) is growing on me. My cousin has always been really into the Rainbow Six series, and he convinced me to buy Vegas 2 this week and attend an Xbox party with him and a bunch of his Xbox Live friends on Saturday.

It was a blast. Xbox Live already has voice communication going for it, but it’s so much more fun to actually be in the same room with the people you’re playing with. There were a bunch of people at the party (about 14-15 playing Vegas 2 at any given time, and a few others doing their own thing for whatever reason). Definitely more fun than hooking up to matches with total strangers who all too often turn out to be idiots (or twelve years old).

As for the game, Vegas 2 seems like a pretty standard entry into the tactical shooter genre. It only takes a few shots to kill you, taking cover behind walls, boxes, and so forth and peering out as you wait for an enemy is a standard tactic, and half the time when you get killed you have no idea where it came from (thanks to said hiding and peeking around corners). Normally I find these kind of games really frustrating; I was introduced to shooters (specifically online multiplayer shooters) playing Aliens vs. Predator which was filled with claustrophobic maps where your best survival tactic was to simply never stand still, so retraining myself to approach the map one room at a time is difficult.

The controls for Vegas 2 also threw me off. They’re quite different from most shooters I’ve played, and vastly different from Call of Duty 4 (which I’ve been playing recently).

Where Vegas 2 stands out is the variety of multiplayer options available. The entire campaign can be played through cooperatively, either via Live or split screen, and the various multiplayer gametypes are quite fun. Particularly appealing is the fact that if you can’t find enough people to pull off a good team deathmatch, you can do a “terrorist hunt” which allows you and up to three friends to fight bots on the multiplayer maps. I really enjoy coop games and the occasional bot fight, so the variety of options available in Vegas 2 is great.

I’d definitely recommend Vegas 2 if you’re looking for a good tactical shooter with great multiplayer options. It might not be anything special in the sub-genre of realistic anti-terrorist shooters (I wouldn’t know), but it’s the first one that I’ve been able to get into, and is a lot of fun to play with friends.

I can’t believe that I haven’t blogged this yet! Last weekend I noticed Apple was selling refurbished iMacs for a steeper discount than normal, and after a little soul-searching I bought myself a refurbished 24″ glossy widescreen iMac. I hadn’t intended to buy it for a couple months, but I couldn’t pass up $400 off.

It arrived on Wednesday, and after spending most of the day migrating stuff over from my MacBook Pro I was able to start using the iMac for work on Thursday. It is now my work machine, and I’m a multiple-Mac owner.

I am ecstatic about the iMac. The screen is huge (which was why I wanted one; I’ve been getting frustrated with my ability to do detailed graphics work on the MacBook Pro), and absolutely gorgeous. It’s perfect for the image work that I need to do, too; when I started using it Thursday, I instantly noticed some fairly severe JPEG artifacts that I’d missed on the laptop. I am continually impressed with Apple’s design ethic, and the iMac is a great example of why Macs are a better choice than just about any other computer out there.

The move from a single computer to computers that are designated “work” and “personal” has been an interesting one. I decided before the computer arrived not to use Apple’s migration assistant to move my data. The iMac has plenty of room, of course, so synching my home account wouldn’t be a problem space-wise, but frankly my Home folder is a disaster. I try to remember to use AppZapper, but there are possibly hundreds of unused preference files from apps I installed once and never touched again, not to mention the hell of my desktop and downloads folders. My documents folder is slightly better off, but still suffers from a number of folders that third-party software dropped inside without consulting me.

In any case, migrating to a new computer seemed like an ideal time to clean things up, so I did everything by hand. Took a while, but the spotless iMac desktop tells me it was worth it. I also discovered some tools to ease multiple computer problems, but I’ll share those another time.

I love my MacBook Pro. When they came out, I knew the fifteen inch, top-of-the-line MacBook Pro with an Intel Core Duo was my dream machine, and even though it took me a while to get one, I’ve never looked back. I’d suffered with a 700 pound eMac for so long that I’d forgotten how beautiful a Macintosh can be.

Fast-forward to late 2007 when I’ve graduated from college and somehow managed to acquire an income, an apartment, and a widescreen TV. My TV is also a thing of beauty. Thirty-two inches (which is the perfect size for my living space), 1080p high definition, and a gorgeous shining black surface. It’s a Sharp Aquos 32″ HDTV, and if you’re in the market for a television at that size, I highly recommend it. Beautiful picture, perfect for gaming (which is why I bought it), and the built-in speakers are quite good, as well, which is a major plus because I hate the neighbors thanks to their sound system, and wouldn’t wish to become what I despise.

With two such wonderful gadgets in my house, naturally I wanted them to get together, so I went out and bought an HDMI cable and an audio audio cable to connect the MacBook Pro to the TV. As best I can remember, it worked great the first few times I watched movies.

But the last couple times, as soon as I plugged in the audio cable, the TV started outputting a high-pitched whine through the speakers, which was extremely annoying.

I figured it might be the audio cable, but that didn’t make much sense; it was new and worked fine a few times. Magnetic interference seemed like a long shot, since there was nothing electronic nearby except the TV and the computer itself. Before I rushed off to buy a second audio cable, I decided to consult the internets.

After a little research online, I found there was some info about whining MacBook Pros, but it all had to do with the computer itself whining. Fortunately, Daniel Jalkut had quite a lot to say about CPU whining in MacBook Pros. I tried his QuietMBP program, and surprisingly, it fixed the whine through the television speakers.

Here’s where it gets fun: the QuietMBP program basically uses up idle time in the CPU by running pointless data through it. You can control how often the program runs stuff through the CPU with a slider, and you’re supposed to set the slider as high as you can to alleviate the noise (lower numbers = smaller gaps between CPU usage = more power consumption). I started dragging the slider, and the whine started changing pitch in real time.

Seriously, I could have played music with the damn thing. It was bizarre. Why the heck does a piece of software that’s supposed to help with CPU-related whining change a whine going through external speakers? Why have I never heard a whine through either my computer’s speakers or my trusty JBL Creatures? What god of electronics did I offend, anyway?

It’s baffling to me.

Now that I’m sensitized to the whine, though, I’m realizing that I do sometimes get a strange high-pitched whine when my MacBook Pro is running off battery. Why it took almost two years and a TV to bring this to my attention, I don’t know. Possibly because the eMac was basically a jet engine with a screen on it (think noise, not speed) and my ears have been ringing all this time.

In any case, if you’re experiencing problematic whining when you hook your MacBook Pro up to a pair of external speakers that otherwise behave well, it might not be your cable, your speakers, or really anything involved with getting audio from your Mac to the outside world. It might be your CPU.

Go figure.