Pillarbox includes basic word counting features, a cursor and text on a simple background, no more than that. It is much like a journal in that respect. This simplified interface can help you do what you need to do with few distractions onscreen. To get the full benefit of this extension, you should hit F11 to go to a full screen view.

Pillarbox will auto save your file. The file is saved locally allowing you to be completely offline when writing. Files are saved locally so you do not need to stay connected to the internet to do your work. To get back to the work all you need to do is open the browser and start Pillarbox. The last thing you wrote will be shown inside of the browser window.

There is a built-in word counter in the event that you write professionally and need to hit a required word length. This is also very useful for students. There is a handy timer included to help you write for a predefined time. At the end of the countdown timer there is a small popup that comes up with a “Time is up” message to let you know you need to stop writing. Naturally, this can be annoying too, so you don’t have to use it.

You can make many different changes within the options. It is easy to edit the settings inside of Google Chrome options menu. Under extensions, select Pillarbox. Within these settings, you are able to adjust several presets. You can change just about everything relating to the text layout that you would like. This will help any computer-oriented writer find the most appropriate and comfortable way to view their work space. If you are familiar with CSS, it is easy to make custom settings that will bring an even better look and feel to Pillarbox.

Pillarbox is much more than a simple text input window. With the benefits of operating inside of the Chrome browser there is nothing to install.

It is a simple idea that has a sophisticated feel to it. It is, however, not an all-encompassing word processor. Writers will still have to take the text and place it into Word to get the added benefits of Microsoft Office. Spelling is checked while in the Pillarbox window without formatting. You can use your word processing software of choice to handle that task. Pillarbox is just a place to go to when you need to concentrate and get a job done. It is singular in its focus and its execution, much like a writer’s mind. It is a GUI version of going out into the field and sitting under a tree where nobody will bother you while you write. Of course, you might need to put bolts on your doors and soundproof your office to get complete privacy.

Here is how it works in detail. Copy a few paragraphs of a text you have written, and paste it into the form on the I Write Like website.

i write like

Click the Analyze button afterwards to start the text analysis. I Write Like displays the name of a famous writer on the next page. The page unfortunately does not list information about the writer, just a link to books on Amazon.

famous writer

I apparently write like Stephen King, Cory Doctorow or James Joyce, depending on the paragraphs pasted into the form. Mostly Cory Doctorow though, whom I have never heard about before. Wikipedia tells me that Cory is a Canadian blogger and writer, good to know.

The You Write Like result’s page contains badges to embed the information on a website. Links to post to Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz and Tumblr are also provided.

The developer recently revealed in a blog post how the service determines the famous writer.

“Actually, the algorithm is not a rocket science, and you can find it on every computer today. It’s a Bayesian classifier, which is widely used to fight spam on the Internet. Take for example the “Mark as spam” button in Gmail or Outlook. When you receive a message that you think is spam, you click this button, and the internal database gets trained to recognize future messages similar to this one as spam. This is basically how “I Write Like” works on my side: I feed it with “Frankenstein” and tell it, “This is Mary Shelley. Recognize works similar to this as Mary Shelley.” Of course, the algorithm is slightly different from the one used to detect spam, because it takes into account more stylistic features of the text, such as the number of words in sentences, the number of commas, semicolons, and whether the sentence is a direct speech or a quotation.”

So, who do you write like?

One application that does this job very well is PyRoom. PyRoom is a simple to use application that serves as a text editor that takes up your entire screen. There are no window decorations, or minimize buttons, or anything that will get the application out of the way – unless you close the application. So for those who need a distraction from the distractions, PyRoom just might do the trick.

Because you are using a text-based editor, you should expect that the files you write in PyRoom are going to be flat text files – in other words, no formatting. Of course you can always open that text in your standard word processor and doctor it up all you want.  Now, let’s take a look at installing and using PyRoom.

Installation

As you can imagine, the installation of PyRoom is pretty standard. Since this is a text-based editor, let’s install from the command line (instead of the GUI). Here are the steps (for installing within Ubuntu):

1. Open up your terminal window.
2. Issue the command sudo apt-get install pyroom.
3. OK any dependencies that will be needed.
4. Watch the installation fly by.

That’s it.  After PyRoom is installed you will find the executable menu entry in the Office sub-menu of the Applications menu. If, for some strange reason, you can not find it you can always open the “run” dialog with the <Alt>F2 keyboard combination and then enter the command pyroom to start the application.

Using PyRoom

Figure 1

When PyRoom starts you will see a nearly blank screen (see Figure 1). Here you can see I have added a bit of text just so you can see how PyRoom  looks. What you will also notice is the complete absence of everything you have grown accustomed to with applications. That’s the whole point.

The first thing you will probably want to do is get to the help menu. All commands are executed with the help of the <Ctrl> key. To get to the help menu hit the combination <Ctrl>h which will give you a listing of all the possible commands for PyRoom.

One of the cool features of PyRoom is that you can keep multiple buffers open so you can work on more than one file at time. To move back and forth between buffers you would hit the <Ctrl>Page-Up or <Ctrl>Page-Down. Either of those will move you between your buffers.

Of course the most important key combinations are <Ctrl>s for saving and <Ctrl>q for quitting. You can see the entire list from the help screen.

A few configurations

Figure 2

If you hit the <Ctrl>p combination you will bring up the Preferences window (see Figure 2). In this window you can configure a few items (you can see the General configurations in Figure 2). You can also configure a theme for PyRoom. From the Theme tab you can choose a preset them or you can create your own personal theme.

Final thoughts

I am a big fan of minimalism and zero distractions. Of course using today’s desktop, it’s practically impossible to avoid all distractions when you’re trying to concentrate. PyRoom offers some respite from the usual suspects and allows you to concentrate on your work – not your Tweets and Facebook status.

Fortunately OpenOffice has a powerful Extension system that allows you to extend the functionality of OpenOffice. One extension, Writer’s Tools, is intended for writers: Professional writers, students, any level. Typically OpenOffice extensions are as easy to install as a Firefox addon. In the case of Writer’s Tools, there are a few more steps involved. In this article you will see just how this is done so you too can enjoy the powerful additions offered by this extension.

Features

The Writer’s Tools extension includes the following features:

• Dictionary lookup
• Google translate
• Google map support
• Email and multi-format backup
• Remote backup
• Amazon S3 backup
• Timer
• Converter
• Bookmarks
• Word of the day
• Notebook

and more

Installing an Extension

Installing an extension in OpenOffice is simple. The first thing to do is to download the file. In some cases the file will be a single file with the extension .oxt, in which the Extension Manager will automatically open and install the file. In some cases (such as with Writer’s Tools) the downloaded file is a zip file that contains a few necessary pieces. In this case you would open the Extension Manager manually and install the file. Let’s see how it’s done. First download the Writer’s Tools file and then unzip the package.  Now open the Extension Manager.

Figure 1

To open the Extension Manager first open up OpenOffice Writer and then click on the Tools menu. Within the Tools menu you will see the Extension Manager entry which will open the Extension Manager window (see Figure 1).

Click on the Add button which will open up a window where you can navigate to the Writer’s Tools file you downloaded. The file you want to add is called WriterTools.oxt. When you open this file you will have to agree to a license to proceed.

Once you have the extension installed you will have to restart OpenOffice in order for the Writer’s Tools menu to show up in OpenOffice. You’re not done quite yet.

The database

Figure 2

Before you move on to install the database, you need to make sure you have OpenOffice.org Base installed. To do this go to your Add/Remove Software tool and search for “openoffice” (no quotes). In the listing you will see the Base entry. Mark that for installation and click Apply to install. After the installation is complete you are ready to move on.

There are a couple of tools in Writer’s Tools that require you to register database. Fortunately the Writer’s Tools creator has included the necessary database in the zip file. To register this database go to the Options Window (which can be accessed from the Tools menu) and then expand the OpenOffice.org Base entry (see Figure 2).

Once there click on the Databases entry and then click the New button and then the Browse button to locate the file WriterDB.odb and then OK to register this database.

Now that the database is registered you will have all of the Writer’s Tools available to you.

Final thoughts

If you do any writing, for work, for school, for pleasure – whatever – you need to try the Writer’s Tools extension. This tool will make your writing life much more efficient and enjoyable.

The novel writing software yWriter (via Barry) is such an application. It is compatible with both the Microsoft Windows and Linux operating system. The software divided novels into chapters and scenes which are all accessible from the same interface. Each chapter contains one or multiple scenes that can be filled with the actual text but also information like characters, locations, items, scene notes and goals.

Each chapter is displayed in the sidebar with its title and additional information. A click on a chapter will load the scenes into the main window that is immediately revealing important information to the author like the number of words, viewpoint or status. All the additional information that make up a scene like locations and characters are also listed in that overview.

The menu on top provides additional means to add or edit all aspects of the novel easily. The Tools menu for instance contains a link to the storyboard which will process all the information that has been entered into the application and display it in a timeline.

The text editor itself is a basic text editor that can be used to write a scene and enter detailed information about the scene’s characters, locations and objects.

Writing a novel with yWriter will take more time initially than writing it in another word processor if all the information that it can contain are added by the writer. It will however speed up the novel writing process tremendously over time as it provides better access to information needed. Try searching for character appearances in a novel written in Microsoft Word or Open Office and in yWriter to know how much faster and accessible this software is.

Fonts500 is a website that claims to have 500 of the best fonts available. The good part about this is that all of these are free for your use. An initial visit to the page displays the first 100 fonts, with links to the other 400 at the bottom of the page.

The fonts are displayed such that each font’s name is written in that font itself. If you want, you can use custom text to view how the same text looks in different fonts. The fonts themselves are varied and interesting. Some of them actually tempted me to download and add to my font collection.

Each font can be downloaded in a zip file. Then, you can extract it to the Fonts directory in your Control Panel. If you want all the fonts, I suggest you use the Downthemall Firefox extension. All 500 fonts together come to only 26 Mb.

It is important to remember that too many fonts can slow your computer down. However, it’s still worth checking out all the different fonts available.

Are you satisfied with the standard Windows fonts or are you always on the lookout for unique fonts to add to your collection? Where do you go when you want good fonts? Do you know of any other sites offering free fonts?

All the software products are either open source or freeware which have been added with permission of the author of the product. You might know most of the products already but it is still worth checking out for the occasional program that one does not know. Take a look at the list of software that has been included so far. Each contains a link to the developers homepage which is an alternative method to download them.

It is kinda strange that some games have made it into the final distribution, not sure about the motivation to add them to the package. It is nevertheless a great compilation, I found some tools that I have not heard about (yet) and which I will review once I find the time to do so.

Everyone is able to create a contest on Bix. Christmas contests seem to be all over the place at the moment, you can win prizes if you win them. Everytime you visit a contest the site presents two videos from contestants that you can listen to. After doing that you have to pick one of the two and the pick will get some points. Bix features more contests than just Karaoke ones of course, you can view beauty contests, dance contests, a cappella, writing, photography, lip sync and more contests on the site.

You find many contests within each category. I found some real interesting ones, vote for the hottest Stanford Profs, the sexiest female biker or poems that touch a nerve. Most people will of course view the Karaoke competitions, for a good laugh. Don’t get me wrong. You find talented singers amongst the contestants but also some that are not that great. Just take a look at all those tv shows that are looking for singers, those people participate. Good ones, bad ones, you name it.

If you have the talent you can take part in the contests. I read somewhere that they had contests with prize money of up to $50.000, not bad for some minutes of singing, performing or smiling.