Yearly Archives: 2011

Typerighter

Typerighter is a new application that I have been testing for a while. As the developer is a close personal friend of mine and willing to listen to my, um, gentle persuasion, I have been giving active feedback since the very beginning and I hope you, like I, will find it the perfect web based writing tool.

My favorite feature is it’s complete lack of features. The only visible feature is a blank page and the occasional “save” that happens automatically. That’s it, one feature.

OK, l lied. But not completely. It has more features but the rest of the “features” are completely hidden.

Want to save your file as plain text? No problem. Just type “.txt” at the end of the url.

Oh, you write in Markdown and wish there was a way to convert it to valid HTML without an extra step? No problem, just type “.html” at the end of the URL.

Oh, and if you are a paid user, you get nifty things like your own user space and being able to create a filename URL by typing http://username.typerighter.com/filename and you will always be able to access your document directly at that address.

So yes, it has a few features but none of them, ever, get between you and that blank page. The way a writing app should be.

And, it works in the browser so, you know, everywhere is disco. iPad? Disco. iPhone? Hustle! Heck, throw it on your Chromebook.

I’m using it to write this letter. I drafted an essay of my book using it (on my iPad, naturally). It’s really neat. I keep it open in a browser window with a page I have set as my scratchpad. I can type a quick note in there if I’m working in Safari and not break my stride too much.

To get the extra goodness a personal Typerighter domain provides, and to support independent development, I recommend you pay the current $5.00+ cost. Because, you see, that cost increases by one cent for each person who signs up. So getting in now gets you the best price. But, you don’t have to pay to use it. Just use the “Try it out” link at the bottom of the sign up page and use it for as long as you wish.

Seriously, I hope you love this thing as much as I do. Just head on over to https://typerighter.com/ and play with it for a bit. Like I said, my good friend Garrick van Buren is the developer and he would love your feedback. Make any feature request you want as long as it can be completely invisible ;-).

Handful of Suns

each morning
I awake
to the sound 
of the girl
at the end 
of the hall

the sun is on
she tells me
though it’s not
not this early
or this late
in the fall

she believes
she sees light
which is enough
for me to rise
and respond
to her call

what matters
more than sleep
is these mornings
while she 
is still
so very small

in life
with a child
you have only
a handful of suns
either real or imagined
that is all

The MacGuffin

If you have been reading this site or listened to the Enough podcast for long enough, you know I’m always trying crazy experiments. Like going a week without things I use or writing a book on my iPad. Ask me on almost any day and I have some sort of insane idea I’m trying out. My latest seems to have attracted more attention than I ever thought it would.

On a recent episode of the podcast, I discussed a plan for yet another crazy experiment. – To reduce my Mac to the out of the box install and limit myself to only five third party apps and utilities (feel free to listen). The reason? Well, it is the same as any other crazy experiment I do: It’s an attempt to find what is “Enough” for me. That tricky and ever shifting balance between want and need. I want to explore these things for myself in the hopes it will inspire others to do the same.

In everything I do and try to communicate here, what matters is that I am not only asking the question, “What is enough?” but I am actively seeking answers.

All. The. Time.

The thing about that answer is that the only person that can answer it correctly is the person who is living it. In other words, I can’t tell you what is enough for you. You have to ask and answer what is enough for you. I can only tell you what is enough for me. I can only explain how I went about discovering that answer for myself in the hopes it will give you a potential path, of which there may be many, to the answer that is right for you.

So, why five apps? Why not ten? Twenty? Well, let me tell you a little secret…

It’s a MacGuffin. Which, according to the canonical authoritative source of all truth and knowledge, Wikipedia, is:

A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin or maguffin) is “a plot element that catches the viewers’ attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction”. The defining aspect of a MacGuffin is that the major players in the story are (at least initially) willing to do and sacrifice almost anything to obtain it, regardless of what the MacGuffin actually is. In fact, the specific nature of the MacGuffin may be ambiguous, undefined, generic, left open to interpretation or otherwise completely unimportant to the plot. Common examples are money, victory, glory, survival, a source of power, a potential threat, or it may simply be something entirely unexplained.

OK. Understood? Great. But I want to highlight one specific part again as it relates to my point:

In fact, the specific nature of the MacGuffin may be ambiguous, undefined, generic, left open to interpretation or otherwise completely unimportant to the plot.

In the case of almost every experiment I do, there is a MacGuffin that fits this description. In the case of “A week without…” the MacGuffin is the week itself. The important part is that I’m actively trying to evaluate not only my need and use of a thing but also its value to me and where it fits in my life. In the case of writing a book on my iPad, the MacGuffin was the iPad. I mean, I could have chosen any tool to replace the way I commonly would write a book – my iPhone, pen and paper, etc. The reason was simply the inherent challenges that may come from doing so and to evaluate if the tool was better for me than the one I would normally use.

In the particular case of my “Five apps” experiment, it is the number is that MacGuffin. The number is unimportant. I could have chosen any number of apps. It does not matter. What does matter is that I am asking a question about what enough is for me when it comes to the things I have chosen to install on my Mac and am seeking an answer.

The theme here is that everyone has a balance that works for them. I’m actively seeking mine. If I wish to inspire anything at all in doing this, it is that others actively seek what is the proper balance for them. You should ask and answer what is enough for you. I’m only here to help. But, please, do not get hung up on the MacGuffin or you may very well miss the point and be left with more questions than answers.