For all things how you do you work (or hobby), whatever that is, be it audio recording, bean counting, writing, mad man guitar building (oh, he already has a thread), or toe nail collecting. Whatever.

I'll start by redirecting a discussion I started elsewhere (viewtopic.php?p=806382#p806382) to avoid derailing that thread. It regards updating what software I use to get writing and research done. I'll pick it up where it left off:

TLDR: I need software recs for writing, especially research articles.

VaticanShotglass wrote: Tue Sep 13, 2022 11:45 am Got a discount on an M1 Macbook Air after hemming and hawing over it for two years ...

Taking recommendations for good mac programs, especially free or affordable. I'm still not happy with the free word processors out there. Doing the google thing right now but there are all sorts of little rough edges that irritate me.

dfglv wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 7:16 am

VaticanShotglass wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 9:58 pm Thanks! Some of that stuff like Homebrew etc. goes over my head. I just want to write research papers, not fly in the matrix, but that seems to be pretty common these days?

Okay, cool. I'm not clear I recall your research field, bs far as working on research papers goes: I worked with Word when I was getting started, and it's okay, but some of the features I really needed, like cross-referencing within a document, I don't really trust. I've put in a long time with the (free) LaTeX system and for the upfront cost of learning a bit of code syntax -- markup stuff, mostly like phpBB -- it is super-powerful. In particular, it gives you tools to manage the structure of the document as much as its appearance. For example, you can get it to assemble your final document from an ordered collection of input files (rather than one big file). Once you get your head round that, you can safely do high-level structural revisions in a couple minutes, or confidently re-use materials (like reference lists, diagrams, or lengthy source quotes) across different writing projects. A lot of the example usage you'll find online emphasises how good it is for math applications, but it's not restricted to that.

Overleaf is a web-based version with a free plan ($give-us-an-email-address) and tutorials that could give you a good taste of the basic LaTeX environment, and if you find you like it, it's straightforward and literally free to get the stuff installed on your own machine. You can set the local software up for different experiences quite easily - so while I put most of my hours in using the same editor I write regular code with, there are graphical editing packages (e.g. LyX) that look and behave quite a bit more like Word.

Thanks for going into detail here. So my background is in philosophy, social science, and cognitive science. I don't write for a living these days unless you count lectures and educational material. But I still research in my own time and feel like I may as well write things up more, maybe leverage that to a better career.

My degrees are in philosophy, and none of my professors did much of any mentoring, let alone regarding workflow, etc. A lot of grad programs are just there to take you low paid labor hours while letting you figure out your own way to success or failure and only take credit for the former. I think most of still just scribble on printed out PDFs and typed their work up in Word. That's what I did at least. Or rather I used openoffice.

I've always been such a pen and paper sort of person, but it is horribly inefficient. Something about digital space fails to click with me like physical space. But there's a wild world of software out there these days, and I'd like to get a piece of that pie. It's been a good 5 years since I've looked around

Some Caveats: I don't really have a professional budget. Reasonable one time purchases are fine, but this subscription shit just isn't working for me. I teach part time and work on houses. I'm trying to bootstrap myself out of some big setbacks, and well, you know these bootstraps, they do nothing. Also, I've come to learn I have some previously undiagnosed cognitive variations going on that likely explain a lifetime of idiosyncratic methods at my best and utter disaster at my worst.

ADHD is one of those. It is not what I thought it was. For me it is a lot of fantastic feeling hyperfocus and deep work when things are working and catastrophic breakdown when they aren't. In all things, I am constantly getting stuck and confused over all these stupid little barriers between ideas and creation. For example, fiddling with formatting and citation stuff can grind a project to a halt, disrupt flow, and just add frustration, confusion, depression, crashing, and ultimately adding days or weeks to the process. It's like I have dyslexia for being successful in life.

When I did get things done I'd write a lot on note pads, tear out pages, re order them, and then start typing them up. This includes writing all citations in a note pad and manually adding them in. It is utterly unsustainable.

I have an iPad I hope to use for digitally reading PDFs, scribbling on them, annotating, highligting. You know, all the stuff I do with physical books. I'd like to just be able to access that from my laptop easily. Not sure how.

For writing, I'd love a simple program to get the writing done in an organized way while smoothly popping in citations.

I've looked a bit at Zetler, which is a Markdown app (I think). Can I use something like that with a script cheat sheet or buttons? I wrote a lot of lectures using the college online software that had little buttons for headers and sub headers, etc. I liked how simple it was.

Interesting thread.

Sadly, for writing, I stick with either Final Drafy or the old, offline Scrivener. The latter is better for embedding research, but a pain in the arse when a project goes out to someone.

Some years back I found a piece of transcription software called Transana. I spoke with its developers (University of Wisconsin, if memory serves) and pointed out how a few tweaks here and there could have had it clean up in the creative media sector, but it wasn't something they cared to pursue. I still get annoyed once in a while, knowing a tweaked version of that would have saved me so much pissing about.

There'a a Mac/iPad word processor called Mellel that touts itself as a writing solution for scholarly sorts, though at least some of its bibliographic features come from another app, Bookends, which is an additional cost. I have only used Mellel for lightweight tasks so I can't vouch for how well it handles full-bore academic citations and such. But it's $50, no subscription, and there's a demo so you can try it out first.

There are plenty of PDF markup/editing apps out there. I've used PDF Pen Pro (which is now called Nitro PDF Pro) but it's a little pricey to get both Mac and iOS version, and I have no idea who Nitro are or how long they'll stick with the previous developers' single-purchase license. There's another app called LiquidText which I heard very good things about, but they switched to a subscription model not long ago. They still have a free version available which may or may not suit your needs.

Good suggestions! I plan to update this as I continue to squeeze myself into this crazy square hole through which lies the land of milk, honey, and getting something done in life.

I had some iOS PDF program that I loved, but in recent years the turned it into an expensive subscription service. The version I paid for just stopped working without a subscription. Real fuckery.

In the other thread there was talk of Latex. I'm curious, but ughhh. All of this stuff makes me feel like I'm on fire and in a sinking ship.

When I get an order for an acoustic guitar I start a new notebook dedicated to it. I'll start with the customers name, date and all the info we discussed about the guitar including price and when it will be completed. Every time I do anything on the project, I write it in the book. I make a detailed page with all the specs as a reference. From there, everything I do on that project gets written in the book. From picking out the wood to drawing up the plans and then all other aspects of the build including pretty detailed measurements. I also draw up a dedicated full scale set of plans for each guitar. This will have a full top and side view and all important measurements. I can hang this on the wall of the shop when I'm working and it just makes everything so much easier to have it as a reference. Writing everything down in a notebook is also a huge help when I want to look back and see what I've actually done. In general I can be a bit disorganized and if I didn't do this stuff, I'd never be able to make guitars.

Problems with insomnia? Look no further, here's how I master a record:

1. download mixes on office computer, transfer to studio computer
2. line up mixes in proper order
3. listen, adjust levels globally and individually if needed (almost always), get everything in the same ballpark
4. do stuff to make it sound better. as little as possible. sometimes a lot. usually not too bad.
5. print the whole record as one file, this might take a few, good time to get up and stretch
6. put in track id's, metadata and whatnot
7. export files, wetransfer to client, see what they think
8. do any revisions requested (generally it's simple stuff, more/less space between songs, different fade, whatever)
9. put money in bank
0. enjoy silence

Haven't got the will to type out a full-on workflow for novel writing. But after taking in a lot of insights from other authors on the subject, I've found these to be the two most helpful pieces of advice...

David Berman wrote:Allen Ginsburg was wrong about a lot of things, but especially when he said, 'First thought, best thought.'

Scrutinizing and revising is key. And revising again. Often times it's only after prose is inspected and rearranged and given the appropriate form that it reads like something more than banal ramblings off the top of one's head. Even seasoned authors shouldn't think the first things they've come up with are the best they've got to offer.

Virginia Woolf wrote:For heaven's sake, publish nothing before you are thirty.

Self-explanatory. Not applicable 100% of the time, but usually on the money. True for me, anyway.

Great stuff! I love the project notebook thing. I really love sorting information on physical media that way. I often don't even have to reference it much as I remember better from the up front effort.

Ok, I want to build some fuzz boxes some time soon. I don't have a dedicated work space, so I have to be super flexible, modular, and ready to pop things out on a sunday afternoon and tuck it all away whether I'm done or not.

1) Layout. Print it out or sketch it out on paper. Stick it in a folder.

2) Print or write in notebook all the component values. Stick it in the folder.

3) Starting with resistors pull all the needed values of a component type from the stash laying one metal leg on a long strip of masking tape. Label the part value on the masking tape. If the project has labels like R1, R2, etc., then label them that way. Use two pieces of tape to make a nice little strip of labeled parts. After resistors, go to capacitors and so on as makes sense. This can now be folded and put in a ziplock bag.

All of the above and be done when I have 20 minutes of spare time here and there. Remember I don't have a space where I can just leave things out. This way it all goes in a little bag or folder. Then when I have time to solder it's all ready to go.

4) Enclosure stuff. I use a little stainless steel ruler and a pen to mark the holes for drilling. I use the ruler for crucial clearance measurements and a straight edge and just eye ball the rest. I tend to just do better not overthinking things than messing with templates or whatever.

5) I use a step bit to drill. I keep a little cheat sheet by my portable drill press that tells me how many steps it takes for each sort of hole. Say 6 steps or something for an audio jack hole.

6) Paint. I just paint the thing with spray paints. I do all sorts of things. Whatever feels interesting and is around. Rustoleum hammered spray is pretty forgiving.

7) Labels. Here is where I like to catch up on podcasts and indulge my masochistic appreciation for tedium. I use a little office supply rubber stamp kit to set text out letter by letter. I use permanent pigment ink. This stage is so stupidly slow and inefficient that you just have to be a psycho like myself to enjoy.

8) Wire the damned thing up. I keep all my soldering gear in one small toolbox. That way I can pull it all out and put it away with little fuss. You are supposed to not box up the circuit until you know it works, but the way I do things I just wire up the board with all the jacks and switches in place. It winds up neater, and other than the power jack, it will all just pop out as a unit if I need to fix something or mod something. I'm always screwing with the circuits. Otherwise I'd just buy it all pre-built.

Electronics Design @ Home and Work
Home:
Think of concept. Read books. Buy used books online. Confirm idiocy.
SET UP NEW GIT REPO or FOLDER under existing. <-- I came from a software background and I can't recommend this enough to electronics people. The level of git adoption gives you so many tools to work with, it's definitely the way to live - especially with how many file versions need to coexist for an electronics product. Sometimes I think "This isn't a big deal I don't need to do this under revision control" and it's always a lapse in judgement/discipline that bites my ass later.

LTSpice, Design, Simulation
KiCad if PCB, I like the way schematics look in KiCAD better too, but I love and am used to LTSpice simulation .. I need to get my workflow there sorted out, but I don't do so much that it's that big a time sink
Paint.Net/Gimp for raster work, Inkscape for layout/design
Print design 1:1 and tape to enclosure - center punch holes, drill through template (I end up re-taping this but I still find it less error prone to measuring/marking layout)
Parts picking I built sections at a time and I have a lot on hand - I measure each part to catch weird things and my own stupid
Build in panavise

Work:
Replace LTSpice/KiCad with NI Multisim/Ultiboard. And I didn't used to build prototypes or boards because we had a guy but he died and I don't know if anyone has wanted to talk about replacing him. I can't recommend that workflow, dying.

VaticanShotglass wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 7:55 pm I had some iOS PDF program that I loved, but in recent years the turned it into an expensive subscription service. The version I paid for just stopped working without a subscription. Real fuckery.

In the other thread there was talk of Latex. I'm curious, but ughhh. All of this stuff makes me feel like I'm on fire and in a sinking ship.

Sorry, been a bit of a busy week here.

For PDF reading and annotation, I really like Skim, which is free and which works well - but macOS only, I'm afraid, no iOS release. The thing I specifically love Skim for is the Bookmarks feature, which gives me to-the-nearest-page shortcuts into what would otherwise be an unmanageable heap of sorted PDFs. This is well nice for marking 'where I got up to' reading through some big document that's a many-months commitment (like: guitar tutor books).

To generalise for a moment, one of the recurring tricky aspects of much documentation for LaTeX is that it trends to being over-comprehensive: "here's a 400-page catalogue of every last option I implemented in this package I wrote to help you self-publish books", and the actual problem you're trying to solve right then is mentioned in passing on paragraph 7.8.1 of page 271. Overleaf's online documentation for learning LaTeX is freely available, and really concise and clear, integrated with working examples you can open and fuck about with. I don't work for them or anything, but I spent literally years working with this tech before they came along and they've made a lot of the initial pain go away. It's easy to export your shit from their platform as/when you start to outgrow it, and it's not that hard to set up the on-your-laptop LaTeX toolchain anymore.

This article is a 30-minute up-and-running follow-along exercise that deals with just about everything except bibliographies, while this one details 90% of what you need to know about bibliography. The great power of doing it this way is that once you've started, you can change both citation and bibliography styles consistently throughout a given draft really easily: see the examples here and here. Overleaf don't provide ready-to-use bibliography management besides just editing the bibliography file like a text file, but the Skim team also developed BibDesk - this can build the bibliography file for you, import metadata from the web (watch out, a lot of it needs cleanup!), and integrates with Skim so you can run searches against the text of your collected PDFs and the annotations you've made on them.