Life in Pixels

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  • Writing in 2012? Here’s 6 Resources for You

    As a writer myself, I’m always up for any new tips or resources that can help me manage this most abstract and difficult of arts. Being a writer or blogger can be quite a lonely business, but don’t despair – there’s a community of scriveners out there who are willing to share their knowledge, help and resources with you. Like what I’m going to do in this small post.

    I’ve been blogging for about five years now, and in that time, I’ve picked up some great websites and tools that make writing more fun than it already is. Below is a list of websites and software that can help you on your writing journey, whether it’s as small as minimalist blogging, or as grand as a novel.

    • Scrivener (App). This is a superb application for writing anything from a short story to an epic novel. It adapts to the way you work, and I swear by it whenever I need to write anything longer than a short story – sometimes, I even use it to write short stories. It has a brilliant fullscreen, distraction-free mode, and it helps you prepare your manuscript for publishers by providing the necessary formatting options upon export. It allows you to arrange complex works such as novels in scenes and chapters, so that you have everything organized, and can choose which part of your novel to work on at any time. The statistics tools are also quite cool, and you can set both project and session targets to keep yourself focused. A billion times better than old Mircosoft Word, Scrivener is the writing tool that was designed for writers, by writers. Price: R386,46 for Mac OS X (Windows version R343,52).
    • WriteRoom is a simple text editor for Mac OS X, with focus on distraction-free writing. It costs $9,99 but is quite nifty when it comes to writing in style and being efficient. Check it out.
    • WriteToDone is a great website with tips on writing. Visit them and subscribe to their RSS feed for inspiring and informative posts and guest posts on the various aspects of being a writer.
    • Writer’s Digest is the writer’s counterpart to the famous Reader’s Digest. It offers a plethora of advice for everything to do with writing, and it has some interesting and fun activities for strengthening your writing prowess.
    • Story Engineering by Larry Brooks is a great book for aspiring fiction writers. Larry introduces the concept of the “6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing”, breaking down the concept of the “story” into six areas, and informing you on how to approach these sectors, and make then work together to create a seamless whole – the novel. I’m currently reading it, and will post my thoughts on it soon, here on Life in Pixels.
    • ProBlogger.net is run by Darren Rowse, a legendary blogger who managed to quit his day job as his blog became so successful and was able to generate a significant cashflow. Over at ProBlogger.net, Darren and his guest writers post invaluable tips and insights on the world of blogging. A must for anyone looking to make it as a blogger.

    This list is by no means comprehensive, and if you know of something that will help fellow writers, please feel free to share them in the comments below. I hope this list can be of some assistance to you. Happy writing!

  • So, I Got Hacked the Other Day…

    On Friday, the second-to-last day of 2011, I discovered that this blog, Life in Pixels, got hacked. This was the first time in my five years of blogging that this happened to me.

    I’ve always kept my WordPress installation updated to the latest version, and constantly update all plugins and themes that power this blog. Yet I was compromised. I still don’t know exactly how this happened; it could’ve been through the database that keeps this blog in sync.

    So, after the initial shock when I discovered the issue, I managed to calm my nerves (and temper), and contact my hosting provider. We managed to re-set my site to a backup, and this brings me to the main point of this post:

    As we enter this new year, I implore all my blogging friends out there to make sure that your blogs are secure. Make sure you have steel-strong passwords, security walls if possible, and, most importantly: backup your blog regularly.

    After what happened to my beloved blog, I’ve made a pact with myself to download a local backup of my blog at least once a month. So, just in case this happens again, I feel safe in purging my site, and easily re-uploading it.

    I do apologize to any of my readers who tried to access this blog over the past few days, and discovered rather inappropriate content displayed. I will aim to keep this blog as secure as possible. Thanks for the support you guys have given me over the past few years, and I’m excited to continue publishing quality content on Life in Pixels in 2012. Live Long and Prosper.

  • Happy New Year!

    I can’t believe it’s already 2012.

    As with most people, I feel that 2011 just whizzed past me; it’s almost as if it’s been a blur. But it was a great year – perhaps the best one so far for me. So here’s to more amazing times in 2012.

    I thought I’d share some geeky-fun tweets from Twitter as we entered the two-thousand and twelfth year of our civilisation. Enjoy.

    All the best for 2012!

  • So, You Want to Start Blogging?

    You’ve probably read a fair share of them. You’ve wondered, “hey! I can do this blogging thing too!” And yes, you can. In fact, anyone who knows how to use a computer (and, by extension, a mobile phone) can become a blogger. That’s the beauty of blogging; it empowers ordinary people with a platform on which to express, in their own, unique voice, to a global audience.

    I started blogging way back in 2007, and from then I’ve gone on to set up a number of blogs, mostly tech-focused. Today, I’ve decided to give back, in a sense, to the blogging community, with this simple post on the basics of blogging. It’s by no means a comprehensive list, and I will refer to additional resources at the end of this post, where you can continue your adventure into the blogging realms. (Click through to read more).

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  • 2012 for BlackBerry: A New Hope?

    From CrackBerry.com: Rendering of the BlackBerry "Milan", a new BlackBerry that will run OS 10.

    Let’s face it: Research in Motion (RIM), the company behind the BlackBerry smartphones, floundered dramatically in 2011. What with the near-week-long international outage, a failure that is the PlayBook, and a series of hit-and-misses, there’s no doubt that its leadership will be wishing for a miracle to launch them back into the smartphone game.

    You must understand, BlackBerry was, not so long ago, the leader in the pre-smartphone era, when it came to email and instant messaging on-the-go. However, like Nokia, they did not see the phantom iPhone storm that changed the entire notion of the mobile phone.

    So, after the average attempt at modernizing the operating system that powers their phones in 2010 (with BlackBerry OS 6), RIM brought out OS 7 earlier this year, along with new phones that integrate the touch screen and physical keyboard that so defined these phones.

    Now, RIM is pinning their redemption hopes on a new, modern operating system they call BlackBerry 10 (formerly BBX). It’s based on the strengths of the PlayBook, and supposedly aims to bring the aging smartphone brand into the race with the likes of iPhone and Android.

    Whilst I lambast the BlackBerry on a daily basis (my own phone, a BlackBerry Bold 9700, crashes daily), and I continuously tout the brilliance of the iPhone, I do hope that Research in Motion will take heed of their mistakes in 2011, and launch courageously into the new year with the promise of a better start. If anything, it’ll force the market leaders (iPhone) to be on top of their game.

    RIM must realize that you can’t hope for success in this arena by simply sticking a touch screen onto an existing, old platform. You need to rethink the entire concept of the mobile phone in this age. That’s what Apple did with iPhone, and the success speaks for itself. BB10, then, should re-envision the BlackBerry product, not merely updating it to fit today’s standards. They need a better application store (App World), and they need to entice developers. They need to make the platform lucrative, and prove that they’ve got something that can hopefully withstand the might of the iPhone. Yes, BBM is a selling point (and a customer magnet). It forces most consumers to stick to the platform, as most of their friends are reachable in an intuitive manner. RIM has already begun to leverage this strength with BBM Connected Apps. But they need to do more; they need to have an holistic, complete developer toolkit similar to what Apple offers with Xcode and the iOS developer programme. Once developers realize that they can, in fact, work on this platform, there will be better content available with which users can interact with. And content, as we’ve seen with the iTunes and Apple App Store model, are what work best to entice consumers.

    However, things are already not looking too good: BlackBerries running the new OS 10 will only be available in the third quarter of 2012. So, in the meanwhile, we’ll have to remain content with the current, rather lackluster series of devices running OS 7. Don’t get me wrong; OS 7 is still a significant improvement over the previous software, but it remains no match for what the guys over at Apple, Android and Microsoft are up to with their respective mobile products.

    Looking forward to seeing how RIM will fare in 2012…