Matthew Wayne Selznick

(Yeah, I know, I rarely post any more. I’ll talk about that in another post. Hardy har har!)

I just had another brief flirtation with Ubuntu, on both my laptop and desktop. It’s still not quite a keeper for me, but I did discover that very nearly every cool, free, and often Open Source application available for Linux is also available for Windows.

So, even though I’ve gone back to XP for the stability and convenience and familiarity… everything but the OS is free, free, free. Both machines have identical software. Here’s the rundown:

Internet Stuff:

• Browser: Firefox, naturally, with Del.icio.us Bookmarks, Google Gears, Google Toolbar, Skype Extension for Firefox, and Remember The Milk for Gmail.
• FTP: Filezilla.
• Messaging:
  • Pidgin for AIM, Yahoo!, and IRC.
  • Skype for VOIP and chat (my preferred IM platform.)
• Online Media:
  • myPodder for podcast subscriptions.
  • Miro for video podcasts (but I rarely use it — video takes too much time and attention.)
  • Last.fm for socially networked listening.
• File Distribution Protocols:
  • Bittorrent.
  • Frostwire (rarely utilized.)
• Web Server: WOS Portable (for local development, personal wiki, etc.)

Writing Stuff:

• Office Suite: Open Office. Awwww yeah.
• Outlining and Notes: Keynote.
• Plotting and Script Writing: yWriter and Celtx.
• Full-Screen Word Processor / Text Editor: Q10 (includes real typewriter sounds sampled from “Amelie!” Hee hee!)

Graphics Tools:

• Bitmap Graphics Editor: The Gimp.
• Vector Graphics Editor: Inkscape.
• Desktop Publishing: Scribus.
• 3D Rendering: Blender, OpenFX and Google SketchUp. Granted, I haven’t played with these much, but I’m looking forward to dabbling… eventually.
• Image Viewer: Irfanview.
• Online Comics Viewer: Comicrack. (Heh — comic rack… or comi-crack, eh?)

Audio and Video Players:

• iTunes. Yeah, I know. But it’s free, it does a great job as a player, you can network your library, and if you stay away from the iTunes Music Store, you’re not dirtied by DRM. When Songbird is ready for prime time, I’ll switch.
• VLC. Plays nearly everything.
• Real Alternative. For the handful of RealAudio formats VLC doesn’t seem to handle.
• aTube Catcher, which saves local copies of streaming Flash videos for time-shifted viewing.

Audio Recording:

• Audacity, with the LAME MP3 encoder and assorted plug-ins. I’m on a podcasting hiatus right now, but I’ll be using this for all personal podcasting production when I get back on the horse.
• Skype Call Recording: Powergramo. Okay, this one, I paid for. Fifteen bucks, and it does high-quality stereo-separated flawless recording with no cables or mixers, virtual or otherwise, to hijack your process.

Games:

• First Person Multiplayer Shooters: Open Arena and Nexiuz. Yay blowing things up and killing people!
• MMORPGs: Planeshift and the very impressive Minions of Mirth. (Yes, Mirth has an upgrade for $29.00… but that’s one fee, flat… no monthly subscription. I haven’t paid it… yet. Beware of time-sucking!)

Other Stuff:

• Maps and Research: Google Earth.
• Media and Book Collection Cataloging: Libra.
• Web Site Editing: Amaya.
• Multiple Desktops: Virtual Desktop Powertoy.
• ISO / CD / DVD Utility: CDBurner XP.
• Virtual Private Networking: Hamachi
• Anti-virus: AVG Free Edition.

I hope this list can get others to try no-cost / low-cost / open source alternatives to commercial software… and if you like some of these applications, please monetarily support the developers when you can!

I’m interested in comments and feedback, too — do you use different stuff? How’s your experience with the software I’ve listed?

Due to lack of interest and initiative on the part of contributors and lack of initiative when it comes to promotion on the part of, well, me, I have put Five Minute Memoir on hiatus.

All seven episodes — let’s call it “season one” — remain available. If anyone is interested in taking on the podcast and continuing its mission, we should talk!

Do you know how many web sites I have?

Close to a dozen. About half a dozen are active. Last year, my business card had more words on it than some pieces of flash fiction, trying to fit all that stuff on there. It was a little out of hand.

My card now has three sites on it. This one, MWS Media, and MWS Media Podcasts. ‘Cause really, that about covers it.

Last year, my “freelance year,” my life and my time was open, and fluid, and pretty undisciplined. Now that I’m at Mahalo, at least thirteen hours of five days every week is locked down. I love my job, but this means the remaining hours of the week have to be utilized in the best possible way. The Hobos put it best: “The Day Shall Not Be Wasted.” Indeed.

See, here’s the thing. I had some fifteen months, give or take, without a full-time day job. Creatively, it was perhaps the least productive year I’ve had in a long time. Apparently, a bit more structure is needed in Mister Selznick’s life. I have that now, to be sure. Now comes the time to, as much as possible, centralize all the scattered pieces that make up my work habits, my internet presence, and my bizarre, networked social life. It also means letting go of some obligations, both legitimate and assumed.

I’m very open to hear how others have dealt with this kind of compression, this transition, if any of the little dinner party who reads this blog have something to offer. For now, here’s what I’m gonna do:

• Bring my writing projects — past, present, and future — over here to Matt Selznick.com. See a recent post at Pilgrimage for more thoughts on that. Essentially, bravemenrun.com, “Pilgrimage,” and the woefully overdue “Wordhouse” will all redirect to their own pages over here, as well as a-brewing projects.
• Streamline my mailing list by (gasp) utilizing a third-party service rather than rolling my own. “But Matt, that’s so un-DIY of you!” Rule number one — a rule I sometimes neglect for various complicated psychological reasons — is “Never let the tools get in the way of the work.” Using PHPList or Dada or some other script slows me down because they’re more of a pain in the ass than, say, Yahoo! or Google Groups. So that’s coming up.
• Let go of freelancer Matt. I don’t have the time to work a full time job, create my own art, and do freelance stuff. Oddly, I feel a weird sense of guilt when I have to turn down a job, especially when the work comes from clients who gave me the bulk of my jobs in my Freelance Year. This, again, stems from some very interesting psychological stuff, like it being easier (safer) to do stuff for other people than take risks making my own stuff. ‘Nuff of that.
• Close MWS Media Hosting to new accounts as of July 1st. You heard it here first. I’ll keep existing clients, and I hope they hang around a long time, but I’m not going to add any new ones after the end of June, 2007. So if you want some really cheap web hosting with reasonable uptime, act now, callers, ’cause this offer won’t last forever!
  

All of this is going to require some work, and some thought. For example, what does the MWS Media web site become if the hosting and freelancing shingle is taken down? A portal of sorts, I guess… or perhaps it serves no purpose at all? Why couldn’t it redirect to yet another page on this site? Gotta keep the domain going, of course — it’s the first one I ever registered, way back in… 1996? Can’t recall. Been a while.

This has been another one of those “read along while Matt puts his ducks in order in public” posts, but I appreciate your reading, and your feedback and best practices and ideas — I’ve been thinking about this stuff for a few weeks, but only typing it out and releasing it has really given me the drive to do anything about it. So thank you, dinner party.

Time to go to work!

I’m the most wishy-washy Linux user in the universe.

For the umteenth time, I’m phasing out my Ubuntu Linux installations in favor(?) of Windows XP. This was my longest fling with Linux — our dalliance lasted three months — it was a summer thing.

It’s over, though, at least for now. I won’t rule out hooking up again, but for now, it just doesn’t meet my needs without a whole lot of concessions. I always feel like I’m walking on eggshells when we try to do things together, y’know?

You want me to get specific? Air our dirty laundry? Okay, but I’m gonna drop the whole relationship metaphor because it’s getting tired.

Here’s the deal — I’ve always said the tool cannot get in the way of the craft. In almost every respect, Linux was working out fine.

But audio recording and production is becoming very important for me again, and that’s where the trouble lies. I need to be able to plug in a microphone and press record without having to worry about weird engines and Jack and lag times and whatnot. In Windows, I can use Audition or Audacity and be pretty much okay. In Linux… I had to dual-boot into Windows!

Also… I like to listen to music when I’m writing, and often I work remotely, away from my office. I want to be able to listen to my five-weeks-and-counting worth of MP3s wherever I am. Couldn’t find a Linux application that would do that. I’m also a big fan of Last.fm — listening to the fIREHOSE channel as I write this (Gang of Four: “Paralysed”) and there’s no easy-to-use Linux solution for that service.

Finally, I do a lot of editing of other people’s works, which requires a common revision system. Open Office is amazing, and I use it for almost everything, but I need Word for that one purpose.

So, as much as I like supporting Open Source efforts, I gotta go back to Redmond for the OS.

However! I am using many Open Source applications:

• OpenOffice.org - full-featured office suite
• The GIMP - excellent bitmap graphics editor
• Inkscape - SVG (vector) graphics editor
• Scribus - desktop publisher
• Filezilla - ftp client
• Audacity - audio recorder and editor
• VLC - all-purpose video and audio player and streamer

I’ll be adding an Open Source outliner / mind-mapper and an html / css editor when I can settle on one.

That’s my compromise, I guess. I can live with it… and I hereby promise myself not to drift back to Linux for at least another three years. It’s a damn time-sink making the switch, and I have enough opportunities to distract me from my real work!

There’s that.

Tried to do some writing today… I like to blast a scene per weekday if at all possible, which usually means a thousand to fifteen hundred words, sometimes more, sometimes less. Today, it barely happened.

Which isn’t actually all that bad, because some editing gigs grabbed the priority spot, and the possibility of future podcasting production / web design work popped up.

I started to write in LOTO, but these very tantalizing distractions kept pulling me away.

Also… not sure what this means, or if I’m really gonna do it, but I feel the need to start another podcast. Probably be an audio sidebar to this blog. Sometimes, I just want to spiel rather than type, y’know?

If a few planets align the way I hope they will, I’ll take that as a “go” and do it. You’ll be the first to know.

Tomorrow, as they say, is another day. Today… well, I managed one hundred words, exactly. Hey, I wrote something! That’s more than some days. I ought to be happy.