From Keyboard to Screen
I have re-installed both my old desktop computer and laptop with 'Elementary OS'. It's a flavour of Linux that has been growing in pupularity over the last few years – I tried it when it first appeared, and have kept going back to it. It's simple, fast, and works well on old computers. I had been using Windows 10, but it just gets more and more bloated, slow, and clunky.
Not having Windows on the computer means no more Scrivener (a word processor designed for writing) – which is fine I suppose. In terms of writing blog posts, it was a bit like using an aircraft carrier to sail across a pond.
So how do my posts get from the keyboard, to the internet? I'm not sure if I've ever written about this in any detail before...
I tend to write in a simple text editor, and save the text files into a year and month folder structure. I guess the organised structure is a hangover from being a software developer – I have folders going all the way back to 2003, with the text file for each post named according to the date and the post title.
I'm not sure why I started writing in text editors, instead of the authoring interface at Wordpress, Tumblr, or wherever else. I guess I got my fingers burned by unstable internet connections, or browser crashes one too many times. I will say that writing outside of the browser does remove distractions – it's too easy for me to open another tab and lose half an hour watching YouTube videos, or playing chess.
The writing gets backed up to GitHub. I've tried Google Drive, OneDrive, and Dropbox – but just find it easier to save the text to Github. For one thing, you don't need to leave a program running in the background to sync your files – you just tell it to do it when you want.
Once happy with a post, I copy the body into Wordpress and Tumblr, and then choose a photo from one of the free stock photo websites to go with it. Sometimes I use my own photos, but it's rare. Once published, I invariably re-read, and spot all manner of spelling, punctuation, and grammar mistakes – I never have figured out how that works.
Anyway. Enough of this nonsense. There are chores to do. Bathrooms to clean. Bedrooms to set fire to. Washing up to put in the machine. Washing up to put in the dishwasher. It never ends.