I’ve written a handful of posts lately about my new netbook for writing that I have been using. That has led some readers to query about whether or not I had abandoned by my other computers in favor of the writer’s netbook. Far from it, my desktop computer remains my primary writing computer and a very big laptop serves frequently in the task of writing both within the home office and when I go somewhere instead of working from home on my business.

The netbook has gotten the attention here on the freelance writing blog lately because it is the newest edition to the writing family. As such, it still occasionally surprises with what it can do to help improve the writing business. The other business computers are established members of the team. They have been tweaked, customized and configured for maximum value to ArcticLlama freelance writing. Changes, other than upgrades, are not lightly made to these other writing systems. In other words, they are so useful and reliable that they are seldom noticed. Fortunately, they are not people, so I don’t have to feel bad about that :)

Best Computers For Writing Professionally

I thought it might be useful to mention what kinds of computers I use in my freelance writing business along the role each system fills and how it came to be used for that function. In that way, if you are looking to start your own freelance writing business, or if you are already a professional writer looking for tips or advice on what kind of computer hardware is good for professional level writing, you can read through these posts and get real world help.

These days, too many computer reviews are either biased – or not impartial, if you prefer – or, even more likely, based upon too little actual use of the computer system in question. It is simply impossible to get a real feel for how good a computer will be for high-end writing from just a few hours, or even a few days of testing. To really know what a computer is good for, you have to use it in multiple phases of life and business. It needs to be used during crunch time, during sunny days at Starbucks, and during those days where the sight of your home office makes you want to crawl back into bed. Only then, can you truly know what works, and what does not work.

In order to maximize the value of these posts, as well as keep them short enough that they can be read and digested by busy writers, I will spread them out of the next several days. Hopefully, by the time you get a chance to read them all, there will be some very helpful advice and tips for buying new writing computers or other gadgets.

Coming up:

Desktop Computers for Writing Business

Laptop Computers for Portable Writing

How To Synchronize Multiple Computers for Your Writing Business

As professional writers, we know all to well the frustration of copyright infringement and people stealing professional content to fill up junk websites filled with advertisements and affiliate links. When it comes time for freelance writers to find and use stock photography to go along with our writing efforts we play by the rules. If you don’t believe in the Golden Rule, then at least you should believe in playing for the good guys, and good guys don’t steal a person’s pictures, just like good guys don’t steal someone’s written words.

The catch is that many writers, both professional freelance writers, in-house writers, and hobby writers end up stealing stock photos and infringing on the copyrights of the photographer without ever realizing it.

The confusion comes from the terminology used in the stock photography business, and a general ignorance among most people about how photographers get paid for their work. To illustrate, think back to your wedding day, or if that’s a little bit too far back, or hasn’t happened yet, as a friend about theirs. Specifically, think about the arrangement with the professional wedding photographer that took pictures at your wedding.

Some wedding photographers charge an upfront fee. This covers the photographer’s expenses for being at the wedding and wedding receptions, and also compensates the photographer for showing up to your wedding and not heading off to a better photography opportunity elsewhere. However, some wedding photographers do not charge a fee for their services at all. In one respect, these professional or semi-pro photographers could be considered “free” wedding photographers.

However, as anyone who has had professional wedding photos taken recently knows, that is not actually the case. Frankly, you wouldn’t expect it to be. Photographers have bills to pay too. Unless you have a friend taking portraits in a home photography studio you are going to have to pay something for the services of a professional.

Free Stock Photos Versus Royalty-Free Stock Photos

What makes following photography licensing and copyright rules difficult is understanding that there are actually TWO ways that photographers get paid for their photos, whether we are talking about professional stock photography or otherwise.

The first way a photographer gets paid is by selling the actual photograph. This is the typical transaction that everyone is familiar with in every day life. However, because a photo is creative intellectual property, just like writing is, you can’t really sell the actual photograph. Instead, what you do is sell some or all of the rights to that photograph, just like getting paid for writing.

Writers can sell first-rights to their work which gives the publisher the right to use the work for the very first time. While most publishers also buy at least some reprint rights, theoretically, this would mean that the magazine or newspaper publishing your story could only publish it once, and then the work belongs to you again. Once again, you can sell some or all of the rights to the story, just like a photographer.

The second way a photographer gets paid for a photo is by being paid royalties. Again, just like writers in some cases, a photographer can earn money based upon how is photograph is used. Royalties can be paid in numerous ways including on each publication or usage, based upon how many sales there are of whatever the photo was used for an so on. Writers, particularly novel writers and book authors, get paid royalties too. For each copy of the book published, the writer earns some amount of money (once the advance is paid back).

Here is where everyone gets lost.

Free stock photographs are free in the sense that you do not have to pay up front to use the picture. That does not necessarily mean that you do not have to pay at all.

Likewise, a royalty-free stock photo means that you do not have to pay the photographer royalties based upon where and how often you use the picture. Again, that does not necessarily mean that you do not have to pay anything.

The trick is that free stock photos may still require royalties to be paid when the photograph is used, and royalty-free stock photographs may require that a one-time fee be paid for the rights to use the photo in the first place.

Now, of course, some stock photos are both free and royalty-free making them pictures that you do not have to pay for at all. However, that does not mean that there is no licensing agreement associated with the photo. Totally free stock photos may require that the photographer be credited whenever the picture is used. The license may actually require that the photographer be credited in a specific way. Even more common is that the license may restrict where and how the image can be used. For example, a photo may be prohibited from being used in adult themed advertising or the like.

The point is, don’t just assume that because you searched for “free stock photos” that whatever appears on the webpage Google sends you to is actually 100% free for you to use at any time in any way.

A good tool for a writer’s toolkit is a resource of stock photography, both free and otherwise. Fortunately, the Internet has made finding high-quality stock photography easy. It has not made understanding stock photo licensing any easier.

A good starting place for free stock photos for writers is Microsoft Office. Included in Microsoft Office 2010 and pretty much every Microsoft Office version before that is the Clip Organizer that allows you to search for free clipart. This includes both clipart that came with Microsoft Word 2010 and that which is online on Microsoft’s Office website. Don’t worry about the term clipart, that includes photographs and multimedia, at least on MS Office. If you can’t find it, check your Microsoft Office start menu folder for a Tools section, and the Clip Organizer will be in there.

Good luck, and happy writing.

I had a chance to get some hands on time with an iPad the other day. Like everyone else, I thought it was really cool at first. I mean, imagine the possibilities. But, then as reality sat in, I could only actually imagine two possibilities (games and reading), neither of which justifies a $100 device, let alone a $500 one.

Now, I am sure that for certain people, the iPad or a touch-pad tablet computer of some sort might eventually be very useful. However, for right now, all I see is a really expensive technology gizmo whose "big ideas" are all really just gimmicks when you get right down to it. The iPad may be great for techie types who surf the Internet during meetings, but for a freelance writing business, the value is very limited.

Plug for my article about best WordPress themes for writers making money with ads online.

iPad Size Makes It Useless

The problem is not with the snazzy iPad interface, nor with the applications offered. The problem is also not with the features the iPad has or the functionality that the iPad lacks. (And, yes, Adobe Flash is a big, fat, piece of junk that causes crashes, battery drain, and overheating.) These things seem to be mostly up to task for a device of this kind.

The main problem that sinks the iPad as a usable writer’s tool is its size. This seems counterintuitive. After all, one of the big selling points of the iPad is its small size and light weight. The iPad is much lighter than most laptops and smaller than most of them too. It is also thinner than a netbook.

So, what is the problem with the iPad’s size?

After you get past the gee-whiz factor, the reality of the world is that when it comes to size, there are really only a handful of meaningful differences. These size categories are the ones that determine how any device, electronic gadget or otherwise, is used in your day-to-day life. Some things are not portable at all (65" Sony Bravia LCD HDTV) while other things can be carried with you everywhere (your car keys). In between are various levels of portability such as:

• Fits in the trunk of a car.
• Can be carried in suitcase.
• Can be carried in backpack.
• Can be carried in briefcase or messenger bag.
• Can be carried in fanny pack.
• Can be carried in purse.
• Can be carried in pocket.

When Size Matters

The easiest way to see these size distinctions is to think of the tradeoffs between organizers or planners and their size. For example, you can get a big, 8 1/2 by 11, Franklin Covey organizer with pouches, pockets, planning sheets and calendars for just about any scenario you can imagine. The problem is that it will be bulky, heavy, and large. That means that it will sit on your desk all of the time. Maybe you will put it in your briefcase or work bag at the end of the day and take it home with you, but that is it. There is no way you will be lugging that thing around when you go to happy hour or a writing conference.

If you sit at a desk all day, then this type of planner maybe makes sense. However, if you do a lot of traveling or if you have client meetings all over the city, or if you don’t have a desk job, this planner is worthless to you, no matter how great and feature packed it is.

On the other end of the spectrum would be little, note card-sized calendars that fit in your pocket or purse. The great thing about these is that they are small enough to take everywhere with you. That means that you will never be somewhere and get an important meeting setup or critical phone number without your planner right there to write it down in.

For ultimate organization check out the ADHD Planner tips

The downside, of course, is that with it being so small you have to leave out a bunch of important items you could really use sometimes. Unlike the giant planner, there is no room for a business card holder, or even for a pocket to hold your parking pass or identification card. If you need to have lots of different things with you when you are in business mode, then this planner is worthless to you no matter how compact, lightweight, and portable.

There are any number of other sizes of planners and organizers in between. They tend to fall into approximately standard sizes, however. This is partly due to being sized to match up with readily available paper sizes. It is also because there is a point where the size differentiations just don’t matter any more.

For example, can you really write that much more information in a 6" x 8" planner than you can in a 5" x 7" planner?

More importantly, there is no real reason to distinguish between the two sizes. Neither one will fit in your pocket or purse, and neither one will allow you to carry "everything." So, in most respects, these planners are the same size.

The Only Sizes That Matter

Which brings us back to the failure of the iPad as anything more than a fun little gadget, and, more importantly, to what makes the iPad suck for writers.

In the world of the work from home freelance writer, there are different functions and events that take place. This is roughly true for all professional writers, regardless of whether they work eight hours at a desk in an office or whether they work 24/7 from the road.

As a writer the differences revolve, not surprisingly, around writing. When it comes to writing there are just three scenarios that matter.

1. Full Setup Physical Location – Your home office desk or a desk or table at a client site all fall into this category. This is a place where you will be doing enough work, often enough, that you take the time to place and setup your equipment and then leave it there. This involves a desktop computer or docking station with a full-size keyboard and full-size monitor.
2. Temporary Planned Location – Starbucks, Stella’s on Pearl Street, coffee shops, libraries, cafes, and on-site locations for a short period of time. These are the bread and butter locations for the freelance writer. A table, a fun, sunny, open atmosphere, or an empty desk or table in an office building. The thing about these locations is that they are temporary. Desktop computers, 24" monitors, wiring, and the like are out. On the other hand, there is going to be an electrical outlet and a desk or table to type on. You might be there for 20 minutes, or it might be six hours. Either way, this is a certain kind of portability. I like to call this bag-level portability. While these work locations may be temporary, they are not a surprise. On the contrary, I PLAN to be at these locations for a set amount of time and I pack a message bag to carry with me according to how long and what I plan to be working on.
3. Unplanned Locations – Inspiration can strike at any time. Jotting down a note of an idea for something to write about, a quote that you want to use later, or even doing some actual writing, requires the writer to be prepared at all times. To be useful, any device used in this scenario has to be so portable that you can (and do) carry it with you at all times. This is the opposite of the above where you plan on when to have equipment with you. For these highly portable devices, you plan when to NOT have them with you. (Leave your cell phone at home, dear.)

By now, you can probably see where the iPad falls short for someone like me. It is too big to be a carry with me at all times device. The iPad is a bag-level portable device. That is, you are not going to carry an iPad with you unless you have some sort of bag or portfolio that you are carrying around with it inside.

There is nothing wrong with that, but it begs the question,

"If you are carrying around a bag or purse that would fit an iPad, wouldn’t it also fit a netbook?"

And, if you can be carrying a netbook, wouldn’t you rather have something that has a keyboard that you can touch-type on? Over at Cult of Mac (nice name) they mention that you can use an Apple Bluetooth aluminum chiclet keyboard that you already have sitting on your desk. Unfortunately, that is exactly the point. Do you really need an iPad for your desk?

You can also get a special keyboard for the iPad, but by the time you add that size and weight (and cost), you are well into netbook and laptop territory, and for the same money you can get something that won’t constrain your ability to work on a wide variety of projects.

What we really need is something that still fits in a pocket (I mean actually fits, I’m looking at you Sony.) and yet is bigger and faster to type on than a standard smart phone. The iPhone is one of those devices, so that makes a lot more sense. Maybe I will look at one of those or its competitors when the time comes, but for now, the little scribble pad and touch screen keyboard on my three-year old HTC Touch handles the anytime anyplace requirements.

I am going to start cataloguing some of the little "nit-picky" things that professional writers come across in their work. These are those little bits and pieces of language that get used wrong or improperly, or words or phrases that don’t get used when the probably should. In other words, it will be about grammar, sentence structure, vocabulary, and writing style.

Of course, these nuances of English fall squarely into the "Who Cares" or "Does It Really Matter" categories for most people. Their response to most of these things will be a shrug, or the uneducated person’s favorite defense, "Oh, you know what I mean." But, for professional writers and for those whose meaning must be precise (attorneys often come to mind, but there are numerous others), these are the little gotchas that trip up good writers, bad writers, and everyone in between.

This will not be a rehash of common English grammar mistakes or misunderstandings, nor will it be a list of those little idioms that are technically incorrect. Most of that type of grammar discussion serves little value other than to puff up the egos of the pseudo-intellectual who thinks that by correcting who to whom that they are demonstrating intelligence. It will also not be a re-do of your high school English class or an admonishment against using double negatives. And, it will most certainly not be an ongoing complaint about the evolution of word meaning when adopted as slang into popular culture. (Yes, awesome does mean something very specific and is almost never used in that context anymore, but that is not what we’ll be discussing here.)

It will take awhile to put together. These little grammar tidbits don’t come up all that often, which is one reason why their misuse proliferates. If you keep getting their and they’re wrong, people will keep pointing it out and eventually, you should probably figure it out whether you want to or not, just like a dog figures out that they shouldn’t jump up on the bed. On the other hand, if you get these little things wrong, it may not come up again for a very long time. Chances are that even if someone did notice and wonder about your usage they probably wouldn’t know FOR SURE that you were wrong, and having no motivation to find out, wouldn’t say anything anyway.

But, for those of you who care about the precise meaning of words, or for those of you who are forced to understand the language better because of your profession, your teachers, or your desire to succeed, you have found your home.

The inspiration for this feature has been long in the making. Even before I started the freelance writing business, ArcticLlama, I ran afoul of words, phrases, and punctuation idiosyncrasies that stuck like little bits of sand in the folds of my mind waiting to irritate me at inopportune moments. Since becoming a professional writer, they have only increased in frequency and irritation, because not only is the precise meaning very important to writers, but also because people who care and know more about language than me judge my work. (We call them editors… at least to their faces.)

However, the immediate word issue that forced my hand into creating this long-coming feature involves that most wishy-washy of time constructs: awhile. Or, as the irritated brain skin around this nugget of sand wants to know is it a while?

The answer to this grammatical question is actually satisfying. That is nice, because it is not always the case.

For the purposes of writing AP Style, the Associated Press Stylebook lists a while and awhile together and as interchangeable. This reflects two things, one is that journalists seldom use the term since it is necessarily vague, and two that if the term is used, its vague nature means that precision is not necessary.

However, "awhile," as the good folks at Webster’s will have us know means, "a short period of time." Whereas, "while," means "a period of time."

Notice that while the literal definition of awhile means that is refers only to SHORT periods of time, the definition of while includes no such constrictions.

Thus, when writing, use awhile as one word when you mean a short period of time, and use a while as two words when you mean a period of time that can not be construed as short.

Astute readers (and writers) will note that there is actually some overlap here. Since a while carries no requirement of how long the period in question is, a while can also be used to indicate a short period of time as well. Furthermore, proper grammar requires that a while with a space be used whenever the phrase is the subject of a preposition.

A truly savvy writer may then choose to never use awhile and instead always use a while knowing that while the former may occasionally be incorrect, the latter never will.

Ironically, this is a favorite "correction" of many editors. So, while writing professionally, the writer is better off to use awhile for short and a while for longer time periods or when modified by a preposition.

To those of you who found this interesting, welcome home.

To those of you rolling your tired computer monitor eyes, stick with the articles about business and coffee. Don’t worry, I’ll break these posts out somehow :)

Happy Writing.

If I could give just one piece of advice to every new freelancer writer, I know what it would be. Most of the time, such questions require me to ponder for a while to consider just what one thing would be so worth passing on to others who may come after me that I would select it. But, in this case, I don’t need even one second to know exactly what one thing will make your career as a freelance writer start out better, faster, and easier.

Ready?

Here it is.

Now, don’t get the wrong idea. This isn’t some Earth shattering thing, and it most definitely does not apply to the rest of your life like a lot of other really good professional advice might. On the other hand, it also isn’t some vague, guru-sounding advice that can’t really be considered advice since there is really no way to "do" it. I’m thinking of those faux advice tips people are always giving others like, "Do what you love," or "Always take care of your customer," or whatever. That doesn’t really help. It isn’t like you hear that and then go, "Oh, yeah! O.K. now I can go forth and succeed, because otherwise, if I hadn’t heard that first, I probably would have messed up a lot."

Even if that kind of advice were profound or somehow managed to be real advice and not some fortune cookie saying, there wouldn’t be anything you could DO with it. Do what you love? O.K. Does that mean that you never do anything you don’t love? That might be a tough way to run a business. Of course, there is a gray area there, but that is exactly the point. The whole things about this so-called advice is that YOU have to figure it out for YOURSELF, so it isn’t advice so much as a pointer in the right direction. Ironically, 9 times out of 10, you already kinds of knew about that direction.

So, what is my real world, tangible, concrete, usable advice that I would give to any and all new freelancers who want to start up a writing business and join the fraternity of freelancers?

Turn off smart quotes.

That’s it.

No, actually, that is not it.

Turn off smart quotes in every single piece of software you have on every single computer you own, use, borrow, or touch.

Don’t worry. No one will ever miss it. In fact, no one will ever notice. The only people who will ever notice whether or not you are using smart quotes are the people who HATE smart quotes with the fiery passion of a thousand hot suns. And, by the way, that includes every editor, website owner, publisher, or anyone else in the writing profession. Smart quotes are despised. They are not just the mark of an amateur, but a mark of someone who is too dumb to be a writer.

Seriously.

You can lose freelance writing gigs over smart quotes. Smart quotes are actually dumb.

So, open up Microsoft Word, or whatever word processing software you use, from MS Word 2010 down to Word 95, and go into Options or Preferences, or whatever they call it and uncheck that little box that comes checked by default where it says, "Replace quotes with smart quotes."

You can thank me later.

Or, don’t, but don’t come back here when someone gripes at you (or worse), because I’ll just say, "I told you so."

P.S. You should also always meet your deadlines, but that would be two freelance writing advice pieces.

As a freelance writer, I need a way to create, organize, and keep notes, sources, and even snippets of text or dialog, as well as article ideas. Around my home office, I have literally a hundred or more notebooks jammed with scribbles, ideas, magazine clippings, and newspaper articles. While opening up one of those notebooks and thumbing through it provides a treasure trove of writing ideas and materials, finding something specific inside of one of those notebooks isn’t as pretty. My new netbook computer for writing was one way to try and manage some of that. Unfortunately, having a hundred text files, spreadsheets, and Word Documents scattered all over my hard drive isn’t much better.

Microsoft OneNote is a powerful note taking and organization utility. Although it was originally included in Office 2003, most people never really noticed it as it was both an optional install, and only available on certain editions of Microsoft Office Suite. In Office 2007, OneNote 2007 was released and, for this writer at least, a brilliant organizational tool and way to save website clips, news articles, and other information finally proved robust enough to actually get used. In addition, Microsoft One Note 2007 was a great way to jot down your own ideas and then actually be able to find them again later.

Microsoft has released Office 2010 Beta, and OneNote 2010 has been updated accordingly. Most of the new features aren’t flashy, but OneNote does get the upgraded Ribbon interface which was desperately needed to avoid an OneNote screen crammed with program icons and toolbars. Now OneNote 2010 has the same type of interface that users saw in Word 2007 and in Word 2010 beta.

Professional freelance writers, students, and researchers of all types will find plenty to love in Microsoft OneNote, starting with its ability to accept a Paste copied from virtually any program without mangling the information or requiring the author to make a difficult choice between clean and precise formatting and keeping all of the information and data intact. Never again will a webpage screenshot saved for months be opened in MS Word only to find that the all important variable has been lost off the edge of the right margin, never to be seen again.

Delete Section Group in OneNote 2010 and OneNote 2007

Microsoft apparently went out of its way to make OneNote idiot-proof. One can almost smell the effort to compete with whatever the Mac equivalent is, because some things about OneNote are very un-PC like. In one way, this is a good thing. A better easier to use application is always welcome. In another way, it can be very annoying for long-time computer users and those with a high-level of technical expertise who want to make their computers do what they want them to do, not have their hand held while they use a glorified typewriter.

Since the key concept of OneNote is to duplicate and replace the functionality of notebooks, it is no surprise that the main form of organization within OneNote 2010 and OneNote 2007 comes from creating and opening notebooks. Notebooks can be customized with colors, fonts, and more.

Of course, just having one big notebook isn’t always the best solution for many situations. Therefore, OneNote notebooks can have sections created within them. The hierarchy of OneNote notebook organization goes like this:

Notebook -> Section Group -> Section -> Page

Creating new notebooks, or creating new notebook section groups, creating new sections, and creating new pages in OneNote is all handled the same way. Users can use the well-known New icons or menu options, or they can right click in certain areas, depending upon what they want to create a new one of, and then choose New -> Section (or page, or group, or whatever).

When it comes to deleting section groups in OneNote, however, things get confusing.

While OneNote Pages are deleted by right-clicking and choosing delete, or even just by hitting the Delete Key in some cases, and OneNote Sections can be deleted in the same way, OneNote section groups cannot be deleted like this. In fact, in a very frustrating design choice, the right click context menu that pops up when a user right-clicks on a Section Group tantalizingly displays a Delete menu option, but it is grayed out and cannot be selected.

As it turns out, Section Groups in OneNote are really nothing more that folders, or directories, in which smaller OneNote elements such as Sections and Pages are stored in. While there is no reason that a Section Group folder could not be deleted from within the OneNote application, Microsoft developers decided not to include that mechanism. The most likely reason is that as an actual File Folder containing OneNote page files, section groups could not be deleted unless the folder (section group) was empty of all elements first. This is not uncommon and is easily coded with a dialog box that informs the user that deleting the section group will also delete all notes and sections within it.

Microsoft apparently reasoned that users would eventually have so many nested notebooks and pages that they might not really know where they all were and would accidentally delete something important. So, while the application has been idiot proofed from accidental deletions occurring in this manner, there is an annoying functionality gap for users who are accustomed to being the master of their computer instead of being protected by it.

Fortunately, once you understand how OneNote notebooks are saved and how section groups are saved within them, deleting a section group in OneNote is actually pretty easy. Just open your My Documents folder, or Documents folder, depending upon whether using Windows XP or Windows 7. Inside that folder will be a OneNote Notebooks folder. (If you changed the default location in Office setup, you will obviously need to go to the folder you specified.)

Open the OneNote Notebooks folder. Inside, each One Note note book has its own directory. Inside each notebook folder are folders for the section groups in that notebook. To delete a section group, just delete the folder. And, yes, you are deleting everything inside of the folder, and no, it won’t be restorable from a backup because the backup was in that folder too!

Voila! Now you can clean up those section groups that are cluttering up your note books that you no longer need or have decided to organize in a different manner.

Delete NoteBook In OneNote

Incidentally, the same procedure can be used to delete unneeded NoteBooks. Using the same logic above, Microsoft provides no method to delete Microsoft OneNote notebooks from inside of OneNote 2007 or OneNote 2010. Again, deleting the file folder will delete the notebook.

This design choice is slightly less annoying, because when you Close a note book, it disappears from your screen until you open it again. The files are all still there, but at least it isn’t cluttering up your screen. However, if you need the disk space, or if you just want to be able to control your own computer, just use your favorite file manager, or My Computer, to go to the Documents folder and delete everything you don’t need anymore.

For more tech tips and for even more Microsoft Windows frustrations, visit BestHubris.com

As a professional freelance writer I focus on the words, the copy, the text. Sure, we do some newsletter work and we have built some very nice layouts. It is not like writers don’t care what their writing looks like, it is just that design is its own skill set, with its own techniques, tricks, and processes to master. Like most things, design looks a lot easier than it actually is.

Fortunately, with some much flash, style, and colors floating around out there on the Internet, many people – the kinds of people who care about quality, informative writing – are not really all that impressed with fancy design anymore, because they know that all too often, it only serves to conceal lightweight content. On the other hand, if a webpage looks like some hack just threw it together on their lunch break, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that the content was given any more thought. Therefore, it is in the best interest of every freelance writer to take at least a passing interest in web design, if for no other reason than to avoid the most garish mistakes.

Unfortunately, finding quality web design information resources for writers isn’t easy. Too many “high-end” design focused websites are way above what the professional writer really wants to get into, while the other end of the spectrum provides a fifth-grade art education in things like complimentary colors. For example, Smashing Magazine provides a wealth of design information, but its target audience is graphics and design professionals. That doesn’t mean there isn’t good information there for writers, it just means that sorting through the vast amount of design information is key to making the best use of one’s time. For example, there are numerous articles and posts on typography. While typography is indeed a key element of design, for the freelance writer, the intricacies of fonts and their shapes and spaces is a high-effort, low-return area, especially when one considers that for online writing there isn’t too much flexibility in this area yet due to browser compatibility issues.

More from ArcticLlama – Freelance Writing Advice and Tips

Recently, I’ve taking a liking to a design website called Speckyboy Design Magazine. Again, not everything pertains directly to freelance writers, and some articles are certainly less inspired than others. However, over the course of reading much of the site well into its archives, I’ve found plenty of great design tips for writers. Even more usefully, SpeckyBoy also provides useful links to other online design resources that might otherwise go undiscovered by the pro writer.

For example, a recent posting linked to 12 Useful and Free Downloadable Web Design Books. A post like that is worth its a lot to a freelance writer looking to build on their web design skills since it provides not only several different resources, but resources that are free. It is often tough to tell if something will be useful enough to make it worth paying for until it is too late. The fact that these particular web design books can also be downloaded and saved on a writer’s netbook for reading whenever there is some downtime is a double-bonus.

When it comes to writing, there are numerous kinds of people who do it. There are professional freelance writers, there are both published novelists and unpublished novelists (more nicely referred to as aspiring novelists), journalists, copywriters, hobbyists, poets, experienced writers, novice writers, work from home Moms, work from home Dads, online writers, offline writers, screenwriters, academic writers, student writers, both willing and unwilling, and so on and so on and so on. We haven’t even talked about the different kinds of people that become writers professionally or otherwise.

Yet, among all the different types of writers, there are some writing essentials that stand out. These things are writing helpers, writing stimulators, or writing tools that every author needs to successfully write great material, whatever that may be. As Christmas time approaches, I’ll be looking to put together a list of the Best Gifts for Writers, or Top Christmas Gifts for Writers, or whatever, the keyword research looks like I should title it. In the end, however, it will be a current listing of some of these items, as well as some great gadgets that writers need. So, without further ado, here are some of the things every writer must have.

Top 5 Things Every Writer Needs

1. Computer AND Laptop or Netbook for Writing – It sounds like a luxury, but when it comes to being a serious writer, it isn’t. There is simply no way a real writer can go through life writing in only one place. That means that either the writer lugs around a notepad or note cards or something else to write down all of their writing ideas, or they get mobile with a laptop or netbook. Thinking about just using a laptop? It sounds good on paper, but a power writer needs a powerful writing platform. They need something that will keep up a dozen tabs in Firefox (or Chrome), a handful of Microsoft Word documents, an Excel spreadsheet or two, a calendar application, and an email application (Outlook does them both, but uses enough resources to be two apps), and a handful of other utilities like a clipboard manager, a reference system, and a screenshot capturing utility. Plus, really writing and banging out article after article or 50 pages of a novel each day, takes a full-size monitor and a full-size, responsive, feels good to the touch, keyboard. Do they make laptops with all of this? Sure they do. They cost $3,000 and they weigh ten pounds (with the charger and laptop case you’ll need to carry.) In other words, you can get it all in something that isn’t really very portable, which was the point in the first place. A powerful laptop will let you work from any room in your house, and it will let you work from any Starbucks or coffee shop you like, when you plan to go out and do some writing, but it will fail you miserably when you are strolling across a college campus one morning when inspiration hits while you weren’t really planning to write. That means a run back to your car trunk, or back to that old pen and paper thing.
2. Notebooks, Notepads, Notecards, Journals, Blank Paper, etc. – Being able to whip out a laptop or notebook and write on the go, is the writer’s Utopia. However, that doesn’t mean that a writer never wants pen and paper. Certain things just suck to do on a computer or in some sort of application or utility. There are a hundred mind-mapping utilities out there, and none of them lets you brainstorm as fast or well as a piece of paper and a pen. Sometimes, the words are just flowing out of your brain, and your PC or laptop is just getting in the way with its mouse and keyboard and backspace key. At times like these, you need a pen and paper. Plus, things get lost inside of computers. Microsoft OneNote is a great note taking and organizing program, but its bloated and jammed full of icons. Just starting it up can be a nuisance, even if you let it run its little pre-start icon in the background. Besides, for all of its many features, nothing has ever duplicated the ability to just flip through a notebook or shuffle through a stack of papers giving each page a quick glance until something leaps off the page and slaps you in the face. If you ever need to come up with a gift for a writer quick and cheap, buy them a notebook. Buy a nice looking one with a solid cover and quality spiral rings (or binding if they prefer). Quality spiral notebooks have spirals that are horizontal across the notebook, not ones that wrap their way diagonally up the spine.
3. Wireless Keyboard – When I first saw wireless keyboard I thought they were a waste of money. I didn’t figure they were any worse than regular wired keyboards, I just couldn’t see the value. That scene in the movies where the writer or computer hacker has the keyboard on their lap while they bang away is the creation of someone who only writes an hour or two each day. A serious writer that cranks out hours of writing at a time can only sit like that for a short while. Then your back starts to hurt, your wrists start to feel like they are getting carpal tunnel, and you find yourself blinking a lot to try and get rid of dry eyes and computer monitor eyestrain. A real professional writer has spent a lot of time on an exact setup that positions the light, the monitor, they desktop, and the keyboard in specific places at specific angles and specific heights. (And if you EVER see someone typing with one hand, just call Bulls*t right away. Two hands isn’t enough fingers to write fast enough for most writers and work a mouse, let alone being able to type with one hand. Try it sometime.) While all of that is true, there is nothing better than being able to position your keyboard exactly where you want it at any given time without having to worry about pulling the cord, spilling your coffee, or knocking over your kid’s picture on your desk. Push it back to set down a book in directly in front of you, then bring it back to the edge when you are feeling lazy and sloppy. And, yeah, every once and a while, drop that sucker in your lap and type out some emails or play games. (By the way, get the wireless mouse to go with it at the same time. It’s cord is even more problematic and by getting a matching set, you only have to have one USB wireless receiver plugged into your PC.) Thinking about buying a computer gift for a writer or just a present that is directly related to writing? A great Christmas gift for your writer loved one is a wireless keyboard and mouse set. For my money, buy a Logitech wireless keyboard. The construction is solid, it works well, and the utility that comes with it is functional, unobtrusive, and small.
4. Dictionary, Thesaurus, AP Stylebook, and The Chicago Manual of Style – Any writer with even a year of experience already has all four of these items and is NOT interested in getting a new one. There are plenty of online dictionaries and thesauruses, and we know all about them. They just aren’t the same. Sometimes, it seems like they can’t really be trusted, and other times it seems like they are missing something. Even worse, sometimes they have too much, with things that aren’t really universally recognized. When my Webster’s New World Dictionary doesn’t have an entry for “jackassery”, I accept that it isn’t a real word.  When it is missing from webster.com, then I wonder if I just need a “better” dictionary. If it is on some online Scrabble dictionary, then I don’t really know if I can trust it. I will go ten rounds with an editor who won’t let me use a word that shows up in the big 10-pound dictionary I have, but there is no way I’m going stick my neck out for the adverb form of a word that is on ReallyGreatAmericanWordsThatAreSpelledRight.com. – By the way if you are looking for the best gifts for writers, DO NOT buy them one of these books unless you know for sure they don’t already have one. New edition or not, we come to love our resource books like members of the family and we don’t need some new one taking up space on the “books we never actually use” shelf.
5. Fast Internet Connection with Wireless Home Network – To be more specific, a wireless home network that doesn’t get dropped and broken by Microsoft Windows even if our computer sleeps or hibernates! (Jerks. Don’t include a feature if it isn’t going to work with 99% of the hardware out there. We have better things to do than figure out the 1 in a million way you have designed your software to work.) And, we need a fast Internet connection that is always fast and always working, not one that is fast as long as no one is home and not using it. Good copywriters are responsible for that shifty, sneaky, language that the phone companies and cable companies use to market their DSL and cable internet. Good writers know exactly how to read it too, and we are not amused. Up to 7 MB per second does not mean that we get 7MB per second 24/7 and we understand that, but it also does not mean that sometimes we’ll get 1 MB per second or LESS! Up to means that it will peak at and stay close to that speed. If I knew how to do it, I’d set up class action lawsuits against every telecom company in this country that offers “up to” a certain speed and then actually provides something that is half of that. I think one could make a pretty good argument that such wording is both deliberately deceptive, and uncompetitive. Otherwise, where does it stop? I could start marketing Internet service tomorrow at speeds “up to 5,800 GB per second,” and when you get 0 (because I don’t have an Internet company) that would just be too bad, because I said “up to.” Sounds like fraud doesn’t it? That means that there is a number at which the promise is too high and the delivery is too low. I say we contest where the telecoms choose to set it.

As a professional writer I am on a perpetual hunt for two things. One, is more places to sell writing, or otherwise earn money writing, and the other is more time to write. No matter how hard one looks, there can never be enough of either.

The constant pursuit of writing excellence can be enhanced with certain tools for writers. Some of these writing tools are technologies or gadgets that can help do some aspect of the writing business better, faster, easier, or cheaper. Other writing tools are old standbys that have helped writers for many years. The latter includes writing books like the AP Stylebook, The Chicago Manual of Style, a good dictionary, a good thesaurus, and a good old notebook and pen.

When it comes to technology based writing tools, finding great tools for writers can be hit or miss. The grammar-checker in Microsoft Word can be customized to be a powerful writing tool, but by default is very annoying, for example. Many things that sound like they would be enormously helpful end up being only moderately helpful, or not helpful at all. Other things that sound like they would be wasteful gadgets end up being a writer’s best friend. Determining which is which in advance is tricky.

Acer Netbook Aspire One D250

For quite some time, I’ve given a lot of thought to purchasing a netbook. A netbook, is an inexpensive and highly portable computer. The trade off is, of course speed. A powerful sub-three pound notebook will run you a $1,000, while these 2 lb. and change netbooks can cost much less than $300, a much smaller investment.

If you looked at netbooks when they first came out like I did, you probably came to the conclusion that they were not usable for serious writers. You were not wrong.

Things like improperly placed SHIFT keys and tiny non-tactile keys made them impossible to touch-type on, which makes it worthless for most pro writers. Ironically, such things were ignore by the click-and-browse crowd. On one forum, a poster actually commented that they didn’t use the Right-Shift key all that much anyway! (What, you don’t capitalize any words that start with s, t, a… ?)

However, technology moves fast, especially in competitive arenas like computer hardware and laptops. Newer netbooks come with keyboards that have most of the keys in the right places. When a solid Acer Netbook hit the one-deal-a-day website Woot.com, I jumped on it. I’m glad I did.

What finally tipped the balance in favor of buying a netbook?

Basically, while at a Starbucks with my car parked 5 blocks away, my laptop locked securely in the trunk because this was a food, drink, and shopping excursion downtown, an idea that I had been fumbling around with the wording on gelled in my mind as I was waiting for my latte. Fortunately, I have a notebook and a pen for just this sort of occurrence, but this particular instance called for pulling up some previous research, doing a little bit of current events research and incorporating it all.

On my laptop, this is not a problem as I just keep opening windows and programs as the ideas flow, giving each one its start and then returning to the original document, or moving on to the next thought. Unfortunately, with a notebook, all you can do is jot down each of these items, and as you do, you lose momentum, and that train of thought becomes a train wreck of notes that you will be lucky to decipher with any meaning later.

I tried to use my mobile phone’s Internet connection, which is fine under normal usage, but it withers under pressure. I can’t open more than one window (even with a tabbed mobile browser like Opera, more than 2 or 3 is suicide) and I can’t type fast enough. I ruefully wished that I could have something like my phone that I could carry around everywhere but that would have enough power to run a real web browser and that would have a keyboard I could touch-type on. It occurred to me that a netbook is the closest thing out there. Nothing smaller is really possible because then you would lose the touch-type possibility.

I didn’t have much hope of it working out when I re-examined some netbooks. The keyboards are tight, but workable. The screens are small, but perfectly fine for typing and basic research, and the Wi-Fi offers close-enough to anywhere connectivity.

Netbook Keyboard Comparison

How does a netbook keyboard compare to a regular keyboard? It is smaller. Duh! We all knew that. How MUCH smaller? That’s a trickier question to answer. Many netbooks report their keyboard size based on how much it is compared to a full-size keyboard, as in 94% of full-sized keyboard.

Here is my Acer D250 netbook lined up against my full-size desktop keyboard, a Logitech MX3200.

There are two big problems with this measurement. First, I have yet to be able to find exactly what constitutes a full-sized keyboard, so for all we know that is 94% of something that none of us use.

The second issue, is that percentages can be deceptive. Consider this. My Logitech MX3200 wireless keyboard is 11 1/4 inches across from the left-most edge of the CAPS LOCK key to the right-most edge of the ENTER key. That means that 90% of my keyboard would be 10 1/8" or one and an eighth inches smaller. That doesn’t sound like much except that each of the letter keys is 5/8" wide, meaning that in a keyboard that is just 10% smaller than full sized, is the equivalent of 2 whole letters narrower. In other words, one percent matters a lot when you are talking about keyboard size. Don’t let that 94% number fool you, the difference is HUGE.

However, based on standing there typing on the demo netbooks, it seemed like I could make it work, although, the only way to know for sure is to use one in the real world the way a freelance writer uses a laptop or other computer. Unfortunately, that can be a pricy experiment.

Luckily, with the Woot deal, I got an Acer Aspire D250 netbook with the 160 GB Hard Drive and the 1 GB of RAM (this one can be upgraded to 2 GB supposedly) and most importantly, with the bigger battery (what’s the point of getting a sub 3 lb. notebook if you’re just going to add 1/2 lb. of weight and a bunch more bulk to carry around a charger) for just over $200 including shipping.

It is refurbished and a far cry from the best of the best netbooks out there from what I understand, but in the handful of days I have owned it, it has proved that the netbook can be a valuable edition to an author’s collection of writer’s tools. I’ll update in the coming days and weeks as I get a better feel for what it can and cannot do. Hopefully, this will allow other writers to find netbooks that fit their needs.

Not long ago, I started to try and help out other freelance writers by giving them some pointers to the good webhosting sites out there for writers to use. As I mentioned then, I don’t have a lot of experience with too many hosts, but the way web hosting companies hand out huge commissions for incoming links that convert to sales, there are just too many websites out there listing the “Top Web Hosts” or “Top Web Hosting Companies” that actually couldn’t care less about who you go with for web hosting as long as you do it through one of their affiliate links so they can make some money.

ArcticLlama, and some of my other websites including a parenting skills by Dad site are hosted with Dreamhost on one of their basic types of accounts.

Recently, all of my sites were down. This is a big problem, and a good way to see how good of a host Dreamhost really is.

I filled out a support ticket as soon as I noticed the problem and got a response within a couple of hours.

That first response said that someone else was doing something that was eating up a bunch of memory and that the admin had killed those processes and laid some smack down on the other user. The response also said to contact him if I had any further trouble. However, there was no email address or other contact method provided.

Whatever was done fixed all but two of my websites. Having no other way to contact the same tech support person, I submitted another ticket. This time, I was told that it was MY processes that were causing the problem and that they were being automatically killed because they were using too much RAM. He then provided a couple of links to help ME figure out what the problems were.  These links involved running some unfamiliar shell commands to see if I could eventually spot what the trouble was. He also recommended that I keep my WordPress installs and plug-ins upgraded to their latest versions.

He also said that perhaps I should upgrade to a Dreamhost Private Server account.

Here is why I am now cannot recommend using Dreamhost for a professional writer website, although I don’t feel ready to recommend against anyone using them yet either.

1. I asked in a follow up message if there was a monitor I could set up to notify me if there were problems like these on my sites again. I was told no. That doesn’t seem right.
2. The “solution” to figure out what the problem processes were involves a whole layer of stuff I know nothing about, including setting up shell access, running Unix commands, and then sorting through a bunch of gibberish looking for the trouble process. The kicker is that according to the article, I may or may not see what the problem is right away, so I’ll have to keep looking. If the server is killing my processes, shouldn’t it log what it is killing and shouldn’t I be able to see that log? Then I wouldn’t have to jump through all these other hoops.
3. The recommendation for a Private Server upgrade really rubs me the wrong way. Read through every word of Dreamhost’s site about what you get with their regular web hosting, and I dare you to point out even one sentence that suggests that a couple of small-time websites will be too much for regular hosting. I run just 6 WordPress blogs, none of which gets even a thousand hits. The plug-ins I run are all well known, widely used plug-ins.  I didn’t find any unusual WordPress plug-ins on my own. Every single one of the plug-ins I’m running I found recommended by a large, well respected WordPress site. So, I’m not sure just how little power I am actually allowed to use on my account.
4. For all the talk about disk space, transfer rate, bandwidth, and so on, I never once have seen anything about what my memory limit is. In fact, no one has still told me what my maximum memory usage is. Is it so low that it would be embarrassing, or does no one know? Based on which sites I have hosted on Dreamhost, it would seem that the limiting factor in their plan is the maximum amount of allowable memory usage, and there is no way to monitor it. Not that it would matter, since they don’t tell you what the amount is you have to stay beneath.

It all adds up to me wondering if I am not getting good hosting from Dreamhost.  However, without trying another web hosting provider, I don’t feel right about condemning Dreamhost for what might just be standard business practices and my own ignorance.

I have signed up with another web host provider and will be moving some of my sites there to see what it is like. If they play nicer and provide more, or better service, then I will switch away and let you know who to avoid and who to try out for the best writer website web hosts.