Other Programs – Page 14 – ORGANIZING CREATIVITY

Warning: Do a backup of your PDFs before you update to macOS Sierra

2016-09-25

Seriously: Before you update your Mac OS, do a backup of all your PDFs. Sierra seems to have a few crippling and infrastructure destroying problems with PDFs.
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Authorea — synchronous writing

2016-09-12

Got another email about a possibly interesting product. If you want to collaborative write on an article at the same time, Authorea might be something for you.
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Neonce – an interesting tool for problem-solving in groups

2016-09-08

I got an invitation to have a look at a problem-solving tool for groups. Ostensibly a better way to do brainstorming — a method which I hate with the fire of a thousand suns. And yep, it looks very promising and much, much better than the usual brainstorming sessions in groups.
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Mundane Tasks — Perl to the Rescue

2016-09-03

Sometimes you have to do stupidly repeating tasks, e.g., create lots of files with the contents of another file. Scripting languages like Perl are really, really helpful here.
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Apple Script for OmniOutliner and Keynote

2016-02-25

Always great to learn something new -- this time what Apple Script can do for OmniOutliner and Keynote. For example, exporting Keynote notes or changing the content of a column in OmniOutliner.
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Circus Ponies Notebook Alternative – OmniOutliner

2016-01-24

Given that Circus Ponies Notebook is no longer available, it's high time to look for an alternative. So far, OmniOutliner seems to be a suiting replacement. So here's a first look at OmniOutliner, how it compares to Circus Ponies Notebook, and a preliminary way to migrate content from CPN to OmniOutliner.
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One eMail-Rule to Misrule Them All

2016-01-21

It's bad when something you depend upon, something which works perfectly, suddenly has hiccups. It's even worse when you've created the issue yourself. Hello vanishing eMails and eMail-rules.
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Looking back at the postings of 2015

2015-12-26

Postings of 2015 ... somewhat sorted for a quick overview/recap.
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Laws for Robots

2015-11-20

A short comment on Asimov's Laws of Robotics, well, the zeroth one mainly. Summed up in three words: "No, hell no!"

Image from "I, Robot"
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Another Way to Use InDesign to Layout your Thesis (with some help from Zotero and Word)

2015-09-21

If you need a high degree of control -- incl. visual control -- of your thesis layout, you might want to check out InDesign. Here's another workflow to use InDesign to layout a thesis.
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This is a private blog showing my opinions. If you have an issue with what I write here, either don’t read it or talk to me directly. Don’t waste your time — or mine — dragging my employer into matters where they hold no authority.

The institution I work for, or rather the people officially representing it, have already distanced themselves from this blog. I find this unnecessary, as I’ve clearly stated in the «About this Blog» section that this is a personal blog.

Frankly, I have nothing but contempt for those who lack the backbone to address their concerns directly and instead resort to passive-aggressive tattling to others. Such behavior strikes me as not only cowardly, but also spineless, gutless, and wholly unprincipled. Moreover, these efforts are as pathetic as they are futile.

That said, I might listen if you present compelling arguments and evidence, as constructive feedback is always welcome. Who knows? We might even both gain something valuable from the interaction.

A comment for those seeking to use this site for personal gain: Given the increase in requests, let me be clear. I write on this blog because I want to. It’s my hobby, my playground. Sometimes people point me to interesting products/services and I write about them. But any request regarding ads or sponsored placements ends up the trash without a reply. And if you think something would be of interest, differentiate yourself from the spammers by referring to a posting — in an intelligent way. (I get enough auto-generated mails to identify them immediately.)

BTW, posts can get updated after I published them if I spot spelling errors (not a native speaker) or think a different wording might improve precision and clarity.

This blog is not focused on a single topic, or method. As long as it is relevant to improving creativity (or allowing it in the first place), it's fair game.
Some postings on this blog deal with freedom, as I think that we need freedom of thought, of speech, of association, etc. pp. to solve mankind's problems. Thus, some postings may seem a bit remote when it comes to organizing creativity. Freedom is, however, the bedrock of creativity.
The heterogeneity of the postings can make reading this blog a bit cumbersome, at least if you are only interested in one topic. You can either use the search function (above), or use the categories or the tags to narrow down the postings you see.