saxbrightwell (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
saxbrightwell) wrote2024-06-04 11:58 am
saxbrightwell) wrote2024-06-04 11:58 am
June Update: Book 3 in Editing and "Fun ðŸ˜" With Computers
Book 3 in Editing
I'm delighted to announce that I've completed book 3 of Secrets of Sleipnir and now I'm into the editing phase! I'm really enjoying rereading it as I work my way through - one of the perks of my bad habit of insisting on writing clean copy. There's just one scene that needs to be moved/changed, and then I need to spend some time with the cover, and it'll be up and out! Unfortunately I finished it in a magnificent burst during a long break from work the likes of which my schedule won't have again for *(checks)* about a month, so the release won't be for a little while yet. Still, I hope to have it out before July! Then I could use my long stretches *in* July to work on book *4...*
Adventures in Computing
So, you may recall I've been spending time on Mastodon, which naturally attracts certain personality types, most of whom I find highly congenial (although I do have to maintain a very robust anti-doomscrolling list of filters). They do skew to a fervent conviction that all generative AI is SIN!!1! with which I quietly disagree. If I were to get right into it with someone I would argue that Adobe Firefly shouldn't even be counted as "AI" the way they use the term because its database isn't stolen. But I'm old enough to know better than to get right into it with someone.
But this crowd's dim view of AI does have its benefits, such as a robust early warning about the Next Big Thing: Windows Recall. This "feature" is legitimised malware on steroids, a keylogger and every-few-seconds screenshotter that saves all its information in an eminently-hackable format. It's supposed to be for better error recovery but it's really to feed its Copilot AI and anyone else who wants to buy user data for any reason they want - from Microsoft, of course, not the users. Originally it was supposed to require purpose-built "AI-ready" "Copilot PCs" with specialty hardware to handle the enormous computing load but it can apparently run on regular Windows 11 machines. Paired with the way Microsoft is explicitly abandoning and obsoleting Windows 10 to try to force switching to Windows 11, it seems fairly obvious that they will eventually take the same steps and require everyone to accept Recall in order to use Windows going forward. Technically it can be partially shut off - but only partially, and anyone who's struggled with Windows 11 knows how it loves to switch vexatious "features" back on at random.
(You may be guessing where I'm going with this already. Bear with me; it's been a Journey.)
Meanwhile, in that same environment I've seen one too many stories about Google's algorithms deciding users' Docs are too explicit to be artistic and locking them out of their own content with no recourse - while still cramming that content straight into the gaping maw of their in-house AI, Gemini. I was willing to live with the latter, although I didn't like it; but the one-two punch of "we reserve the right to lock you out of your own work with one hand while confiscating it to feed our LLM with the other hand" is just too much for me...
... so I've been trying to escape the Google ecosystem.
My first stop was Collabora Office, an Android port of LibreOffice. LO works great on desktop computers, but CO is not so shiny. On both my phone and an Android tablet, it freezes frequently for minutes on end, crashes half the time when I turn on my Bluetooth keyboard, doesn't generate a navigable outline, and text jolts sideways halfway off the screen alarmingly often. Paired with NextCloud (an open-source, encrypted, free cloud storage service) it technically replaces the "cloud-save/device-side software" functionality of Google Drive + Docs, but at the price of a janky, deeply miserable experience. I might still use it in my publishing process but only as the very final step following doing all my actual writing in...
... Markdown! This not-quite-plain-text format is much more mobile-friendly than Collabora Office. I first tried out a fully open-source app called Markor, and it's fine. The reading view generates a table of contents, although I didn't get far enough to test whether one can go deep into the middle of a document with it and still be there on switching back to editing view. I still have Markor on my phone, but what I've been using since then is Obsidian. It's not fully open-source but it is free (with paid levels), and the bigger draw is that it has a huge community of people making plugins for it. With Longform (optional, because headings auto-generate a navigable outline!!! but it does let you write in sections and then compile into a master document at the end which is pretty exciting), Smart Typography, and a Pandoc export plugin, it's not just competitive with the experience of using GDocs on mobile to write novels; it's better.
So, Obsidian has me sorted for the actual Writing Process, but there's still that final formatting into a .odt document to submit to Draft2Digital to create an .epub. For that, Collabora Office is terrible enough I really want a proper sit-down computer to use LibreOffice instead. Which brings us back to my growing antipathy for Windows, and me finally taking the oft-tooted advice from Mastodon to "just install Linux."
So I did.
Here's how that went, described in a rant of sorts on the forums for Linux Mint Cinnamon, the distribution generally agreed to be the most "beginner"-friendly:
I'm using the laptop with the Mint dual boot to write this DW entry right now, and it IS pretty friendly now that it's up and running! It's really nice not to have Office and OneDrive screaming at me to subscribe to them. I've got Nextcloud, Obsidian, Steam, and Deezer, and Firefox of course. About the only other service I use regularly that isn't a website is MS Paint, and I feel reasonably sure that has some sort of Linux equivalent.
So! That's what I've been up to! I hope to have another update later this month announcing the release of book 3!
I'm delighted to announce that I've completed book 3 of Secrets of Sleipnir and now I'm into the editing phase! I'm really enjoying rereading it as I work my way through - one of the perks of my bad habit of insisting on writing clean copy. There's just one scene that needs to be moved/changed, and then I need to spend some time with the cover, and it'll be up and out! Unfortunately I finished it in a magnificent burst during a long break from work the likes of which my schedule won't have again for *(checks)* about a month, so the release won't be for a little while yet. Still, I hope to have it out before July! Then I could use my long stretches *in* July to work on book *4...*
Adventures in Computing
So, you may recall I've been spending time on Mastodon, which naturally attracts certain personality types, most of whom I find highly congenial (although I do have to maintain a very robust anti-doomscrolling list of filters). They do skew to a fervent conviction that all generative AI is SIN!!1! with which I quietly disagree. If I were to get right into it with someone I would argue that Adobe Firefly shouldn't even be counted as "AI" the way they use the term because its database isn't stolen. But I'm old enough to know better than to get right into it with someone.
But this crowd's dim view of AI does have its benefits, such as a robust early warning about the Next Big Thing: Windows Recall. This "feature" is legitimised malware on steroids, a keylogger and every-few-seconds screenshotter that saves all its information in an eminently-hackable format. It's supposed to be for better error recovery but it's really to feed its Copilot AI and anyone else who wants to buy user data for any reason they want - from Microsoft, of course, not the users. Originally it was supposed to require purpose-built "AI-ready" "Copilot PCs" with specialty hardware to handle the enormous computing load but it can apparently run on regular Windows 11 machines. Paired with the way Microsoft is explicitly abandoning and obsoleting Windows 10 to try to force switching to Windows 11, it seems fairly obvious that they will eventually take the same steps and require everyone to accept Recall in order to use Windows going forward. Technically it can be partially shut off - but only partially, and anyone who's struggled with Windows 11 knows how it loves to switch vexatious "features" back on at random.
(You may be guessing where I'm going with this already. Bear with me; it's been a Journey.)
Meanwhile, in that same environment I've seen one too many stories about Google's algorithms deciding users' Docs are too explicit to be artistic and locking them out of their own content with no recourse - while still cramming that content straight into the gaping maw of their in-house AI, Gemini. I was willing to live with the latter, although I didn't like it; but the one-two punch of "we reserve the right to lock you out of your own work with one hand while confiscating it to feed our LLM with the other hand" is just too much for me...
... so I've been trying to escape the Google ecosystem.
My first stop was Collabora Office, an Android port of LibreOffice. LO works great on desktop computers, but CO is not so shiny. On both my phone and an Android tablet, it freezes frequently for minutes on end, crashes half the time when I turn on my Bluetooth keyboard, doesn't generate a navigable outline, and text jolts sideways halfway off the screen alarmingly often. Paired with NextCloud (an open-source, encrypted, free cloud storage service) it technically replaces the "cloud-save/device-side software" functionality of Google Drive + Docs, but at the price of a janky, deeply miserable experience. I might still use it in my publishing process but only as the very final step following doing all my actual writing in...
... Markdown! This not-quite-plain-text format is much more mobile-friendly than Collabora Office. I first tried out a fully open-source app called Markor, and it's fine. The reading view generates a table of contents, although I didn't get far enough to test whether one can go deep into the middle of a document with it and still be there on switching back to editing view. I still have Markor on my phone, but what I've been using since then is Obsidian. It's not fully open-source but it is free (with paid levels), and the bigger draw is that it has a huge community of people making plugins for it. With Longform (optional, because headings auto-generate a navigable outline!!! but it does let you write in sections and then compile into a master document at the end which is pretty exciting), Smart Typography, and a Pandoc export plugin, it's not just competitive with the experience of using GDocs on mobile to write novels; it's better.
So, Obsidian has me sorted for the actual Writing Process, but there's still that final formatting into a .odt document to submit to Draft2Digital to create an .epub. For that, Collabora Office is terrible enough I really want a proper sit-down computer to use LibreOffice instead. Which brings us back to my growing antipathy for Windows, and me finally taking the oft-tooted advice from Mastodon to "just install Linux."
So I did.
Here's how that went, described in a rant of sorts on the forums for Linux Mint Cinnamon, the distribution generally agreed to be the most "beginner"-friendly:
Hi, you may remember me from my question about whether a 64GB Samsung Android tablet can be convinced to run Mint. (Answer: no.) I have since unbricked a Windows 11 Dell Inspiron laptop and have been trying to install Mint on that.(Later flatpaks are getting thinner and thinner so I'm wondering if there is some sort of common material the flatpak system shares.)
While dual-boot is encouraged as a "low-commitment" way to get into using Linux, the learning curve just to install a dual boot is SO HIGH that it would be less painful to wipe a computer and set it up as just a Linux box from start to finish. This has been horrible. Read on to laugh at my pain.
Things I have done so far, following various guides and answers found on this forum and elsewhere:
- made a live USB key with Etcher, yes verified and authenticated ISO as good, yes the live preview looked fine, okay let's go I can do this
- made the biggest partition Windows would let me make automatically (62 GB - there was over 200 GB empty but it wasn't all contiguous)
- (guide I was using said 62 GB would be fine. guide was from 2017. it was not fine.)
- run out of root space instantly upon trying to install one(1) app
- undid those partitions, erasing all work so far
- booted from USB again
- tried to do a "side-by-side" install
- found the whole hard drive encrypted by BitLocker.
- decrypted
- found "Windows Boot Manager" disabling side-by-side install, and of course no partition ready to go
- disabled Secure Boot
- after many many many "Failed to open \EFI\BOOT\mmx64.efi - Not Found" errors, got back to live version on USB (without having done anything differently from the times I got the error. possibly I should be sacrificing chickens.)
- Windows Boot Manager is *still* disabling side-by-side install!
- Partitioning 2: Electric Boogaloo, this time with a tool to force a good 200GB of contiguous free space
- sacrifice chicken.
- USB key works!
- NOW I *can* "install Linux Mint alongside Windows Boot Manager"! Without needing to muck about assigning root/swap/home partitions myself!
- *heavens open, choirs of angels begin to sing*
- don't ask why that worked, just go buy more chickens, this time for a gratitude offering... but held in escrow until I can actually install apps.
- software updates complete.
- here we go, time to install some apps.
- (my heartrate is actually elevated. this is as far as I got last time before running into problems.)
- Flatpak? More like FATpak amirite?! 3.9 GB for Nextcloud! 2.7 GB for Obsidian! I aspire someday for all the novels I've ever written to take up 1-2 MB.
- I have opened my latest manuscript from NextCloud in LibreOffice, made a change to it, and then closed it and opened the same file on my phone and verified that the change was there.
- I'VE DONE IT
- I'M
- A BEGINNER!
I'm pleased with myself for persisting and succeeding, pleased to have an escape hatch from the Windows and Google ecosystems... but that is a REALLY high bar for entry.
I'm using the laptop with the Mint dual boot to write this DW entry right now, and it IS pretty friendly now that it's up and running! It's really nice not to have Office and OneDrive screaming at me to subscribe to them. I've got Nextcloud, Obsidian, Steam, and Deezer, and Firefox of course. About the only other service I use regularly that isn't a website is MS Paint, and I feel reasonably sure that has some sort of Linux equivalent.
So! That's what I've been up to! I hope to have another update later this month announcing the release of book 3!