software I’m taking for a spin right now is Scrivener, which is a tool to help you organize your writing. Basically it’s a glorified text editor, but it adds a way for you to organize your writing (e.g. fiction) hierarchically by scene or snippet, and attaches metadata to each, so you can add summaries or notes or researched information to each section without altering the content of the section itself.

From the parent folder of each section, you can see a “corkboard” view of the summaries of each section, drag and drop to reorder sections, and generate an outline. And when you’re all ready to send the whole shebang off to a proofreader or editor or friend, it’ll export the contents as a Word file or in various other formats.

Writing, simplified. I love this thing so much after a few days that I am definitely going to buy it. Awesome. (Via argh ink)

of MarsEdit, a blog publishing application, a spin. In brief, it makes writing blog posts like writing emails, it’s supposed to make publishing to multiple blogs easier, and integrates nifty features like editing in your favorite text editor, like TextMate. Which is pretty cool for me, because I am lazy and love keyboard shortcuts, which TM has aplenty (like automatically closing HTML tags).

This post was written in MarsEdit. Let’s see if it works for me. (Via What do I know)

Check out my latest book review.

this recent story on CNN, about teenagers murdering a homeless man and likening it to a violent video game. Which, as has been the trend in mass media for the past few years, the media jumped all over. And of course, the folks over at Penny Arcade got kind of annoyed by this, and wrote a blog post deriding instead the parents of the murderers, and what they did wrong.

So far, this sounds like just another of the news cycles on the disturbing trend of youth violence in recent years, right? But here’s where it’s different. The stepmother of one of these teenagers happens to be a loyal PA reader, and wrote in with a disturbing story about life with this kid, and how nothing a parent could have done would have prevented his eventual slide into murder. Read the whole thing.

of updates at my anime/manga blog, with lots more coming soon.

has a story on MySpace going to Japan, and its inevitable competition with the already established Japanese social-networking service called Mixi. It goes on to talk about the difference in our two countries’ cultures, and how the unashamed self-promotion of MySpace might not be a good fit for the more reserved and group-oriented Japanese. A valid point, to be sure, but I didn’t see them mentioning what is sure to be at least as important: usability. MySpace has, as is CW among most web professionals I know, the worst interface and site design (almost) evar. Mixi, by contrast, is much more low key, readable, and most importantly, less annoying. Even their banner ads are discreet. In that sense, Mixi has already won the contest hands down, at least IMO.

Maybe it’s just the 日本-phile in me, but I’ve always been a big fan of Japan’s minimalist aesthetic, and tend to like their more subdued designed goods (e.g. stationery, clothing, art) in favor of the more vibrant products America produces. And for that reason, I think MySpace will have trouble in Japan.

my book blog like crazy lately: here’s another book review, and some long-awaited (by me, at least) additions to the Authors section.

And speaking of updating my personal websites, you can expect some more soon from my (currently mostly empty) anime/manga site. Can I just mention here how much it sucks that the immensely useful Adhesive plugin is incompatible with WP 2.1?

the folks at WordPress are taking requests for features in the next version, and I just suggested one—allowing automatic selection of parent categories when child categories are selected. Requests will only be added if enough votes are gathered, so please vote for my idea if you agree!

The Canada National Post has an article today talking about the phenomenon of stealth marketing—where, e.g., companies or advertising firms will set up fake blogs (flogs, for short) or upload “amateur” videos to YouTube for the purposes of marketing a product—and how it’s breeding cynism among the general public.

With typical big-media alarmism—especially, in recent years, toward anything relating to blogs—this article sensationalizes something that’s, really, no big deal:

But in the short term, he says, online deceptions of the “wig-out” video variety have the potential to erode trust in events or moments that seem to be free of artifice or marketing interests.

“If one is always skeptical, then goes to cynicism, you end up feeling pretty negative about the world,” Mr. Federman [a researcher at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education whose work examines the effects of media on society] says. “You end up with a very sour disposition. You tend to look at people and interactions as everyone trying to manipulate you, and tend to have a miserable existence, quite frankly.

“It’s not pleasant. You can’t enjoy yourself. You always have to be on your guard.”

Oh, please. As long as there have been ways to communicate with many people at once, whether they’re newspapers, TV or the internet, there have been people looking to use those ways to make a buck. You can’t make me believe that having knowledge of that fact is going to make me untrusting and miserable. And you can’t make me believe that viral marketing is so new a practice as all that.

Call me cynical, but this whole “longing for a more innocent time” idea is bunk. There was never a more innocent time. If anything, this time, now, is the most innocent time in human history. But that’s another blog post. (Via Slashdot)

Inside Man: 5 stars

This is the best American-made movie I’ve seen in…I don’t know how long. Remember how I talked about movies that try too hard to be smart? This wasn’t one of them. It was smart without being obvious, suspenseful without being gimmicky, as all too many thrillers are these days. It kept me guessing until very close to the end. Brilliantly written, acted with passion but understatement—no obvious award-trolling here—and skillfully directed^*, this is what thrillers should be. Highly recommended.

^* And, I would say, the best Spike Lee movie I’ve ever seen. Though it must be said that I’ve only seen this, He Got Game and 25^th Hour.