The best technology doesn’t always win.
Blame poor marketing, bad timing, or just plain dumb luck, but the dustbins of
history are lined with examples of superior technologies that failed to capture
market share. Everyone mentions Betamax, which had its clock cleaned by VHS. But
I prefer to cite personal favorite XyWrite, a fast, flexible app from the late
‘80s that made competing word processors look like manual
typewriters. Ditto the 64-bit DEC Alpha, which had the chops but not the
marketing muscle needed to win. I’ve been ruminating on this
issue since reading “
WordWeb is a combination dictionary and thesaurus,
providing short meanings and synonyms for the word of your choice.
In the old version, you typically kept WordWeb a
mere shortcut away. When you were stumped for a word, you clicked to pop up the
program, and typed or copied in the word you wanted to research.
Then, up popped definitions and synonyms in up to
eight or even 10 separate categories -- synonyms, types of, parts of and other
helpful tables.
The new version is even better. This marvelous
freeware sits in the system tray (down by the clock) waiting for a call, and it
is now much more closely tied to your writing.
Mark a word, click on the unmistakeable WordWeb
icon, and the program pops up with your word already entered.
Click on the synonym you like, click "replace" and
it's, well, replaced automatically in your editor or word
processor.
What's that sir? Yes, good question. The gentleman
asked, "How is this different than your spell checker or thesaurus in Microsoft
Word?"
Well, it's different because it works with every
word program, from the most basic like Notepad to the most convoluted like Quark
Express -- or Word, and in any other program that you type into, such as your
email program or your browser when you are answering email online.
It's "better" for many people because the
definitions are excellent -- Microsoft Word has no definitions _ and the synonym
list is wonderful, varied and intuitive. If you don't find what you want, click
on a synonym to get more lists of synonyms.
Of course if you use Microsoft Word for everything,
you may not want WordWeb.
But most of us don't do that. We use something very
basic like Notepad for simple notes and memos and load a word processor or
book-maker only for the heavy-duty stuff that also requires formatting or has to
look very pretty.
Many people also like something in the middle -- a
very strong editor with macros for heavy-duty text editing, or a basic word
processor for simple but decent looking output.
In other words, it's time for the annual St
Patrick's Day rant about the need for good writing tools, and how poor the ones
are that come with Windows.
You want small? You want smaller, faster, tighter,
better? I'll give you that.
Edxor is not only a tiny download of just 35KB --
no time for a cigarette or even a quick shot of something strong while this one
comes down the wires _ it is even smaller than that once it throws away its
installer and signals it is ready to use.
At that size, you can fit a much better editor and
a web photo of the hunk of the day in the space currently occupied by the legend
of editorial inferiority, Notepad.
The motto of programmer Dariusz Stanislawek on his
web site is "Good things come in small packages," and while I can't vouch for
the generous young Australian bloke personally, I can say that he backs up that
slogan in his software, at least.
This thing flies. This may be the fastest editor
around. That is not necessarily a wonderful thing, mind you, since we're just
talking about a couple of seconds. But Edxor has so many features, some people
will actually have fun playing with it, and everyone -- I think _ will find the
program highly useful.
It has its own clipboard handler, meaning you can
have several items saved and ready for pasting at the same time.
You get regular features like inserting date and
time, advanced features like inserting file names and go to line so-and-so --
and unique features like file encryption if you'd like to exchange secret
information, or just keep your documents safe from prying eyes, not that you'd
mind if Spouse sees what you write, of course.
All right. Next.
Everyone needs a program that fits between Notepad
and Word for Windows -- between the two extremes.
You need a small, fast editor used exclusively for
writing, and with no more formatting or pretty stuff than a to-do reminder on
the refrigerator door.
And you may well need one of those huge, bloated
word processors that beautify even the simplest shopping list for the maid to
take to the market, and stretch the exercise out to 20 minutes of
computing.
Do you want to have an actual word processor that
is faster than WordPad -- that sometimes useful Windows freebie _ but bigger?
What if, despite its size, it not only does way more than WordPad but does it a
lot more quickly, and with more additional features? I'll give you that,
too.
Well, that is, two generous young Norwegians,
Torstein Nesse and Fredrik Skeie will give it to you.
Write 3 is their modest addition to the libraries
of word processors which you use to write things, and then to make them look
beautiful with different fonts, type sizes, indents, bullet lists and the
like.
The program is actually a basic word processor when
put up against the likes of Word and Word Perfect, but it is not nearly so basic
as WordPad. It also is far more efficient than the free program that comes with
Windows.
Write can open several documents at a
time.
This seems a no-brainer on any editor or word
processor above a quick-and-dirty application but many do not have it, including
the sometimes acceptable Microsoft WordPad, the free Windows
application.
It also keeps a list of recently used files, a nice
touch too often forgotten by all by the big programs you pay for. There is an
excellent "browser" that lets you roam around the hard drives easily in case you
have lost a file.
To some, the automatic reminder that it's time to
save your copy is another nice touch.
Apart from this, Write 3 is a stable, fast word
processor with features you would expect to help you write and make the output
look good. Instant bulleted lists complement the usual items like font selection
and colours.
Write is not Microsoft Word, which is the point.
It's fast and gets the job done of producing an acceptably pretty document, when
that is what you need.
Which brings us to the need for a powerful text
editor for heavy duty writing.
NoteTab Light is made in Switzerland and is the
very generous free version of one of the most muscular editors in Windows
computerdom.
Truth be told, nothing under Windows measures up to
the power, speed and configurability of old DOS programs like XyWrite and Boxer.
But NoteTab, an early entrant after Windows 95 came out, provides all kinds of
power.
The difference between an editor and word processor
is simply that the editor is for writing content, while the word processor
stresses form.
NoteTab, like all editors, will format text in
specific ways, but you get one on-screen font. In return you get more speed than
you can use, with built-in and customised features for pretty well anything you
can think of.
NoteTab is a general editor, good for pretty well
any kind of writing, definitely including this review.
It handles pretty well any kind of computer code
for programmers, and links to compilers and the like.
For the more normal humans, it offers standard and
unique features.
It will load any number of documents of any size.
It can show two documents in one window or two parts of one documents in two
windows, for example.
One of its strongest points is a sidebar, where you
can put information or exceptionally powerful macros, like the one that converts
text to web documents mentioned below.
Just for example, one sidebar is an auto-correction
for typing, another will fetch and insert euro exchange rates. A third holds a
huge (or small, up to you) clipboard library while another has dozens of
text-utility tricks, each available at a keystroke.
NoteTab has an extremely spiffy outline module,
which comes with a full tutorial and demonstration.
It's possible to spend too much time on outlines,
which is why they are not particularly popular -- except with
authors.
But the one with NoteTab works with plotting a
novel, preparing an academic document or thesis or keeping track of research
that falls under specific subjects.
In a unique move, NoteTab will turn any outline
into a highly presentable web page with headers and internal document links.
It's very impressive.
NoteTab light is one of the greatest values on the
Internet, and if you are not very happy with a powerful text editor right now,
you need to look at it.
NoteTab speaks Thai quite well, but with the
limitations of most software. You can type in Thai without restrictions that I
could find, but pasting text and opening Thai-language documents for editing
requires help from the Windows language modules. Your results may vary for a
while.
And now for something completely
different.
eBooksWriter, as the name indicates, produces
electronic books. While these are meant and optimised for viewing on a computer
screen, they can be printed as well and often as productively as output from any
other sort of word processor.
Their great value is that they allow hyperlinks --
like a web site, only far faster and more efficient, not to say more
professional looking. An eBook gives you the typesetting controls of a printing
press and the manoeuvrability of a fast web site.
I looked at the LITE (that's what they call it,
with everything but an exclamation point) version, which is free and can produce
a decent, but not fat volume of, say, 10 to 40 pages depending on how many
images, sounds or videos you insert.
There is a learning curve to eBooksWriter. You
don't just exactly sit down and start typing on a blank page like most word
programs.
The software does, however, come with a short and
clear tutorial that walks you through creation of a volume, and there are a
number of templates to get you up and running pretty quickly. And the site has a
big and clear manual available for free download in PDF format.
There are advantages to an eBook over, say, a Word
document or a web site.
One is that the eBooksWriter is optimised for the
job it's doing. The output is much smaller than most word processors -- way
smaller than Microsoft Word. It can include far more than text and pictures,
too. You can put video, music, popup pages and a lot more into an eBook made
with this program.
The other advantage is security. You can permit or
restrict sections of the book by password, prohibit printing and copying and set
an expiration date for the whole book or sections.
eBooks require a viewer and you can include this
when you compile your book -- and make a single .EXE file to send to friends or
associates _ or you can just tell them where to get a viewer _ the Simtel.net
free download site, in fact.
If you get serious about making e-documents,
you'll want to buy a professional version of this program, but do try out the
free version first. On the main page, look for the line that says, "Download.
Get the free lite edition."