The Software I Use

alesmeralda — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 22:48:04 +0000

I don’t normally talk about the software I use in writing articles, whether for the printer or for a website. The computer is like the typewriter (remember that old machine from the last century?). When you type an article, you don’t talk about whether you’ve been using a Brother or Olympia typewriter to create it. It is the content that matters after all. But when someone does ask me about the software I recommend, then I immediately ask: “what particular task?” You see, apart from the operating system that makes it possible for me to use the computer and the antivirus software I keep running in the background everytime the computer is on, there are other software applications installed in my computer that allows me to do particular tasks. For browsing, I use Opera because it is faster than both FireFox and I.E. For office word processing, I use Microsoft Office. For creating graphics, I sometimes use Windows Paint, but more often, it is PhotoFiltre I employ and, for taking snapshots, ScreenShot Captor. For viewing graphics, I normally use Irfanview. But for other tasks, I use a bunch of free and non-free software that I’ve downloaded from the web and keep installed in my system until I find a better one.

When I write an article for Res Biblica, I have a software for each step of the writing process. I begin by going to the NAB website for the reading of the Sunday I am going to write on. I copy the whole page that has all the readings and paste it into EverNote. Then I close my modem to prepare my article offline.

I still am old-fashioned when writing drafts of an article. I use the low-tech notebook and pen for composing my article notes. But for streamlining references to Bible passages, I use the e-Sword (for English and Tagalog; it has “Ang Biblia”) and The Word (for Greek and Hebrew). While I compose my article, I use the thesaurus in Word Web

After writing my notes (analysis, word study, etc.), I go online once more to look for webpages that I can reference from the article I am about to post. For the purpose of cataloguing web links, I currently use the C-Organizer Pro which I got for free from CSoftLab. Before CSoftLab accorded me a free license, I was using Scratch for cataloguing web links. When I am satisfied with my harvest of links, I continue my work offline.

I type the sections of my article into AZZCardFile which was also given to me free after I wrote a review of it and created a link for it at AgustinongPinoy’s Weblab. Sometimes, I find it necessary to create a graphic file illustrating the structure of a particular text. What I do is copy the text from either e-Sword or The Word into Jarte, an RTF editor with Unicode support, color the text (highlighting, change font colors) and take a snapshot of it using ScreenShot Captor, and then edit the graphic file created through Photofiltre.

Once I’ve typed the whole article into AZZCardFile, I export the whole thing into an RTF file. The created RTF file serves me two purposes: it becomes the basis for a PDF document that I can create later one for downloading purposes (in case someone asks me for it), and the text serves as a reference for the places where I can insert my created graphic files in the final webpage. A second time, I export the contents of my AZZCardFile article into .TXT format. This will become the basis for the HTML page I will post at Res Biblica.

When I turn the article into an HTML page, I have two options: if it has graphics, I use RJ Text Edit; with no graphics, I use Fooke’s Notetab. RJ Text Edit has panel view that allows me to locate a graphic file saved in a folder and from there to insert it into a page. It also gives me a Preview of the web page I am creating in either the IE or FireFox view. Notetab does not have these functionalities.

Once finished, the article in HTML format is ready for posting. If it has graphics, I upload them into Res Biblica using AceFTPFree. The rest is simple copy and paste into the text editor of Res Biblica.

From Otium Sanctum To Biblista.NET

alesmeralda — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:49:38 +0000

I just would like to inform those who have been asking me about it that Otium Sanctum will no longer be updated. Instead, I’ll be disabling the website from future memberships but allowing surfers to access its contents. The website to visit now will be Res Biblica (http://www.biblista.net/main) which has new articles that follow the format of the ones in Otium Sanctum.

So why am I no longer updating Otium Sanctum? Too many spammers bogging down the system. Besides, the bandwidth demands of the site has been increasing since the time it reached 200 posts. That is the reason why sometimes, towards the end of the month, the website gives off the announcement that it has exceeded its bandwidth instead of showing off its contents. In any case, the articles will continue to be available. Currently, I am working on a database of the articles that are posted there for interested parties to use as reference from their desktop. I am creating the database using C-Organizer Pro, CSoftLab’s Personal Information Manager of which a personal license was granted me after I submitted a database of web resources (Webresources For The Aspiring Webmaster). The items in that database will be pointing to the articles at Otium Sanctum so it cannot be used unless one is online and using C-Organizer Pro. For those who do not have this excellent software, I will also be making available a CSV format of the same database so that one can use it from within Excel. When I am finished with it, I will be making it available through this blog.

Visit Otium Sanctum from here.

nocturnal intellections » C-Organizer Pro

The Software I Use

From Otium Sanctum To Biblista.NET