Writers20Q Podcast 02 – Yi Shun Lai

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This is the first of the Writers 20 Questions Podcasts with a set of questions more suited to asking writers. It follows on from the first podcast posted in here though which was the one where I am talking with Mike Smith, as Yi Shun Lai is a friend of his.

Yi Shun Lai has worked as a writer / editor for 15 years and now is working for herself as in freelance and having the time to spend on a novel of her own. Seems that writers have to do the work and save money so that they can then have the opportunity to write for themselves.

I learned a few things during our chat and she was lovely to chat with. I do like friendly people, life is to short to have to deal with grumpy devils.

Yi Shun has worked on a book called 100 Days Of Monsters (with DVD) sounds like fun. Started off as a web project but has moved on to print. Isn’t always good to have the paper in your hands to read.

At The Examiner Yi Shun writes about out door activities and recreation. I don’t think it is possible to kayak in Central Park but check out the site to find out what Yi Shun says you can do there.

We talked about writers critique groups and getting past writers block. Of course there was some discussion about the craft of writing but more about editors and agents.

May Mac20Q Podcasts

John Herdman – Stargate Computers

Steve Carty - Toronto Photographer

Adam Christianson – The Maccast

Mike Smith – Out of Office – writer

Martin Hairer – Developer of Amadeus Pro

Evan Montgomery – Student

Melissa Davies – The Mac Mommy

Only seven regular audio podcasts, but I did do a screen cast of how to use AmadeusPro and a couple of video news shows. I also got out one podccast for BravaChat nothing in there about Macs, in fact Debbie who I was interviewing would not get a Mac because of the negative advertising and Microsoft bashing. Her bloke though was a Mac user. Some sense in the pair!!

Writers20Q Podcast 1 SplatEric

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Mike has a MacBookPro as his main computer and has a Mac Mini connected to the TV. Mike is a writer and had taken the brave step of giving up a job in order to make his way in the world into being a writer. Has been using the mac for about 3 years before the writing he was a coder.
Connected to the computer he goes for wired mighty mouse the nipple scroll button is mentioned regards getting it cleaned. He rubbed the nipple on paper where I have blown into the gap around the edge of the button the get the gunk out, and has a brother HL5240 printer.

I guessed at Mike using Scrivener and was 100% right. Well he is a writer and it seems that it was coded by a writer that could get what he needed from the word processor route. Mike says it is a cracking bit of software. likes the chaptering and versioning – templates for various things – make it easy to collate it and output the final work, and the price was good too. For script writing you might look at Celtx a free app and free is always good.

Mike has an extensive collection of iPods and it may have had a slight effect on the buying of an Apple computer. Mike is a Firefox person and once in a while will use Safari, he likes the plug ins with Firefox, like the debug tools and sage plugin

Adium is mentioned by Mike because it connects to so many social networks, lately getting more integration added to it. Mike has recently changed to Tweetie for his twittering.

Mike as had a play with iLife ’09 apps but is not a big user because of doing movies in Final Cut Pro 3.0. Found that the faces feature in iPhoto just takes time from him and his writing.

One of his writing projects is ‘Out of Office’ a web drama and has other things in the pipeline. We talk about how level the playing field is for aspiring writers to be able to get work out in front of an audience online. There is content coming out from the top down, as in the BBC’s and other institutions and also from the grass roots level of people like the young woman in the North east of England who has put out videos on YouTube showing people how to put on make up. Good content will always find an audience.

Mike acknowledges the steepness of the learning curve with Final Cut Pro 3.0 and says he learns something new each time he has some editing to do.

Mike like features in Quicksilver and come in there as a favourite application especially when operating with iTunes. Fav for the iPhone is iExpenseit as a way to control what he spends, seeing as he needs to build an income with the writing.

The film Minority Reportwhere Tom Cruise is moving stuff around on a huge screen is something that would be in a wish list of computing equipment. Minority Report (Widescreen Edition)
Sceptics Guide to the Universe podcast. gets a mentions and I tell him about JC Hutchins podcasted novel called 7th Son.

Go now to watch the web drama that is ‘Out of Office’ and have a look at Mike’s personal web site.
Screenwipe a TV program about writers

ScreenFlow an application that I love using to make screencasts. Edits video as well

Mac20Q podcast 41 Evan Montgomery

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Wizardgold Ramblings. I was listening to the Nosillacast and she was reviewing Mercury Mover and it sounds like a useful bit of kit that I would like to get at some time or other.

Scrivener and Bento are apps I have bought this week. Bento has a video competition

Talking to Evan Montgomery, he is into photography and learning how to do more with his images. Evan has Sun Virtual Box on the computer but hardly uses it.

He has opened up his Mac to be able to upgrade ram, so he is a bit of tech head and not afraid to dive in there.

Has use various browser applications including Stainless. Oovoo is an app he uses with Mark Sheppard , Robyn Saunders and Michael King to chat and get the sound better by putting that through Skype instead.

Evan has made videos and put them on to DVD using the iLife applications. His grand parents have been impressed with the finished product. That is normal though because iLfe is such a great suite of applications.

For back up it is Carbon Copy Cloner and also Time machine. For the utilities Evan like Caffeine and iStat menu. Caffeine keeps the machine from going to sleep. iStat tracks many of the things within the computer like temperature of the machine internals.

Evan prefers to go to the video store to buy movies because it is cheaper than buying the movie on iTunes. he does buy ‘The Office ‘ the TV series in HD. I mention SplatEric and his ‘Out of Office’ web drama.

On the iPod touch he has Tweetie for twitter , Flight control, Enigmo, Air mouse, Skype.

In school there are a few nerds he might talk to but can’t understand the PC based geeks. Hands in work at school in a printed format but sometimes will hand in via email instead.

Evan listens to a pile of podcasts too numerous to mention so you can listen to this podcast to find out for yourself.

Sponsor for the show is ScreenFlow

Don’t forget to enter the competition for the Amadeus Pro Audio editing application.

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Mac20Q Podcast 39 Mike Smith