In this series, we’ve covered a lot of ground. We’ve looked at the basics of Subversion and talked about why you might want to use it for a writing project. We examined some of the advanced features, and how to dive into the history of your work. Then, we detailed how Subversion can be used for collaboration: the way locks help writers to own their ideas, how the log facilitates communication, and the way in which branches help to prepare drafts for review.

There is really only one thing left to talk about: conflicts, errors, and their resolution.

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Tags: Subversion,Writing Tools
Categories: Computer, Cool Stuff, Lifehacks, Writing/Literature
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When I started talking about the ways which SVN can enable collaboration, my goal was to show how you can replicate some of the best features of a paper based workflow and then supplement them with the power of digital tools. We’ve already looked at some techniques for doing this, using file locks to promote idea ownership and leveraging the SVN log for communications. In this article, we’ll take a look at one more feature that makes it easier to work with others: using SVN snapshots (or branches) to facilitate the review of your work.

Here, I want to reiterate one important point: creating drafts that can be consumed by others is extremely important. It forces you as an author to find break points where you can send something definitive. Finding these points, where you can draw a line in the sand and say “draft …”,  causes you to solidify your thinking and take an important step toward completion. You may end up throwing the whole thing away because it was ineffectual, but that doesn’t mean the exercise was futile. The process of creating something, a draft, is an enormous step toward completion.  You’ll likely take many such steps, but each one results in a better manuscript.

SVN branches can be a huge help in drawing your lines in the sand.

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Tags: Subversion,Writing Tools
Categories: Computer, Cool Stuff, Lifehacks, Writing/Literature
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After reading the previous article, you may have the impression that I think collaborative writing is a bad thing. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. When you write with others:

• it’s possible to distribute tasks according to individual strengths, meaning that the finished product will (probably) be more than a sum of the parts
• brainstorming is more effective, more people means more ideas
• not only will you have more ideas, but as you discuss, challenge, and research the topic amongst the group, you will have different ideas than you might develop on your own
• having many people working on a project gives it energy and focus, which is tremendously helpful upon entering the hinterland of any project commonly known as “middle”

Collaboration is good, but it is also complicated. It takes a great deal of work for a collaborative project to be success. You have to balance competing needs against one another. On the one hand, it is really important to provide an author the freedom and space required to own her ideas. At the same time, though, you need to make sure that everyone is clearly communicating about the project and where it is headed.

Making sure that everyone is on the same page and that efforts are coordinated is a complex challenge. It requires meaningful discussion happens; establishing a system for sharing documents and knowledge; and that goals, scope, audience, and purpose of the project are well defined. In many ways it shares much in common with another complex endeavor, coordinating the care of a medical patient.

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Tags: Subversion,Writing Tools
Categories: Computer, Cool Stuff, Lifehacks, Writing/Literature
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Though they are wonderful tools that have transformed how we live and work, computers also cause about as many problems as they solve. We can see these problems in the way that work has crept into our private time via email; in the ways teenagers choose to socialize with their peers via text messaging and social networks, often to the exclusion of the world around them (and parents); and in the way that we prepare the written drafts of our work.

In each case, these problems aren’t the result of malicious intent. Rather, they were unforeseen consequences of a transformative technology. When it was originally developed, email was a great way to quickly exchange letters with friends and colleagues. Its original designers never intended it to become the way in which a large number of people organize their daily lives. Nor was the introduction of text messaging or social networks meant to cause teenagers (or adults) to socially withdraw into an online world, but to provide an efficient and convenient way to keep people connected. This is also true in the changes that word processors and communications software have brought to the process of writing.

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Tags: Subversion,Writing Tools
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If you’ve read parts one and two of this series, you should now have a pretty good understanding as to what version control is and how it can benefit you. You’ve seen how it can be used to keep a backup of your files, synchronize your work between computers, and ensure that you will never suffer the panic of losing your work.

But that’s really only the beginning. Hopefully, you’ve taken things to the next level and feel comfortable digging into the revision history to look at past drafts, make comparisons between documents, or to see how your work has evolved.

Mastering the basics of version control, followed by the finer points, is a fantastic way to be more productive as a writer. By relegating the job of backup and synchronization to a tool, you can spend more time actually writing (and who doesn’t want that). Having the ability to look at how you’re writing has evolved can make you more thoughtful. Both are powerful additions to the scrivener’s arsenal. If you can believe, it though, there is yet another level which allows Subversion to be even more helpful: using it to work collaboratively.

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Tags: Subversion,Writing Tools
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In the last article in this series, we looked at a few of the features that version control (specifically Subversion) offers to a writer, coder, or editor. These benefits include the ability to track all of the changes made to a file in a project, synchronize your work between different computers, and automatically ensure that everything is backed up. But though these are invaluable contributions to a writer’s workflow, they only scratch the surface of what Subversion is capable of doing.

In the next few posts, I would like to dive a bit deeper and take a look at a few of Subversion’s more advanced features, such as:

• How to compare newer changes to older versions of a file
• How to use Subversion’s collaboration features to work with others
• How you can resolve errors that might arise from incompatible changes made to the same file

Though Subversion’s basic features are tremendously powerful, it’s the advanced options that make it indispensible. You know, the little things that live in the background most of the time, except when you really need them. This rest of this series is about how to leverage those. The first of those features we will look at is the revision history.

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Tags: Subversion,Writing Tools
Categories: Computer, Cool Stuff, Lifehacks, Writing/Literature
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The shot below was taken at Zion’s National Park in Southern Utah, above the Emerald Pools. In the vernacular of Mormon Pioneers who settled the region, Zion means “Place of Sanctuary.”

Tags: Zion's National Park
Categories: Cool Stuff, Miscellaneum, Photography
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Since reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” several years ago, I’ve been really interested in the question, “What results in success?” Part of the interest is intellectual; the psychology of success is fascinating and surprising. Part of the interest is developmental; like most people, I want to cultivate habits that lead to achievement and impact.

Most of the interest, though, is personal. One of the hats I frequently wear is that of an educator. I’ve mentored medical students, engineering students, and computer science students; and I really enjoy it. More than that, though, I enjoy seeing people succeed. When someone comes up with an improved treatment, product, or idea; it improves the world. I know it’s corny, but still true.

For this reason, I’m fascinated by questions like:

• What does it mean to be “world-class”?
• Why it is that so many people never arrive?
• Are there habits that can be cultivated, traits that can be taught, or ways to share knowledge that can facilitate the journey.

It also shouldn’t come as a surprise that I read widely on the subject. This morning, I came across a marvelous article on the 99percent.com, which looks at several of the topics related to world-class success. As good as the article is, though, I really enjoyed the TEDxBlue video that the article linked to. In it, University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth expounds on her theories about what makes world-class success.

According to Duckworth, it isn’t intelligence and it isn’t talent. She even argues that it isn’t self discipline, according to the common definition of the word. Rather, what matters is “grit.”

The video is about 18 minutes long and well worth the time.

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Tags: Grit,Outliers,Success
Categories: Cool Stuff, Science/Medicine
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Carefully engineered system or products have a beauty all their own. You can see it in the specifications, prototypes, and especially in the finished product.

I’m not just talking about the physical design. It’s easy to look at a Fende Stratocaster or a furniture design by Ray or Charles Eames and know that it was labored over. Such things are deliberately attractive, and as such, they’re easy to appreciate.

What I’m referring to goes deeper than that. It’s the beauty of a passenger jet, the flow of traffic at rush hour, the solidity of a bridge, the charm of a well-made hat, or the magic of an online purchase; the desirability of clever insights, intelligent choices, profound decisions, and (yes) aesthetics. In sum, it’s the allure of human craft, curiosity, and the desire to push at the impossible; the very distillation of human progress.

Because of this beautiful something, we have better ways to move, build, heal, and … destroy. In the end, it may even be the end of us all, our own Beautiful Apocalypse.

Or, at least that’s what I found myself thinking after watching the following TED video about the STUXNET computer worm. Even with near impossible challenges, some intelligent group of engineers found a way to elegantly wreak havoc.

Stunning.

Tags: Computer Sabotage,Computer Security,Networking,STUXNET
Categories: Computer, Cool Stuff
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There is something wonderful about paper. It provides a way to capture and transmit thought, preserve knowledge, beautify a space, or entertain. But that’s not all, paper can also be used as a medium to create spectacular pieces of art and sculpture.

A couple of months ago, while attending a conference in San Francisco, I stumbled on the Paper Tree, an origami shop in Japan Town. Though I didn’t really intend to, I stayed for nearly an hour. I was inspired.

Though I don’t aspire to be an origami artist, it is hard not to appreciate the craft and care it requires. An origami master is simultaneously balances aesthetics, planning, and architecture.

But origami isn’t the only type of paper art. There are other techniques — paper case, papier-mache, paper collage, and cutting — which are beautiful in their own ways. In the months since visiting paper-tree, I’ve enjoyed looking at many examples of paper art and thought I might post a small gallery here.

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• 2
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left

right

Allen and Patty Eckman – Bear

Allen and Patty Eckman – Bison

Allen and Patty Eckman – Boar

Allen and Patty Eckman – Dancer

Allen and Patty Eckman – Plains Dancer

Allen and Patty Eckman – Life on the Prarie

Helen Musselwhite – Gypsy caravan

Helen Musselwhite – Autumn Rabbit

Helen Musselwhite – Autumn Wood

Helen Musselwhite – Daphne in the forest

Helen Musselwhite – The Green Wood

Helen Musselwhite – White Poppies

Helen Musselwhite – Wild Garden

Helen Musselwhite – Woodcutters Cottage

Jen Stark – Pixelated

Origami Artist Galen – Bison

Origami Artist Galen – Dragon

Origami Artist Galen – Samuraii Beatle

People Too – Computer Users

People Too – Cut Paper Art

People Too – Photo Shoot

Peter Callesen – Hummingbird

Peter Callesen – Pagoda

Helen Musselwhite – Autumn Hedgerow

Junior Jacquet – At Ready

Junior Jacquet – Contemplative

Junior Jacquet – Masks

Junior Jacquet – Partners

Junior Jacquet – Starting Gate

Junior Jacquet – Thoughtful

The artists on display are:

• Allen and Patty Eckman, Paper Case Sculpture
• Helen Musselwhite, Paper Collage
• People Too, Paper Cutting
• Galen, Origami
• Peter Callesen, Paper Cutting

Tags: Allen and Patty Eckman,Helen Musselwhite,Origami,Paper Art,People Too,Peter Callesen
Categories: Art, Cool Stuff, Design
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