Becoming A Writer Seriously

One of my favorite computer-magazine features is the annual report on freeware.  I found this year’s report in PC Magazine’s March 2008 issue while passing through the San Francisco International Airport.  This year’s coverage may be the best ever.  I recommend that you get a copy, hoping it’s still on the major newsstands.  You will discover there a lot of programs of particular interest to writers, many of them already covered here on this blog.

I recommend the following for writers:

WORD PROCESSOR

OpenOffice  — a full-fledged office suite, comparable to Microsoft Word except in price.
IBM Lotus Symphony — a “beautified” version of OpenOffice
NeoOffice — an OpenOffice version for Mac users
AbiWord — a powerful, free, stand-alone  word processor

ONLINE WORD PROCESSORS

Adobe Buzzword — a new entry, worth a look
Google Docs — particularly useful for online collaboration
Zoho — a full array of applications, including a word processor that can be utilized in desktop form as well.

OTHER WRITER TOOLS

KompoZer — a powerful website creato-manager which some compare to expensive  Dreamweaver or FrontPage  [I’ve only recently discovered this myself and will testing it over the coming month]
Scribus — a free desktop publishing application, rather like PageMaker

OFFICE PRODUCTIVITY

EssentialPIM Free — my choice among all.   Except an updated review on the blog sometime in the spring.

BACKUP SYNC

MozyHome Free — a most convenient option for writers

UTILITIES

Eraser — securely erase files from your computer
FileZilla — particularly useful for bloggers who need to upload photos [very useful in conjuction with WordPress]

INTERFACE ENHANCEMENT

Google Desktop — index all files on your computer to facilitate a search for your data

BLOGGING

Blogger – the easiest to use blogger platform, favored by many writers
WordPress — more powerful tool with free internet space, easier to upgrade to more professional WordPress version

READERS

Adobe Reader — find this under Hall of Fame category
Foxit — reads PDF files - allows annotations, a useful tool for writers [see under File View]
Google Reader — my choice of RSS feed readers; I rely on it heavily to monitor sources for this blog
Bloglines — new beta version RSS reader [see feature box in PC Mag article]

AUDIO

[Both of these are in the opening Hall of Fame section.  Together, they make an excellent team for recording telephone interviews.]

Audacity — record anything playing through your computer soundcard, including Skype calls
Skype — internet telephone

BROWSER ADD-ONS

Zotero — handy tool for cataloging bibliographic  on- and off-line sources [requires Firefox Browser]

From this list, a writer can assemble a fully functional computer geared to a writer’s specific needs, all without spending a penny.  That’s rather amazing, and certainly reassuring to young writers just coming onstream.

WHAT’S MISSING

PC Magazine’s list, however, leaves out a lot of other helpful software, some of which we’ve already covered here, others in a list of to-cover reviews.  Check the categories over in the right sidebar, where you’ll find software tools of all sorts.  And keep your eye open for upcoming coverage.

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