Category Archives: Software

A guest post by Doug Dandridge.

I was going to write a post about Ginger, a software program that helps writers find errors in their manuscripts. However, Ginger changed their interface to the point where it does not do all the stuff this writer was going to rave about. So on to something else.

I write very detailed military science fiction, and I like to get things right as much as I can. I’m sure I miss, but not from a lack of trying. In the bad old days, I had to do everything by calculator and graph paper, but now the internet supplies the tools to really get down into the dirt of astrophysics. There are a lot of programs out there that do a good job of simulating different types of orbital systems. Programs like Universe Sandbox and others. I love Universe Sandbox for simulating where asteroids are going to be at any given time in the future. For detailed orbits of simpler systems, enter Orbit Xplorer by Ottisoft. At $25 for a single site license the program, for all it can do, is a bargain.

Orbit Xplorer comes with a number of preprogramed simulations, a star visits the sun (bad), double star (cool), Kepler’s laws (educational), two colliding stars (also really bad, but cool as well). While useful, I found the simulations I could program to be much more useful, and I will give three examples below.

I wanted to work out Hohmann Transfer Orbits for a book idea about Mars. Hohmann’s use a least fuel curving orbit to put a ship into Mars orbit from Earth, and can only be accomplished over certain timespans. But for the book I wanted to see how much of a boost I could use to take days off of the transfer. Using the program and trial and error I found the optimal boost to achieve a least time transfer, and discovered that any boost after that just sent the ship flying out into the outer solar system.

The second example was working out the orbits for a book that was to be the lead volume for the second Deep Dark Well trilogy (which has been written but not published). The idea was that ancient humans had moved stars and planets into place, then put terraformed moons into orbit around some of the closer gas giants. The program allows the user to put whatever objects he wants in orbit around each other, setting the mass of each body as well the distances of the orbits. Again, it’s a trial and error process, and at some close distances the moons fall into the gas giant. I set up a situation where all of the terraformed moons were as close as I could put them, so that their days (which are the same as one orbit around the gas giant) would be of reasonable lengths, none more than fifty some hours or so. When I ran the program, everything orbited well for about fifty evolutions, as which point one moon curved in, hit another moon, and both collided with the gas giant (very bad), while one of the remaining moons was pulled out of orbit to go careening through the outer solar system, there to freeze (bad as well). Oops. Eventually I got it to run a thousand cycles without a disaster, and went with those orbits, which gave me the day night cycle of the moon of interest to the story, as well as the cycle at which phases of the other moons would be seen.

The final example is from my Exodus series, which has been called by some readers as a new level of worldbuilding. I won’t even go into the central black hole with eight stars in orbit around it, all with their own system. One of the systems I wanted as accurate as possible was the two Earth mass planets in orbits around each other, the capital world and it’s twin. Both were habitable, and I also wanted the capital planet to have a terraformed moon in orbit. So I modeled the two planets in orbit around each other first off, with the one parameter being that the day night cycle on both worlds would not be longer than about forty hours. Anything longer might cause problems with the earth like vegetation on the worlds. That was easy enough. I had two beautiful planets that each had a bright world in the sky in one hemisphere at night, and experienced daily short lived eclipses on their day sides each light cycle. The worlds were about ninety thousand kilometers or so apart, which would make each world many times larger than our moon in the sky of the other. I then added the moon, and found that it would orbit the one world at about ten thousand kilometers in a slightly elliptical orbit. I ran the simulation about a thousand cycles, and everything seemed to hold together.

One of the coolest things about a science fiction setting is how different we can make them. Planets in orbit with each other around a center of gravity, moons in orbit around larger planets. Multiple star systems. One of the coolest things I found about Orbit Xplorer was how it sparked the imagination, suggesting setting I wouldn’t have otherwise thought of. Setting can be another major character in your work, the more imaginative, the better.

Guest Writer Bio:

Doug Dandridge lives in Tallahassee, Florida, where he has worked as a full time writer since March of 2013. A graduate of Florida State University and the University of Alabama, and a veteran of the United States Army, Doug has been in love with the fantastic since an early age. He has over twenty-five self published books on Amazon, and has a half dozen novels that have reached the top five in Space Opera in the US and UK.

An Image is Worth . . . A LOT

May 15, 2015

Frank Morin

Frank Morin Software 1 Comment

They say an image is worth a thousand words, but is it worth all the hassle to find a good one? Once we find one, can we legally use it? Do we bother to find out?

We should.

Images are everywhere, and a blog post without an image is like spaghetti without the sauce. It’s edible, but who’s going to want to try it? This is the age of the internet, of micro attention spans and too much competition from pictures of cats and babies on Facebook.

So yes, we need images for blogs, for articles, for social interactions, and often for covers. There are tons of great images on the internet, but finding a fun image, although sometimes a hassle, is just the start.

Can we take any image we find on Google and slap it onto our blog, article, or cover?

Not necessarily.

There are many who would say, “Everybody’s doing it. No one’s going to care if I ‘borrow’ this cool image and use it. Even if they notice, they’ll be happy about it – free advertising.” Etc.

Those arguments can be persuasive, but they’re also false. There are ways to do reverse image searches and identify everyone who’s using your image. Sites like TinEye make this very easy.

The more I think about it, the more I realize it’s the principle even more than the fear of potentially getting ‘caught’ that should drive our decisions about the proper use of photos. I don’t want people stealing my words, so why would I steal someone else’s image?

So what do we do?

Actually there are lots of options, so no one should feel obliged to take an image that they may not actually have rights to use. Here are some suggestions.

Use your own photo.

Sounds almost too easy, but why not? In today’s world, everyone’s got a phone or three handy and most of those have cameras. If you’re like me and you’re not a professional photographer, who cares? If you see a pose or an idea that you like, there’s no reason you can’t go set up a similar photo of your own. Someone else owns their photo online, but they don’t own the ‘idea’ of a photo. It’s remarkably simple to stage your own photo for use. I’ve done it quite a few times with excellent results.

Chess — A photo I took as part of a blog post.

Ask permission.

This can take longer, but if you find a photo you like, feel free to contact the person who owns it if they have a web site or link. They might just say yes.

Modify your search criteria.

You can actually find great photos on Google that are available for use. Most photos you find through the general search don’t clearly state if they are, but simple modifications to your search criteria can limit your search to those photos flagged as reusable.

On the Google page, click the “Search Tools” button
In the new toolbar that appears below that, click “Usage rights”
Select “Labeled for reuse”.

You will notice often that the list of photos returned is not as extensive as the wide-open search, but sometimes you can find some cool gems. It’s worth a try because it’s fast and it’s free.

More on search modifications

Another major image site is Flickr. Again, you can click on the “All license” drop-down, which is the default search and select “All Creative Commons”.

When you find an image you like, click on it and look for the rights declaration. Quite often it will say “Some rights reserved.” If you click on that, you can see what rights can be granted. Quite often it will allow you to use the photo for free for non-commercial use (ie – blog post) as long as you give the photographer credit and link back to their site/image from the copy you use.

Free image sites.

There are a lot of these. In seconds, I did a Google search and found listings and listings of sites containing free images. Some are pretty basic, but some have a lot of images and might be worth a look. Depending on what type of images you’re looking for, and with a little investment of time, you can develop a listing of your favorite go-to sites.

Paid options

For some of the best images, you might just have to pay for them, although that doesn’t mean you have to pay much.

My favorite site is Dollar Photo Club. Great high-res photos for $1. They have a huge selection and I’ve found some incredible images there. Using pieces of several photos from Dollar Photo, combined with some mad photoshopping skills, one of my cover artists designed this excellent cover for Saving Face and also the cover for the soon-to-be-released Memory Hunter. I got killer covers for a very reasonable fee.

I’ve also used Dollar Photo to grab images for my blog and to design simple covers for short stories I posted on Wattpad.

Istockphoto is a well-known site where you can find royalty free images, but often you pay up to $12 per image. That’s a bit pricey for my wallet, unless it’s for a cover or other high-value use.
Deposit Photos is a site I haven’t used, and it also uses a subscription model like other pay photo sites, but if you use a lot of images, you can get a plan that drops the price to $0.33 per image.
ShutterStock is another well-known image site where you have to pay about $10 or so for most images. If you’re looking for a high-quality image to include in a book cover, it might be worth it.
You might also try a place like Fiverr where you can get a lot of creative work done cheap. As always, verify the source of any images you get.

There are lots of other image sites out there. I barely scratched the surface. The bottom line is, know what license restrictions your image brings with it and stay on the right side of the question. It’s not worth the hassle (and likely cost) associated with misusing someone else’s property.

Where do you get your images?

Writing Software from the Technologically Impaired

December 5, 2012

Colette Black

Colette Black Software The Writing Life Writing Tools 2 Comments

Yes, from the technologically impaired, not for the technologically impaired, so I can’t help you with your computer problems. And, I’m not saying that whoever wrote the software was technologically impaired, only the person writing this post. So, if you’re like me, and don’t consider yourself particularly savvy with computers and software, why use a writing program? Because it will make you a better writer.

Here are my experiences with a couple of programs out there:

Snowflake:

This is a great organizational tool that takes you step by step through writing a well-developed novel. It’s also a great help as you try to figure out those synopses. It starts you with a brief paragraph description of your novel then has you expand the book summary into five plot-point paragraphs. That expansion continues until you end up at a page where you write out the key points for individual scenes. It also has a character page with a multitude of questions to help develop your characters’ personalities and quirks. I used the software for about eight months, and though I found it helpful, I felt like I was moving back and forth from one screen to another and it didn’t seem to make my writing much easier than having multiple files in Word. It’s a great outlining tool, so it would serve a lot of writers very well. You can check it out at : http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/info/snowflake_pro/

Scrivener:

I use a pc and had heard about scrivener from mac users for years. When scrivener came out with a pc version I had to try it. There’s a learning curve and I still haven’t figured out how to do maximize the program’s capabilities. But if you buy this, I highly suggest you take the time to go through the tutorial, probably more than once. This, and updated versions, will probably be my writing program for life. I don’t have to go into files or bounce back and forth between screens. My color-coded outline runs along the left side of my screen, including a section for research, characters, places, or anything else I might want. Along the right side of my screen I can choose to see notes related to specific files, including pictures and alternating notes pertaining to my whole novel, or just the chapter I’m working on. My writing screen itself can be split, so I can be writing in one screen, need information from one of my research files, and open up another screen right next to where I’m writing. The only time I have to leave the program is when I go to the internet or books to do research, but when I find what I need, I can place files into my scrivener program and have them on hand for later use. The only drawback so far is that the spell-check/auto-correct doesn’t seem to be as good as Word, and when I’m working without an internet connection I don’t have any type of dictionary or thesaurus. Since I rarely write under those circumstances, and when I do I just put in a triple-x and move on, I don’t find this a difficulty. I highly recommend this program. You can find it for Mac or pc at: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/

Dragon Naturally Speaking:

I like typing and haven’t used this yet, though I hear great things. I’d probably be a lot thinner if I took this hiking instead of sitting on my butt at a keyboard. If you can learn to tell a story this way, or if you prefer telling your stories rather than the slower process of typing, this might be the software for you. Since I don’t actually use it, I’m going to quote my friend, Dale Stinson, on its many uses and advantages:

“Seven years ago, I decided to write a science-fiction novel. One big problem, I never learned to type. When I tried to type something down, the thought evaporated as I was concentrating on the letters on the keyboard. The next day, I bought Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 4. Initial training of the software took over an hour. During the first eight hours of use, dictation accuracy increased from 85% to almost 95%. Two years later, I purchased DNS- 7 Preferred which came bundled with a digital voice recorder. Theoretically, you could dictate into the recorder, plug it into your computer and magically have your dictation transcribed. It was a huge disappointment, I was lucky if I achieved 75% accuracy. BUT, dictating directly to the computer was a vast improvement over version 4. Within the first day of use, I’d achieved 98% accuracy most of the time. Two years ago I upgraded to DNS-10 Preferred. It was literally a quantum leap forward in usability. I regularly achieve 99% + accuracy with a new software.

PROS: Editing has been made easier by having the software read what I’ve written in a computer voice while I follow the written words on the screen. When I hear the voice say something that doesn’t sound right, I can make a correction while it continues reading. It’s very easy to put down a tremendous number of words during a four-hour writing session, speaking stream of consciousness can do that.

CONS: The software never misspells a word, but it often misunderstands a word. For example: Names. There are many names that can be spelled different ways. Kathy and Cathy are an example. I’ve tried using the name I preferred, “Cathy” multiple times on the same page. Sometimes it would come up Cathy other times it would come up Kathy. After correcting by voice two or three times, it continued making the same mistake. The software also tries to guess what you’re trying to say, it’s often wrong.

In seven years, I’ve “written” close to 3 million words using Voice Recognition Technology. Without it, I would’ve never been able to start writing.” You can learn more about it here: http://www.nuance.com/dragon/index.htm

Editing Software:

There are also editing programs available. I’ve tried a few of these, but since I write science fiction and fantasy, usually using a lot of made-up words, I find most of these more tedious than helpful. I’ve heard great things though. If you’re interested, here are a couple off the top of the search engine. Some I’ve tried, others I haven’t:

http://www.autocrit.com/

http://fictionfixer.com/

I’d love to hear your experiences with writing or editing software. What works, what doesn’t, and why?