Time for New Software

Once again it is time to install new software.

A new version of my favorite Linux distribution, Linux Mint 14. I bit-torrented the iso disk image. When downloaded, I burnt a disk and pooped it into my Lenovo Ideapad y510.

As always, the instillation went beautifully. I booted into the new desktop, and oops. In my arrogant rush, I downloaded the Cinnamon desktop instead of Mate. (hangs head in shame, will read links before clicking, will read links before clicking, will read links before clicking)


Linux distributions include most of the software anyone might need. Some is excellent, some less so and I must change it. The open source office suite LibreOffice is one of my favorites. I do all of my writing in LibreOffice.

Recently, a new version of LibreOffice 3.6.4. came out and I quickly upgraded. It has some interesting features, most prominent are two which an author is interested. Writer now allows a user to set different header styles on different pages. Writer has a new word count feature in which the count is displayed at the bottom of the window. Now, I am not forced to click several layers through the menu every time I want to see a word count. When the user selects several words, their number is shown beside the total count.

LibreOffice offers many extensions, but I only use three regularly; writer2epub 1.1.20 converts your document to an epub. ReadText 0.7.28 reads documents and selected text, I have found this most useful in editing. I can select and hear the text repeatedly until I am convinced. MultiDif saves in multiple formats. I can save to PDF, rtf, and the LibreOffice odt.

I am constantly evaluating new software, in hopes of finding the perfect solution. I have found that nothing is perfect, and to pretend otherwise is to beg disaster.