One of the most difficult (and, subsequently, rewarding) publications to create is that of a photographic or fine arts book. Unlike a novel, or a book with a sane number of images, fine arts books have a lot of variables. These include a written narrative, photographs and the artwork, and the typography. Additional page decoration add to the complexity. Things can get really sticky because all of the different elements rebound against one...

Sometimes it’s important to be extremely fussy about otherwise inconsequential things. There’s a reason why people fight over the proper pronunciation of már ‘habitation in Quenya (the m takes on an mb sound), pirates versus ninjas, and the proper placement of footnotes. It’s not that any of these particularly matter, but when pronounced, understood, or typeset correctly, such miscellanea greatly enrich the world. And it...

In the Open Source Writing book, I’ve got a section of Visual Thinking. While I’m hardly an expert, the way we perceive and understand the world is a serious interest of mine an I read everything I can find on the subject. This morning, while I was fact checking a few things for the book, I came across this video by Tom Wujek. In it, he talks about the neuroscience of understanding and how the brain understands the world of ideas....

Next Monday, I’m going to be giving a talk entitled “Writing and Publishing With Open Source Tools” at Camp KDE, the annual KDE conference for North America. For those interested in attending, the talk happens at 12:15 pm at the Hotel Kabuki, in San Francisco. I’m really excited about the talk and I think it’s going to be excellent. (I know, having high expectations for your own performance is the route to obscurity,...

Note: The normal programming of the website is still temporarily on hold in an effort to finish the Open Source Writing book.  I fully intend to pick things up very soon, but I must first send a finished draft to my editor/publisher.  They’ve been very patient and I’ve been irresponsible. While I am trying to work in seclusion (or at least a reasonable approximation thereof) in order to finish the Open Source Writing Book, I put...

During my talk to the local Linux user’s group the other night, I spent a few minutes introducing Scribus.   Scribus is a marvelous tool and fills a much needed void in the world of Linux writing/publishing.  It brings a robust layout and pre-press design tool to the Linux desktop, with the additional benefit that it’s easy to use.  (At least when compared to professional grade tools on other platforms such as Quark XPress or Adobe...