We usually go out around 10 PM so our golden doodle can make one last visit to the bushes. Tonight, a few minutes past 10, the dog and I had just stepped off the front porch stairs onto the front walk when I noticed what I thought was a large German Shepherd running loose, right across the street.
Nope, it was a coyote. It’s not the first time I’ve seen one so close, but I had the dog with me and she’s very friendly with people and other dogs — I think she wanted to say hi, but I was tugging her back up the stairs. Good thing too, because the coyote walked past us, but then rounded back on us, crossing the street to our side, and started approaching us as we reached the porch deck.
That’s when I saw the rest of the pack. They came right up the street like they owned it, not on the far side, but on our sidewalk, maybe a dozen feet away. They had been coming up behind us while I watched the first one go by.
There were now five of them in total. I got us inside the house, as one of the coyotes who just arrived slunk up our front walk and stared right at me with those glowing night vision eyes as I watched through the window in our now-locked front door.
After our little staring contest was over, the pack seemed to lose interest and headed down the street past our neighbors. We live on the edge of the park, so there’s a number of places between the houses on our street where the coyotes will slip in and out of the woods. But tonight, they couldn’t be bothered, they just hung out in our neighbor’s yard, nosing around their bushes, a few doors down.
I left the dog inside and grabbed a lacrosse stick that was right by the front door and went out to keep an eye on the pack. I didn’t want them to circle back on us, and my dog had dropped her toy when we saw them come up to our yard. I grabbed the toy and watched them glare at me from about 30 yards down the road. I made sure to look behind me — prudent, as it turned out.
It looked like the pack wasn’t coming back, so I went back in to get the dog and a curtain rod we left in the entry way while we were doing some painting earlier this week. I took her out to finish her business, with a giant wooden curtain rod in hand, grateful that our neighbor on the other side chose that time to pull into their driveway, lighting up the shadows with their car’s headlights.
As I took my shoes off and locked the front door, I saw another coyote sneak up the road, presumably to catch up with the rest of the pack. Then, moments later, I saw one of my neighbors walking home — to the very house where the coyotes had congregated a few minutes before. Stepping back out in my socks, I called out to him, and after a few tries he finally heard me. He had been listening to a podcast, just like me, when I first came out with the dog. I told him what I saw. He put away the ear buds and made his way home on high alert.
This is the first time I’ve seen a pack of coyotes walking the streets, not just a single coyote sneaking through the shadows. It wasn’t like it was a quiet time of night, either: there were cars and foot traffic, but the coyotes didn’t seem to care at all. I saw at least six, and they seemed emboldened by their numbers. They simply didn’t care if anyone saw them or not.
I don’t plan on carrying a curtain rod every time I take the dog out at night, but then again, I’m not exactly excited about walking her after sunset, either. I didn’t think I’d have to get all Davy Crockett just to take the dog out. But I’m not going to forget either how that one coyote slouched right up our front walk to stare me down, while his buddies milled about, looking for a way to get behind me.
How an old text editor from the 1970’s is actually the universal text editor with hidden super powers, and why you should use it to become a great writer.
Vim: it’s not much to look at — a flashing cursor, a column of tildes along the left side. Some random numbers and words along the bottom, maybe. It looks like a computer program from 1976, because that’s exactly what it is.
If you start vim in the Terminal, this is what you’ll see
Why would anyone want to use this text editor, when there are decades of improvements and features in programs like Word, Pages, Docs, whatever?
It doesn’t have a menu bar, it doesn’t have a tool bar, what’s going on?
You can’t even format the text. There’s no bold, or italics, no fonts. That’s because vim is a text editor: like Notepad in Windows, it only allows you to enter letters, numbers, and punctuation — no formatting.
What are you supposed to do with this program, anyway?
Write. It’s for writing, and editing. It’s not for page layout, formatting, or inserting graphics. It won’t post what you wrote to social media, or to your blog.
It’s a pure writer’s tool — simple, fast, reliable.
You can write code, you can write prose. Vim gets out of your way and lets you get work done.
One of vim’s best features, in my opinion, is the completely bare user interface. There’s nothing to distract you. It’s time to write.
You try it out. It’s easy, if you know how to type. If you don’t know how to touch type, you aren’t going to like vim. But if your fingers are comfortable on the home row, you’ll love vim.
It’s not designed for a mouse (although you can use one, if you want — but why bother?). It’s designed for typing, fast.
How do I use vim?
There are two ways to use vim:
launch it from the command line.
run it as an app.
Wait, what? The command line? What is this, 1976? We’re well into the 21st century. What about the mouse, the taps, the swipes?
We’re here to write. We’re going to use the keyboard, that’s it. The idea is to keep your fingers on the keyboard, not to paw at your desk, trying to find your mouse, or poke at your screen like some dazzled chimp.
Your computer has some kind of command line feature, whether you’re running Windows, Mac, or Linux. If you have a Mac or Linux computer, you’ve already got vim installed. In fact, vim is available for for free for pretty much any computer operating system. Plus, it’s free.
If it’s free, it must suck
Vim is free because it’s open source software, not because it sucks. In fact, it’s fast, reliable, and hardly uses any disk space, RAM, or CPU cycles. It’s incredibly responsive. No more waiting for the cursor to catch up with your typing, even if you have a slow computer.
But the real reason it’s so fast is because you never have to take your hands away from the keyboard.
To run vim from your Mac or Linux computer, just open Terminal and enter:
vim
That’s it.
Pro Tip: Once you start vim in Terminal, use your Full Screen button on the Terminal window (or the F11 key). Now vim takes up the whole screen, and there’s nothing to distract you at all.
If this is too intense, and you miss your system menu bar and window controls, you can run vim as an app.
Running vim as an app is a great way to learn about some of its more powerful features, because you can explore the commands in the menu bar. But I encourage you to run vim from Terminal, because you probably already have all the software you need right now.
So go ahead and start vim on your Mac or Linux computer, or download the version of vim that runs on your computer, and start it up!
I’ve got vim running and I type and nothing happens. This program sucks!
OK, you’ve got vim running, and it’s filled up the whole screen, and there’s nothing on the screen to distract you, but there’s nothing there to help you out, either. When you type, nothing happens.
That’s because vim uses modes, which means you’re going to use the keyboard to:
edit text in normal mode (this is also your “home base,” where you can access all the other modes);
enter text, in insert mode;
enter commands in command-line mode;
select text to cut, copy and paste in visual mode.
There are a few more modes, but these are the ones you’re going to use 99% of the time. When you start vim, you start in normal mode. Again, think of normal mode as your home base in vim.
I just want to write. Why do I have to remember all this stuff?
If you’re a writer, you’re probably already using “modes” when you write. You’re either creating new text in writing, or creative, mode, or you’re editing the text you created.
It’s hard to write well if you’re constantly stopping to edit what you just wrote.
Good writers separate the creating and the editing, and vim helps you do that too, because that’s exactly how vim works.
Vim works like you do: to create new text, you switch to insert mode to insert new text on the screen where the cursor is. Just hit i to enter insert mode — the word — INSERT — will appear on the bottom left corner of the screen on the last line. This bottom line on the vim screen is the status line and it will tell you which mode you’re in, among other things.
After you press i to go to insert mode, just start typing. Your text appears right at the easy-to-find cursor.
There’s nothing to distract you from your writing. There’s no auto-correct, or automatic suggestions from Google or Apple, no red zig-zags under words the computer doesn’t recognize. Just what you type, that’s what you get.
In vim, What You Type Is What You Get: WYTIWYG, pronounced “witty-wig.”
It doesn’t look fancy, so you don’t have to worry about picking a font or setting up the margins, or anything else besides writing. Just go to Insert mode and get to work.
OK, this is pretty cool
If you’re using vim, full screen, typing away in insert mode, there’s nothing else on the screen to distract you: no flashing icons, no other windows with browser tabs or emails to tempt you away from your writing.
There are no palettes, toolbars, or rulers to clutter up your screen. Vim is a text editor, so you can’t format the text anyway.
Vim shows just the cursor and what you type. That’s it. Do you feel that zen-like calm descend upon you as you slip into the zone, cranking out hundreds of words in a matter of minutes? I do.
Made a mistake? No problem, you can go back and fix it later. You can even run the spell checker. But right now, you’re in creative mode (also known as insert mode in vim). Write some words here!
Of course, you can use the Backspace key in insert mode to remove any characters you just typed.
All right! I wrote some good stuff, and now I need to save it
After you’ve written for a while, you’ll probably want to save your file. If you just started vim at the command line, or launched a vim app, you haven’t given your file a name yet.
To save your file with a new name, you’re going to go back to normal mode to get to the command line. It sounds complicated, but it’s actually really easy.
To get to normal mode (you can do this any time in vim if you’re not sure what’s going on), just press:
Esc
You’ll notice that the — INSERT — indicator disappears from the bottom of your screen. Now, there’s nothing in that lower left corner, on your vim status bar. This means you’re back in normal mode.
If you’re not sure, just press the Esc key, as many times as you want. You won’t break anything! This program’s been around since the 70’s, it can handle it.
In normal mode, you can access the command line. It’s easy — just press
:
You’ll know it worked because the : shows up in the lower left corner of your vim screen. That’s the command prompt.
Do you want to make it go away? Just press Esc — that will always take you back to normal mode, which is like your home base in vim.
From normal mode you can go to:
insert mode — press i
command line — press :
That’s how to switch between the modes — easy to remember. If you want to learn it now, try switching between the three modes:
Esc i Esc : Esc
Watch the status line at the bottom left of the vim screen to see which mode you’re in.
So how do we save our new file? First, go to the command line:
Esc :
Now type the write command and give your file a new name, like this:
:w ~/vimfile.txt
and press Enter to save your file. This writes the file into your home directory (~/) with the name vimfile.txt.
In command line mode, your command appears on the status bar
If that worked, you’ll see something like this on the status bar on the lower left (the number of lines and characters will change depending on how much you type):
"~/vimfile.txt" [New] 1L, 55C written
Now, to go back to entering text, press A (Shift – a) to append new text. That automatically puts you into insert mode at the end of the current line.
Now, just type away. When you want to save, you don’t have to list a file name, because you’ve already named and saved your new file.. Just press:
Esc :w Enter A
This key sequence will;
Put you in normal mode (Esc)
Go to the vim command line (:)
Write your file (w Enter)
Return you to insert mode at the end of the current line (A)
Maybe that seems like a lot, but since you’ll do this sequence of commands over and over again, pretty soon it will be automatic, muscle memory:
Esc :w Enter A
Now you’ve discovered the secret power of vim. You can control the program with quick key combinations that you’ll memorize quickly, because you’ll use them so many times when you’re writing.
Once you’re done working on your new file, you can save and quit vim with this key sequence:
Esc :wq Enter
That’s very similar to the key sequence you use to save your file, with a slight difference: :wq tells vim to write the file, then quit.
What’s next with vim?
The next step is to learn how to edit in vim’s normal mode. But you don’t have to do that.
Once you’ve written your rough draft in vim, because it’s a simple text file, you can open your file in pretty much any word processor or page layout program if you want to edit, format, or lay out the text you’ve entered.
Vim helps you keep the editing work separate from the writing. Vim also turns your computer into a distraction-free writing machine. Try it out!
Remember, it’s free, and the files vim creates are compatible with any program that can read a text file.
Let me know what you think of vim in the comments below.
If you want to be a writer, or improve your writing, or reach a wider audience, you have to write. Here are 9 habits that helped me learn how to write every day.
Be physically comfortable: Get a good chair and desk. I prefer a lap desk for typing with a Bluetooth keyboard. If you can look up, ahead, instead of down, I think that’s even better. It’s easy if you have a notebook or a laptop, or even a tablet or a phone – just prop it up high so you don’t have to hunch over. I like to write in different locations, but I can usually set up a pretty comfortable arrangement with just a chair or a stool, and some kind of desk for the keyboard.
Water, nearby: Writing is thirsty work. I also like coffee or tea, but I keep it simple. Writing can be a time to recharge. I recharge my devices (phone, tablet, laptop) when I’m writing so I’m ready to write later. Same with staying hydrated
Follow a schedule, even if it’s just deciding to stand up from writing every half hour. When I want to be productive, I use a pomodoro timer to schedule breaks. I can stay very focused, almost regardless of my environment, when I schedule breaks every 25 min. Taking breaks or resting is equally important to actually writing. Find the time of day that’s best for you to both write, and rest. I like to write in the morning, but everyone is different. Sometimes I write just before I go to sleep.
Write every day. Honestly, if you just carry a little spiral notebook and write something in that every day, if it’s even just the date and the time, well, you’ve written every day. Build the habit from the simplest, most basic action.
Track your writing, Save it somewhere safe, and even private. Count it out. How many words? How much time did you spend actually writing? Tracking how much you write now will help you write more in the future. Simple information is useful. How many words did you write? Did you write a few minutes, or a couple of hours? Learn from what works and what doesn’t.
Give yourself some time to just write, even if it’s garbage. Some people set a timer. I shoot for 750 words a day where I just don’t care what I write, as long as I’m moving the cursor. Sometimes it is garbage, but I don’t care. Once in a while, I stumble on something that’s worth exploring. But, for just a few minutes a day (maybe 20 or so) just tell the editor part of your to take a break, and just write.
Separate writing from editing: It was probably different when everyone had to use quill pens, but now, it’s easy to produce words, a valuable skill in its own right. Create, then edit later. Maybe even much later – that’s one of the great things about writing. You can pick it up later. Just keep producing.
Write about what you learn: If I learn something new, I figure it’s a good day. If I want to remember what I learn, I write about it — that’s even better. Even if no one else ever reads my notes, I wrote it out and that helps me figure all kinds of things out.
Remember that you can’t edit until you write, and you shouldn’t publish without editing. So it all starts with the writing. Get the habit of writing first. Only after you’ve written something, every day, should you try to edit and re-arrange.
You don’t have to do all of these things, all of the time. Instead, try to focus on building and installing one habit at a time. A habit is something you do automatically without having to think about it. If you make writing a habit, then you’ll write, a lot!
Do you know how many words you already write each day? If you’re spending time online, chatting and emailing, you probably generate a lot of words. If you count the total number of words you produce every day, you might be surprised. I keep an editor window open all the time, and I just paste my daily writing in that window.
If you don’t have to write for work, write for yourself. Maybe even have fun, or vent. But the most important thing is to write, even if it’s just for a minute or two.
What are the habits you cultivated to help you write every day? Add a comment below:
I’ve run my own business for almost three decades. It’s been a real roller coaster. There have been some good years, and some bad years. The worst years all had one thing in common: sleep deprivation.
When I was starting out, I believed all of that crap about how real entrepreneurs don’t sleep.
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” told myself, and anyone who’d listen.
Guess what? If that’s your philosophy, you’re going to get plenty of sleep, because you’re going to die a lot earlier than you would otherwise.
A chronic lack of sleep makes everything worse. For me, it led physical problems, like weight gain; and cognitive problems, like a loss of memory and a severe reduction in my creative abilities.
Plus, everything just sucked. I was irritable, burnt out, and just shambling through my life like a grumpy zombie. But the worst of it was when I ended up in the hospital because of the physical and emotional tool of stress and sleep deprivation.
To be fair, my troubles sleeping weren’t entirely because of my business ambitions – just one of many contributing factors.
Change — or die
That’s the old entrepreneurial cliche: you need to change your business or you’ll die, crushed by your competitors. But for me, it was personal: I needed to make some dramatic changes in my personal life, or I was heading straight to an early grave, crushed by my stubborn stupidity and a chronic lack of sleep.
About eight years ago, I started making the changes I needed to restore my health, my energy, my enthusiasm, and my creativity. I’ve been remarkably successful (although far from perfect).
And the main reason? Sleep, lots of it. Sure, exercise, diet, cultivating a creative outlet, all contributed. But there’s one thing that makes all of that stuff really work, and it’s sleep.
You can do all the exercise you want, and it won’t help you one bit unless you consistently get all the sleep you need. If you’re exercising regularly, in fact, you’ll need more sleep, not less.
If you want to lose weight, you’ve got to watch what you eat, sure, but that’s so much easier when you’re getting enough rest. One of the first things that happens to me when I don’t get enough sleep is that my appetite goes off the charts. I just crave those carby comfort foods that are just the worst.
But most importantly, you can’t learn or remember a damn thing if you aren’t getting enough sleep. It’s just not possible. It’s the same as exercise: if you exercise harder and harder, and you don’t get enough rest, you’re going to do damage, you aren’t going to get stronger or faster, you’re going to get weaker and sicker and probably injure yourself.
No brain, no gain
Your brain is no different. If you push yourself mentally, if you are trying to learn and improve, to be more creative, to come up with better solutions – to be an entrepreneur – you need to rest that brain every day. You need to sleep.
Now that my sleep is consistently better, I’ve noticed a huge difference in my concentration, my creativity, my problem solving abilities, my ability to learn.
People are like, “when you get older, you just start forgetting stuff, Senior moments, you know. What was I talking about?”
We act like this mental decline is normal, even mandatory. But I wonder how much of this collective cognitive decline is simply a result of massive sleep deprivation.
My sleep isn’t perfect. I still have trouble sleeping some nights, and I don’t always go to bed as early as I should, but it’s getting better and better every week.
I like to sleep. It’s not a sign of weakness, it’s the path to optimal performance. The more I sleep, the better I do, whatever it is. This has resulted huge positive changes for my business.
Sleeping my way to success
This is unfortunately not as sexy as it sounds. I figured this out after many many years of making the same stupid mistakes over and and over again. It’s this: If I want to succeed as an entrepreneur, I need to sleep more.
I need to sleep more, with more consistency. I need to sleep deeply.
I’ve realized that I want to be a sleepy entrepreneur. I’ve made getting enough sleep, consistent sleep, my number one priority, and it’s led to more positive changes in my life than I ever imagined.
I’ve also realized another truth of being a sleepy entrepreneur: if I want to succeed at being a sleepy entrepreneur, I have to make money while I’m sleeping. It’s that simple.
I need to focus my efforts on the kind of work that will lead to passive income. This means I have to create: I need to write, make videos, write code, write courses, and reach out to my audience.
That’s my goal: make money while I sleep. Does this mean that the more I sleep, the more I’ll earn? There’s only one way to find out.
Let’s do this.
Featured image: “Sleeping tiger up close,” published on July 11, 2016 by Martin Kníže on Unsplash.
I just posted my longest article yet, The Real Crisis of US Election Security, where I examine the long-standing problems with the US voting system’s security and integrity, our vulnerabilities to cyberattack, and some remedies we can pursue to preserve the integrity of our elections.
The new update to Gmail includes a new autocomplete feature. Much like the autocomplete on your phone, this autocomplete looks at what you’re typing and then makes a remarkably accurate guess as to what you’re trying to say.
Unlike the autocomplete on your phone, though, the Gmail autocomplete attempts to finish the sentence you’re working on, not just the word that you’re pecking out on your phone’s tiny onscreen keyboard.
Google finishes your hackneyed, cliche-ridden writing for you
The suggested conclusion to the sentence you’re typing out appears in grey type to the right of your cursor, and you just need to press Tab to skip your cursor to the end of the proposed sentence to enter it into your email and get on with typing out the next business cliché.
This feature is a more advanced and interactive version of Gmail’s existing “suggested reply” feature, where Gmail displays two or three possible replies at the bottom of a new emails (always with the exclamation points!).
Usually these suggested replies are pretty simple, like “Got it!” or “Thanks!” or “Sorry, I can’t make it.” Gmail (or more accurately, the giant silicon brain that makes it work) reads all of your incoming email – you knew this already, right? – and then figures out several likely replies for you, based on the incoming email’s contents.
These suggested replies are incredibly helpful if you’re just zipping through your inbox on your phone and want to say yes or no to a simple email request. It’s incredibly fast and convenient, and of course most email is really this simple kind of request – reply exchange, like: “Can you make a meeting tomorrow at 9:30?” “Sure, no problem!”
This “suggested reply” seemed incredibly helpful. a reasonable extension of the autocomplete feature in Google Search. It seems that Google is just making a reasonable guess at what you probably mean to say, before you’ve finished typing it.
Because Google’s hive mind in the cloud sees probably billions of searches and emails, and is carefully watching as we type every one, it’s pretty good at guessing what we want to type.
Now that this has gone from the benign “Did you mean?” notice at the top of your search results, to typing out what you want to search for in the first place before you can, to offering a few possible replies to your incoming emails, to finishing your sentences for you while you type out your emails, have we reached a tipping point?
In Google’s defense, it’s not like Gmail is the home of incredibly exciting creative writing. Email is largely the exchange of pleasantries and business clichés. That’s what made me a little uncomfortable at first: Google knew the mindless cliché that I wanted to type out before I did. Am I really that much of an drone that a computer can guess what I’m trying to say so readily and accurately?
Well, evidently, yes.
But then I noticed something a little more subtle and insidious: Google would suggest a way to end my sentence that wasn’t exactly what I was going to say, but was close enough. So, bang! I’d hit that handy Tab key and just go with Google’s suggestion, and move on to the next sentence.
This is is the same issue that plagues Google’s search autocomplete feature: when you are searching for something and Google’s guess is close enough that you don’t bother to type out exactly what you’re searching for, and you just go with the suggestion.
In this way, the autocomplete suggestions become little self-fulfilling prophecies of our collective intentions: Google knows what you meant to search for because here’s what everyone else is searching for – of course everyone else is searching for that! It’s what Google said you should search for.
Now our robots can save us from the pain of talking to each other and just converse among themselves
In this way Google is doing our thinking for us, and subtly encouraging us to just go along with what everyone else is already thinking, or more accurately, what Google wants everyone else to think already.
I don’t think this is nefarious on Google’s part, it’s not some giant brainwashing conspiracy. It’s just a great example of how “artificial intelligence” is doing more and more work for us in subtle ways that nudge us all to say the same thing, or search for the same thing, as everyone else.
What happens when we get to a point where the computers can compose our emails better and faster than we can, using the same limited collection of worn-out phrases? Maybe it’s just a clear indication of how most of our communications are ritualistic formalism.
But Google is already suggesting replies to emails we receive, and now there’s a good chance that most of that email that just showed up in our inbox was in fact composed by Google. In this way, Google is just talking to itself, giving us a few options to chose from, and then doing most of the work for us to dress our simple, repetitive thoughts up into nice, polite language. Thanks, Google, for saving me the pain of conscious thought.
Last night, I finished the work on the first post in this series, Register to Vote For U.S. Midterms 2018. I also discovered that the custom theme that I inherited doesn’t handle WordPress featured images very well. I’ll have to fix that after this sprint to the election deadline. In the meantime, I just embedded the image into the post.
Since I inherited the TrustTheVote.org webmaster job by volunteering, I’m still learning about the ins and outs of the site configuration. The site already uses the somewhat obscure WP-SEO plugin. I’m still learning how to make the best use of that tool.
The plan is to promote the post on the OSET and TrustTheVote Project Twitter feeds. I’d like to see if I can revitalize the TrustTheVote Project Facebook page, as well. Right now it looks like Twitter is going to be the best source of traffic for new visitors.
Experiment time! Over the next 60 days, I’m going to focus my efforts on building traffic to one of the sites I run, TrustTheVote.org. This site is dedicated to reaching out to citizens and election officials to share the work of the Open Source Election Technology Institute (OSET), a non-profit organization developing open source voting software and related technologies for secure and reliable elections.
Although OSET’s work is targeted at democracies all over the world, right now there’s a lot of interest in the upcoming US midterm elections taking place this Tuesday, November 6th (I hope you’re registered to vote!).
I’m going to focus on this site this month (October) as we approach these midterm elections, and then in November as we learn more about how the election went in the US.
We are interested in more than just the results. How did election polling go across the country? Were the results reported quickly, accurately, and reliably? Are there questions about election security, especially related to cyber-security?
It’s an exciting time and there’s a lot of interest in election security and voting software. Now’s the time to build our audience.
I’m going to be checking in regularly with updates on what’s working (and what’s not working) to increase traffic to the TrustTheVote.org site. I’m going to be doing a lot of writing for this project, with the goal of developing an email list of interested citizens.
I’m going to be implementing the traffic strategy I described in this post on Cadent.com, Publish every day to send a flood of traffic to your site. Essentially, by writing and posting regularly, I’ll increase the visibility of the site to search engines and then drive more organic traffic to the site.
Let me know if you have any questions in the comments.
I’m looking for the ideal way to work on the road. Most of what I do is writing and web browsing.
For true Road Warrior abilities, I want an editor that does this:
Works on all platforms: Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android.
Reads and writes text files, HTML, and (ideally) Markdown.
Runs in full-screen mode with a clean, distraction free interface.
Lets me control whether I share my work online or save it locally.
Lets me share my work across platforms, ideally with Google Drive or Dropbox.
Counts words.
Doesn’t require a lot of computing resources, especially RAM.
Stays responsive and fast, even when I’m working on a large document.
All this, and I’d like it to be free, too. This list of desired features eliminates a lot of possibilities:
I can’t use a typical word processor, because they are cluttered with features I don’t need, and often don’t run on at least one of the target platforms I use.
I don’t want anything too complicated. The more features, the less I like it, once it addresses my basic requirements. I don’t want a lot of widgets, a massive ribbon or toolbar, mail merge, grammar checking, or any of that other crap. I just want to write.
I don’t want to have to use any kind of proprietary stuff, whether it’s a special file format, or some mysterious synchronization technology.
I’d prefer not to have to store my work on some shared server, unless I want to.
This doesn’t mean I won’t use a word processor, or some other app to write or edit. What I want is something simple and as close to universal as I can get, so I can work on my tablet or my Linux laptop or a Mac.
Calmly Writer
The Calmly Writer logo appears in the upper left corner of the page when you touch your mouse
So far, I’ve found one very promising candidate, and I’m using it now to write this: Calmly Writer. Here’s how it works:
You start off with a blank screen, and a flashing cursor. That’s it. If you move your mouse, the Calmly Writer (CW) icon appears in the upper left corner of the page. Click the icon to open the menu slider tray.
The Calmly Writer menu appears when you click the logo in the upper left corner of the page
The main menu slider tray looks like this:
New
Open
Save
Insert Picture
Toggle Full Screen
Print
Preferences
At the bottom of the menu, you can see your stats for the current document:
word count
character count
reading time
I like to toggle the little status bar to display the document stats in the lower right corner.
Calmly Writer Preferences
My favorite settings on the Calmly Writer Preferences menu
Poke around the Preferences menu. There’s a lot of good stuff there. Some of my favorites:
Focus mode to highlight the paragraph you’re currently working on
Dark mode for typing at night and looking badass
Text width, font, and font size options, plus set the text caret (cursor) color
Smart punctuation
Formatting with a pop-up toolbar.
Super productivity enhancing Typewriter Sound (why do I love this so much?)
Saving as you type
Calmly Writer saves your work in your browser’s cache file. I discovered how useful this is when I accidentally tapped the “Go Back” key on my Lenovo keyboard, which is right next to my left arrow key.
That’s a stupid way to lay out a keyboard, but it’s one of my few complaints about my trusty old-ass Lenovo.
So, I was pretty horrified, when I went back to but I pulled myself together and went back to Calmly Writer Online and all my work was gone. It didn’t take me more than a few seconds to discover the Restore feature (just select Open from the menu) and I was back in business.
I can save my work locally, as a file download, or to Google Drive. Since I have to give Calmly Writer access to my Google Drive account, I haven’t done that yet. It’s easy enough to save my work to my Dropbox folder on my computer’s local drive.
Because CW saves as you type, you really don’t need to save a file until you’re done for the day and you want to close your browser.
The feature list is just about perfect. Because CW is a web page, I can use my browser’s full screen feature, find and spell checker. CW also has its own full screen mode.
I’ve tested CW in both Google Chrome and Firefox. In both browsers, it barely uses any RAM.
Some cool hidden features
Check out the Calmly Writer FAQ to learn about some more useful features, like:
Standard keyboard equivalents for the most used features, like: open, save, print, bold and italic.
Markdown formatting on-the-fly: if you type legitimate Markdown code, CW will instantly render it in HTML so you can see what it looks like on screen.
Read and write Word .docx files as well as txt, htm, and md (Markdown) files.
Export to PDF with the Print function.
Android Update: Sept. 23, 2018
I’m writing this section with Calmly Writer on the Samsung Android Tab E in Firefox. It’s working just fine, as in, I’m not detecting any lag when I type.
I’m having a little difficulty with full screen in Firefox, but that’s not so much of a problem on a mobile OS, because you can’t (ordinarily) have multiple windows open.
So, I’m pleased with this setup.
I further tested my Android setup by saving this file to the file system as a Markdown file and re-opening it in Google Chrome. That also worked quite well, and I’m pleased to discover that Full screen works exactly as it should in Chrome on Android.
I’m going to give this a try on iOS as well, with Firefox and Chrome. If that’s the case, this is a truly cross platform solution.
I’ll have to try connecting to Google Drive, as that’s my last checkbox.
One more test: what happens when I don’t have an Internet connection? Can I still write?
I turned on Airplane Mode on the tablet, which of course immediately disconnected my Bluetooth keyboard. I’m able to stay in Airplane Mode and turn on only Bluetooth, so that’s what I’m doing now. Everything is working just fine so far.
So, as long as I load this page before I go off line, I can continue to write without an Internet connection.
So, this means that I’m writing without sending anything to the CW servers, because I’m not connected to the Internet. I’m happy about that.
Conclusion: Calmly Writer on Android
Since every Android device comes with Google Chrome as the default browser, using Calmly Writer on Android is simply a matter of visiting Calmly Writer Online in Chrome. Once you’ve loaded the page, you can even disconnect your device from the Internet.
I’d recommend using Chrome instead of Firefox just because Full screen works better on Chrome, although that’s an admittedly aesthetic choice.
There’s more to come!
I’m going to look at some other browser-based editors over the next few weeks, but Calmly Writer looks like the one to beat right now. I still need to try CW out on Android and iOS, but since I have both Google Chrome and Firefox on those devices too, I don’t expect any surprises.
If you have a favorite text editor, let me know in the comments below. I’m going to try out as many as I can.
The StratoPress 