Home Page Improvements

Let’s talk about your home page.

You know, that first page you see when you open up your browser.

For most of us, it is something you don’t even look at. Maybe you have it set to Google or Yahoo, but more than likely it is whatever it was when you first opened the browser and stayed that way.

However, if you are a Firefox user, I have a suggestion for a homepage that will be much more useful. (You can do this in any browser, but it is clunky in Chrome and Safari.)

TiddlyWiki

http://tiddlywiki.com/

Yes, it has a strange name. What is it? It is a wiki (like Wikipedia) but one that exists only in a single file.

This means you don’t need a web server to use it. You will simply download a single file, save it somewhere safe (your dropbox is a good place!) and go from there. Get it here:

http://tiddlywiki.com/#GettingStarted

So, for me, I downloaded it, put the file in my Dropbox and renamed it “startpage.html’. You can name it anything you want, but it must still end in “.html” to work.

You will need to do one thing through Firefox first, and that is get a plugin.

Install the Plugin For Firefox

First we have to go get the plugin:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tiddlyfox/

Install it, and when it is done, you’ll need to re-start.

Chrome, Safari and IE

You can use this idea for all of these browsers as well. Check out their documentation for more information:

http://tiddlywiki.com/#GettingStarted

Setting up your Homepage

First step, open up the TiddlyWiki in your browser. Go to File -> Open File… and find your newly downloaded TiddlyWiki.

Now, go to your preferences page, which is a gear icon on the left hand side.

Info

This tab is for general information. pay attention to this part:

Choose which tiddlers are displayed at startup:

We will come back to that later.

Settings

Under settings, make sure it is selected to save automatically. This way, when you are done editing an entry (tiddler, they call them ‘tiddlers) it is saved without having to remember to hit ‘save’

Saving

Once you are done with that, there is a icon near the gear that is an arrow pointing down into an open box looking thing. It should be red. Click it, and it will tell you it saved (in the upper right)

But…

Yes, you set it up so that it autosaves, and it will for just about everything. The settings are different, and you’ll need to manually save them.

Making entries

Hit that green + button and you’ll be shown a brand new entry form. Change the name from “new tiddler” to something more like “Start Pages”.

In the box, put some links. There are ways to fancy format things, if you want, but for now, just add the links on their own line, and hit enter twice after.

Hit that green checkmark when you are done.

You just made your first entry. Wasn’t that easy? Something to notice, on the right hand side you’ll see a list forming. Your new entry is now there.

Back to Settings

Now go back to that gear again, and on that “Info” tab where it says:

Choose which tiddlers are displayed at startup:

These are the entries that will show up when you first open this file. Delete what is in there, and add the title of the entry you just made, surrounded by double square brackets [[ ]]. So, if you named it “Start Pages”, then put:

[[Start Pages]]

in that box.

Now hit that arrow save button again.

Set as Homepage

We’ve set up the file, now just one more thing: making this file our homepage.

Make sure no other tabs are open first. Then open your Firefox preferences. Under General there is a place for “Home page”. Click “Use Current Pages” and it will update to your TiddlyWiki.

Ok NOW what?

Now you have a file that when you open your browser, will show you links. At first, this may not be amazingly useful. For example, you probably don’t need to click on Facebook often.

What it is good for are those things that you like, but don’t often use. For example, I have an entry for my bills. So when I need to, there is a nice organized list of the things I need to pay, and links for each.

I also use it as a research tool. A tiddler just for Markets, one for fonts I like, another for how to edit tumblr themes.

I’ve been storing information here. When I do a search for something, especially something like editing a blog theme, where I know i’ll need to know it again, but not for a while, I make an entry here and keep it.

Now it is easy to find. I just hit that house button on my browser, and my start page is filled with things I’ve added.

I have entries with links to images, to how-to’s on HTML and CSS, references to Markdown and fonts. You can store text as well, copy and pasting from files or pages to keep things how you like. I had even used TiddlyWiki as a story notebook for a while (something I suspect I will return to)

I want Fancier Formatting!

Here you go: http://tiddlywiki.com/#WikiText

There you can learn how to make links prettier, how to format entries and more. Despite being just a single HTML file, the wiki is pretty powerful.

And your homepage is now a little more useful.

Short Links for Your Books

Just a little reference post for those who deal with making links for books, like I, and many of my friends, do.

Each site has a long, complicated URL for your title… but most also have a short, nice looking one too.

Amazon

Amazon will add the entire text to the Magna Charta onto your URL if you don’t watch it.

LampLight, Volume 3, issue 1, Kindle:

http://smile.amazon.com/LampLight-3-Issue-Yvonne-Navarro-ebook/dp/B00NPJY10I/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1411750626&sr=1-1

LampLight, Volume 3, issue 1, print:

http://smile.amazon.com/LampLight-3-Issue-Yvonne-Navarro/dp/1502431580/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411744718&sr=8-1&keywords=1502431580

The easiest way to get a good link is to click the email link in the share option, and just copy the link from there. You can make it as such:

For Kindle:

amazon.com/dp/(ASIN)

Where you get your ASIN from the product details.

For Print:

amazon.com/dp/(ISBN 10)

In both cases, you’ll see the number you need in the URL, next to the DP.

so, for our examples, we have the following:

Kindle:

http://.amazon.com/dp/B00NPJY10I

Print:

http://amazon.com/dp/1502431580

Barnes and Noble

barnesandnoble.com is already a long URL, add on the remainder, and it gets a bit unwieldy.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lamplight-jacob-haddon/1118943137?ean=2940044832688

But that’s ok! There is also BN.com. Add on a short cut, and you can get nice, clean URLs for your books:

bn.com/s/(BN ID)

Which is that ean= number at the end of the URL, so for this example:

http://bn.com/s/2940044832688

For your print book, the formula is the same, just one detail is different—the EAN number is your ISBN-13, not the BN ID

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lamplight-volume-1-issue-1-jacob-haddon/1117505311?ean=9781493585915&itm=1&usri=9781493585915

reduces to:

http://bn.com/s/9781493585915

Kobo and Smashwords

Unfortunately, neither of these has a good way of doing links. For both, simply copy the link for the book.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/258702

http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/lamplight-vol-i-issue-2

iBooks

Apple presents a few challenges for links with its iTunes store. Thankfully, they have a link maker—just search for your title and poof!

http://itunes.apple.com/linkmaker/

So, not nice and tidy, but they are easier to find, at least. These links will go direct to iTunes if installed, or show a web view if not.

Updated – 2024 Feb

removed references to AMZN.com as they no longer work. Now updating all my old websites…

Markdown, File formats and a new way of working

I have grumbled, if you will, in the past about my workflow. Specifically my concerns have been with file formats, having almost lost my entire back log due to outdated file types.

After that I changed to RTF, using that as my primary file container. It worked, and aside from annoyances on my computer, I had no issues… UNTIL I wanted to edit them on my phone. Apparently RTF cannot be edited on a mobile device easily.

Recently I’ve made a new switch. This time I have switched to Markdown. What is markdown? Well, what it is not is a new file format. It is a way of writing that stores the basic formatting needs inside of a text file.

For example: if i wanted to make something italic, I simply surround it in asterisks, such as *this* (which turns into this). Similarly, bolding is two asterisks, like **so** (and so)

And some other things too, such as links and images. An advanced form called MultiMarkDown includes tables and footnotes. All of this is stored in a simple TXT file.

Why is that important? Because I can edit a TXT file anywhere. My workflow has now freed itself of the specific program I am using, and allows me to use any and all of my devices for writing and editing. Also the files are small, just in case that was a concern.

So, how? I’ll not go through everything, but let’s touch on some of the big points.

Dropbox

Dropbox is my cornerstone, at this point, and I am not sure how I managed without it. (Mostly I used zip disks and thumb drives, actually, but you know what I mean…)

All my writing goes here. It is backed up online, on all of my devices, accessible on my phone.

ByWord

ByWord is the app that started all this mess. It is a distraction free writer app, first for the iPhone / iPad, and then later came out with a Mac edition. It uses Markdown for formatting, and provides a clean, simple way of writing. Files are saved as .txt files in dropbox and boom, available everywhere.

And, since they are TXT, using them doesn’t eat into my monthly bandwidth on my phone.

I use it to write, take notes and edit on my phone and computer seamlessly.

DayOne

DayOne is my journal. This was another app offered up by Apple promotions that I grabbed. At first, I simply played with it… but then!

What is it? It is a journalling app. Not a note app, though you can certainly use it that way too. Rather it is designed to put in entries based on a calendar.

For my, I used it most at first by simply logging the events of my day at the end. Sometimes with pictures. Then I started taking memorable pictures I wanted more context with and adding them.

Journalling each day is good for us as writers, and I found myself using it more and more, adding in little notes for ideas and such, eventually deciding to use it for blog entries as well.

DayOne uses XML as its base file format, but the formatting is still MarkDown. XML is still text based, so you can get in there should DayOne go away.

Other Markdown

I use markdown now in my WordPress blog, making it easier to go from DayOne, or ByWord to post (like I did with this post, DayOne -> WordPress). I have fallen for AirMail, a Mac email client that too uses Markdown as an option, allowing me to format emails quickly and nicely. I’ve added Write App to my tool box, because it allows for easier navigation of multiple files.

I’ve even started a CMS (content management system) that allows straight markdown files to be used for content, instead of a database (why? because I am a geek, that’s why)

So give it a shot, this Markdown tutorial let’s you play with syntax! Later, I’ll write up how I use these tools for my specific workflow.