Marg McAlister

Timers: XNote Timer and others.

Desktop timers offer a nifty way of keeping track of the time you take to write a scene, chapter or article - or do a writing job for a client if you're a freelance writer/ghostwriter. It will count DOWN as well as up, so you can set yourself a time limit to finish a writing task.

I checked out a few online, and liked XNoteTimer because of its simplicity and small file size. And being a geek, I also liked the way you could link any mp3 file you like to the timer so it plays a tune (or clashes a few dramatic chords, or even has your own voice telling you: "OK, that's it - time's up! Stop typing!").

Here's the link to XNoteTimer, but if you Google 'Desktop timers' you'll find a whole lot more... including, I'm sure, some that work on a Mac. And if you're downloading yWriter (see next item) you'll find that this site has a timer as well - so you might like to just download both from the same site!

http://download.cnet.com/XNote-Timer/3000-2350_4-10912167.html

OR

http://www.spacejock.com/yTimer_Download.html

Writing Software

Wow, there's so much writing software around these days! I have to admit that as far as 'inexpensive' goes it's hard to go past yWriter4. This has already been reviewed by Robyn Haynes (you'll find it under REVIEWS in the public section of the website) but if you haven't had a look at it yet, I recommend that you do.

Read Robyn's review here:

http://www.writing4successclub.com/public/535.cfm

This popular program has a lot of fans around the world. It allows you to track your characters and do just about everything else, as well (well, not quite: it won't write the novel for you.)

 You can download a 24-page QuickStart guide in a PDF format. The program itself is a very small file considering what it does: only 1.6 mb.

Read more about it - and download the program - here:

http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html

PageBreeze HTML Editor

If you want to do a lot of work on your own website then I think XSitePro is the one to save you a lot of time and a lot of headaches... but if you don't have a lot of cash to spare, then PageBreeze will do the job for you with no outlay whatsoever.

Features include:

• A full-featured but easy to use visual (WYSIWYG) HTML editor for creating web pages. 
• Color-coded HTML source (tag) editor. You can switch between HTML source and visual modes at any time with a click of the mouse, and any changes you have made will instantly be reflected in both modes.
• Preview mode lets you instantly see what your finished web page will look like in Microsoft Internet Explorer.

I actually use PageBreeze to quickly edit and produce my weekly tipsheet (the one you are reading now) so I can highly recommend it.

Go here to download PageBreeze (Writing4SuccessClub members will find it available in the downloads section of the website)

http://www.pagebreeze.com/

NoteTab Light

I can't mention PageBreeze without mentioning a companion program that I use every week, too - NoteTab. (I actually use NoteTab Pro, because I wanted a few of the features that I could have only with this version, but for most of your needs you will find the shareware version, NoteTab Lite, more than adequate.)

NoteTab is a plain text editor. Yes, you can simply use NotePad that is provided with every version of Windows, but NoteTab will do a lot more. I create the weekly tipsheet in plain text first, then paste it into NoteTab Pro. I do this so that there is no weird code that will add strange symbols to the web page (or in my case, the HTML file that I send out as the tipsheet.)

I like the tabbed feature of NoteTab, and the "Quicklist" column on the side that lets me see all the files that I've been working on recently. They're an easy click away. It prompts me to save files when I exit the program.

I'll simply quote from the NoteTab website so you can see what you're getting: "NoteTab is a leading text editor, popular Notepad replacement, and powerful code-based HTML editor. Winner of software industry awards since 1998, this application does it all: it easily handles a stack of huge files; lets you format text to your heart's content; does system-wide searches, and multi-line global replacements. It even corrects your spelling mistakes." It does some neat things that programmers will really appreciate, too, but most writers won't need those features.

http://www.notetab.com/

ShortKeys

This program saves you having to re-type paragraphs of prose that you use over and over again, or advice that you're constantly giving out (such as price quotes, address lists, and more). Here's what one user had to say: "I have used Macro Express and Shortkeys *every* day the last many years. I think it speeds up my work writing maybe 20% in efficency. I use Shortkey as Autotexts in Word, with the benefit to use the same autotexts in *all* applications (HTML-editors etc) and not just in MS Word. I also enjoy not to have to re-install the autotext in Word, every time I reinstall Office." --Michael K., Denmark

How does it work: Basically, any time a user-defined keystroke combination is typed in, it will be replaced with the replacement text... up top 3000 keystrokes.

http://www.shortkeys.com/lite.htm

That's about it for our roundup this week - but believe me, there are so many great software programs out there that I could keep going for many, many pages!

If YOU have found a program that you couldn't do without, drop us a line... and we'll pass it on in the next 'roundup'.