Friedbeef’s Tech

“Easy reading is damn hard writing” ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, Author

In Part 1 of this series, we covered some cool tools for improving writing. Here are 5 more great resources that should also help out.

6. Reduce Management Speak with Bull Fighter

Originally produced by Deloitte Consulting but now distributed as freeware, Bullfighter works with Microsoft Word, Outlook and PowerPoint to help you find and eliminate jargon in your documents.

Bullfighter includes a jargon database and an exclusive Bull Composite Index calculator that will allow you to see - in an actual window, on your PC display, live - just how bad a document can be.

7. Write Faster with Texter

This doesn’t really do much to improve the quality of your writing, but it sure makes it go much faster. This tool takes keywords you type in and expands it to full text.

By entering your most commonly-typed snippets of text into Texter, you can save countless keystrokes in the course of the day. Among other things, it works extremely well with addresses, and email signatures.

To see it in action, have a quick view of the video below…

8. Avoid Word Repetition With Word Counter

Make your writing more pleasant simply by changing up the words you use, and adding variety to it. WordCounter will count and rank the most frequently used words in any given body of text, thus pointing out potential opportunities for improvement.

You can use this to see what words you overuse (is everything a “solution” for you?) or maybe just to find some keywords from a document.

9. Learn how to write for any occasion

Compiled by Joshua Sowin this is one of the most comprehensive (yet easy to follow) guides for writing I’ve ever seen. Tackling everything from basic writing principles to different writing scenarios ( interviews, reviews, etc), this guide is one that is definitely worth bookmarking.

10. Your own passion

This is perhaps the most important tool - for without it, there is no point in writing. If it no longer feels fun… take a break, relax, and then take time to recharge and find your passion for writing again!

Bonus Tip: 37Signals talks about how buzzwords say all the wrong things

What writing tips or tools can you share? Tell us in the comments!

Liked this article? Check out part 1 of this series

[tags] writing, writer, writing tips [/tags]

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“The natural state of all writing is mediocrity.” - Ira Glass

Always looking to learn something new, I’m constantly striving to find new ways to take my writing to the next level. Here is a set of 10 tools which should help any budding writer improve.

1. Improve Readability with MS-Word

The Flesch-Kincaid tests are readability tests designed to indicate how difficult a reading passage is to understand. Using simple calculations, it is able to break down text to gauge the level of education needed to grasp the writing, and how hard it is to comprehend overall.

What most people don’t know is MS-Word actually comes with this test built in, so you can rate any document you produce in a few easy steps.

2. Cut Down Cliches with Cliche Finder

Improve your writing by letting it come more from the heart rather than phrases which have been overused to the point of losing its intended force. Cliche finder helps identify common cliches in your writing so you can consider rewording them. It also comes with a handy bookmarklet so you can find them on any web page.

3. Look Up Words With TheSage’s Cross Application Dictionary

A very complete dictionary and thesaurus package, TheSage can look up words directly from almost any program (IE, Word, Firefox, Outlook, Thunderbird…). It is also 100% portable and can be run off a USB drive. Completely free of course.

4. Eliminate Spelling Errors With Firefox 2

One of Firefox’s best built in features has got to be its inline spell checker which helps eliminate spelling errors as you type!

If you’re using Internet Explorer 7, you can get this functionality by installing the IE7Pro plugin, or ieSpell if you’re on version 6. Then again, why bother when you should be using the far superior Firefox in the first place?

5. Learn Top Writing Techniques

Lifehack.org has assembled a huge collection of 50 tips from the Poynter Institute which should help any writer.

“You will become handy with these techniques over time, and begin to recognize their use in the stories you read. You will see chances to apply them when you revise your own work. Eventually, they will become part of your flow, natural and automatic…”

What writing tips or tools can you share? Tell us in the comments!

Liked this article? Check out part 2 of the series.

[tags]writing, writer, writing tips, [/tags]

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8,210

That’s how many RSS feeds the most prolific subscriber on Share My OPML has. Even tech experts Chris Pirillo and Robert Scoble subscribe to more than 600 feeds themselves to stay on top of the fast moving tech industry. (I subscribe to ‘only’ 200 feeds).

With that many feeds in hand, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the amount of information being thrown at you - so how do you stay on top of your feeds effectively?

Step 1: Use an offline RSS reader

Don’t get me wrong, I love online readers like Pageflakes, but I’ve found that offline feed readers are much more powerful tools which offer an array of advantages. Among which…

• You don’t have to wait for feeds to load as all the updating is done in the background
• You don’t have to be online to read your feeds, and in fact can flag stories for later reading
• You can sort, and manage your feeds better. For example, I group related feeds together so I read all of them at one go.

My recommendations for free offline feed readers? Try out RSS Popper if you’re on Outlook, or Thunderbird if you’re not.

Step 2: Subscribe generously

With proper feed management you don’t have to be particularly choosy about what you subscribe to. As long as the content is good, you can give it a try without having to worry about how many feeds you already have on your list.

Step 3: Read selectively

Reading your favourite feeds are supposed to be fun. Avoid the trap of trying to read everything you subscribe to as it slowly turns into a death march when you subsribe to increasingly more sites. I may subscribe to over 200 feeds, but I only read 8 of them on a regular basis.

Step 4: Use a desktop search tool

What good is 200 feeds if only a certain portion is read regularly? Well over time, the articles which pile up inside your offline RSS reader becomes a treasure trove of content. A desktop search tool will help you instantly search through everything at lightning speed, and this may at times deliver even better results than Google, because the sources of the content are what you personally handpicked.

Step 5: Backup your feeds

No matter how good you feel your RSS reader is (online or offline) - you need to ensure it has an export to OPML option! This acts as a backup and also allows you to switch feed readers in a blink of an eye. I do a backup of my feeds at least once a quarter just to be safe.

Bonus link: What is RSS and how can it save me time?

Bonus tip: Robert Scoble shows you his method of staying on top of his RSS feeds

That’s the beauty of RSS. You don’t go to the web, it comes to you.

How do you manage your RSS feeds? Tells us in the comments!

[tags] RSS, feed readers, productivity, opml [/tags]

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