Brent Knowles's Blog, page 60

Line by Line Proofreading

Allows the writer to proofread their work by focusing on the individual lines.
Line By Line Proofreading Mode
What does it do?

The text area becomes split into two sections, the story or chapter at the bottom of the note and an enlarged box containing the text of the first line at the top.

How To Use It
edit-bar and select Line by Line Proofread. The Line By Line box will appear, highlighting spelling mistakes (right-click to correct). Use the arrows to navigate between sentences.

Tip...

Grammar

One of the cool things about having written a writing platform like YourOtherMind is whenever I read good writing advice, especially nuts and bolts stuff like this grammar article on io9, I usually go in and add some code, adding a check to help me add another layer of proofreading.

So when I read the article I started taking notes and then stopped myself, realizing that 75% of what they were calling for writers to check in their own writing (bad phrases and whatnot) could be handled by a...

Brent has a new blog

I have decided to split my writing and game design posts into a new blog hosted at blog.brentknowles.com.

Please bounce over there and add it to whatever subscription system you use to keep track of blogs (assuming you still want to read all about my exciting life).

If you hate having to read multiple blogs by the same person then I suggest you check out Empire Avenue. I'm finding it supremely useful for keeping tabs on a single person, no matter how many twitter accounts, blogs, and...

Distraction Devices

Earlier I posted about how electronic devices can really disrupt meetings. Now Richard Curtis over at [e-reads:] has a post discussing Christine Pearson's book which goes into detail on why overuse of these distraction devices causes poor work performance.

Worth reading, especially for those of you who still believe mobile devices allow you to 'get more work done'.

Videogame Demos, or, Why I don't buy games anymore

Demo.

That one word had the power to make us poor game developers tremble as it always brought with it crazy work hours and vague plans. And when we were finished we always wondered — 'was it worth it?'

Well, now on the consumer side of the fence, I can heartily answer… no.

But please, please, keep on making them! See I've realized that I'm perfectly happy playing a demo and only a demo for many kinds of games. I have a half dozen racing demos on my PlayStation 3, for example, and by cycling...

Read this week – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

I read this novel by Phillip K. Dick many years ago but having forgotten much of it, I cracked it open (in the digital sense). A fantastic, fun, read, as it was the first time.

The novel, the basis for the film Blade Runner, on the surface is about a bounty hunter hunting androids but like a lot of Phillip K. Dick's work, it really delves into issues of reality, humanity, and the manipulation of people. I think being older now I appreciated the story more and some stuff I had completely...

Getting Hired in the Game's Industry — Technical Skills

This is a short post, one of several where I'll toss out an idea or two to (maybe) help people get their foot in the door of the game's industry.

Technical Skills

It does not matter what role you want to play for a game developer — storyboard artist, animator, writer, or producer — honing your technical skills makes you more valuable. Period.

Too many applicants hope to land their dream position and are so focused on that they miss numerous other opportunities that would help get them into...

Adding a Link to the Dashboard

So I was going to spend the evening adding a new feature to YourOtherMind – the ability to place links on the Dashboard (i.e., I wanted to keep a couple projects I was working on front-and-center).

So, I was about to write the code when I realized the feature already existed! (This head cold is doing nothing for my intellect, let me tell you).

Basically by using Bookmarks a writer can easily add links on the YourOtherMind Dashboard.

The steps are simple.

First, go to the page you want to link...

What a difference a week makes…

Today, we have this view of my backyard:

A little over a week ago we had this:

Backing up your data

I have a somewhat elaborate backup system that I use to make sure my writing, code and photographs are backed up regularly but I realized my process is fairly specific to my workflow and a bit complicated. So I decided against posting. So, simply consider this as a reminder to make sure you have a process to back up your work regularly — people lose stuff, important stuff all the time and I'll be honest it wasn't until a few months ago that I got myself on a regular backup routine… after...