You probably know what a CAPTCHA is, even if you didn’t know its name. Those warped words that you sometimes have to type out? That’s a CAPTCHA. Websites use them to prevent spambots from posting (spam) comments. Humans can read CAPTCHAs very easily. Robots, not so much.
But did you know [...]
Here’s my one tiny complaint about Gmail: it may be a little too good at filtering out the spam. I used to get tremendous joy (uh, no pun intended) out of the badly-phrased, ill-translated, nonsensical requests offering me “Turbines for your meat jet” or the opportunity to become a crude oil dealer.
Thank goodness for [...]
magine this: you’re taking notes at a reading or a lecture, or while thinking aloud about your latest work-in-progress. Your pen records the lecture, and later, you can place the pen on the paper at any point in the notes and hear the lecture at that point.
Doesn’t that sound like magic?
Well, we [...]
In case you doubted it: we live in the future.
I think this dawned on me when I got a smartphone shortly after my son was born. Suddenly, despite having a babe (literally) in arms, I could still read my favorite blogs and newspapers. I could still get my email. I [...]
We’ve talked before about ways to get yourself to write. There are tools to help minimize distractions, and even tools like Write or Die that dole out punishment if you don’t keep the words flowing. But what is all you need is some positive motivation?
That’s where Written? Kitten! enters the picture. Written? Kitten! [...]
Gift-giving season is upon us–and this year, Fiction Writers Review comes to the rescue, offering a bookish gift (that’s not a book) every day in December.
Protect and beautify your iPhone—and show your love of books—with this Penguin Books iPhone case. I love the slightly faded, antique look of the covers—such a contrast from the [...]
Is your writing lean and trim? Or does it need to shed some flab? Recently, user Leigh posted on FWR’s Facebook wall about an interesting writing-analysis tool, WritersDiet. Intrigued, I clicked on over. WritersDiet is a free online tool that analyzes a sample of your text. Paste in any text [...]
Back in high school, I had a book called How to Become Ridiculously Well-Read in One Evening, which described itself as “A Collection of Literary Encapsulations” and contained classic works of literature in short, usually silly poems. For example, The Great Gatsby began thusly:
Nick Carraway and Gatsby (Jay)
Are next-door neighbors; every day
The enigmatic Gatsby [...]
My sister’s favorite joke in college was this:
Two penguins are in the bathtub, and one of them says, “Could you please pass the soap?” The other replies, “What do I look like, a typewriter?”
Get it? Neither do I (even with Wikipedia’s help)–though it does make me laugh now, because it made her laugh [...]
It’s November 1, and that means–yup! NaNoWriMo is upon us.
We’ve posted here before about various tools that can help you in your mad writing binge–see below–but this year, we wanted to share a techie tip for distraction-free writing that’s easy and free. Did you know that Google Docs can provide a [...]
