Mac20Q Podcast 39 Mike Smith

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Mike has a MacBookPro as his main computer and has a Mac Mini connected to the TV. Mike is a writer and had taken the brave step of giving up a job in order to make his way in the world into being a writer. Has been using the mac for about 3 years before the writing he was a coder.
Connected to the computer he goes for wired mighty mouse the nipple scroll button is mentioned regards getting it cleaned. He rubbed the nipple on paper where I have blown into the gap around the edge of the button the get the gunk out,  and has a brother HL5240 printer.

I guessed at Mike using Scrivener and was 100% right. Well he is a writer and it seems that it was coded by a writer that could get what he needed from the word processor route. Mike says it is a cracking bit of software. likes the chaptering and versioning – templates for various things – make it easy to collate it and output the final work, and the price was good too. For script writing you might look at Celtx a free app and free is always good.

Sponsor for the Show is Go To Meeting

Mike has an extensive collection of iPods and it may have had a slight effect on the buying of an Apple computer. Mike is a Firefox person and once in a while will use Safari, he likes the plug ins with Firefox, like the debug tools and sage plugin

Adium is mentioned by Mike because it connects to so many social networks, lately getting more integration added to it. Mike has recently changed to Tweetie for his twittering.

Mike as had a play with iLife ’09 apps but is not a big user because of doing movies in Final Cut Pro 3.0. Found that the faces feature in iPhoto just takes time from him and his writing.

One of his writing projects is ‘Out of Office’ a web drama and has other things in the pipeline. We talk about how level the playing field is for aspiring writers to be able to get work out in front of an audience online. There is content coming out from the top down, as in the BBC’s and other institutions and also from the grass roots level of people like the young woman in the North east of England who has put out videos on YouTube showing people how to put on make up. Good content will always find an audience.

Mike acknowledges the steepness of the learning curve with Final Cut Pro 3.0 and says he learns something new each time he has some editing to do.

Mike like features in Quicksilver and come in there as a favourite application especially when operating with iTunes. Fav for the iPhone is iExpenseit as a way to control what he spends, seeing as he needs to build an income with the writing.

The film Minority Reportwhere Tom Cruise is moving stuff around on a huge screen is something that would be in a wish list of computing equipment. Minority Report (Widescreen Edition)
Sceptics Guide to the Universe podcast. gets a mentions and I tell him about JC Hutchins podcasted novel called 7th Son.

Go now to watch the web drama that is ‘Out of Office’ and have a look at Mike’s personal web site.
Screenwipe a TV program about writers

ScreenFlow an application that I love using to make screencasts. Edits video as well