Poet Ponders the Digital

I overuse some words and phrases in my writing. Most writers have some problem words. It isn't that the words should never be used, or that we use them incorrectly. We simply use them too frequently. The following Microsoft Word VBA macro marks words I should check for overuse. Also included are words and phrases I should avoid. Feel free to copy and modify this macro. I encourage my students to try this macro, too. Once you have the macro in Word, you can alter the word list to reflect your preferences and habits. Sub macWordsToAvoid() Dim vFindText As Variant Dim txtWord As Variant 'list the exceptions to look for in an array vFindText = Array("about", "all", "almost", "a lot", "already", "always", "along with", _ "anxiously", "absolutely", "as well", "believe", "certainly", "clearly", "definitely", _ "eagerly",...

As I was writing a post about "comments" in computer programming source code, I noted that I like comments and marginalia when I write for "human" readers. Even when writing for myself, I like to preserve my notes. One of the things we lose with the transition from paper to digital media is the marginalia and other marks readers and writers leave as they read and write. Reading and Marking My wife and I both love books. We revere books. Because of this respect for the printed page, neither of us is an active highlighter, annotator, or scribbler. When I took a class that required marking in a book, it pained me to be destroying the pages with green and orange highlights. When I buy a book, especially a textbook, I don't want someone's marks on the pages. First, the previous reader(s) might have marked the wrong passages as important. Second, it is distracting. I want to read and think about a text on my own, at least initially. I do take notes, and I...

The three PlayStation consoles side by side. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley May 20, 2013 Deadline July 2013 Issue Letters from the Mailbag Questions and suggestions from readers arrive every month. It’s always nice to help people with a technical question, and many of the questions inspire columns. This month, I’m sharing some questions with short responses. When I don’t have a good answer, I’m sharing that, too. Q: Do you have a favorite gaming console? A: When buying a console, consider the games first. Many games are platform exclusives, especially for the Nintendo consoles. Other games ship first for one or two consoles months or years before the games are available for other devices. The gamers I know tend to own Sony and Microsoft consoles, while parents of young children seem to prefer Nintendo devices. I own a dust-collecting Sony PlayStation 2. Consoles have largely replaced personal computers for gaming, but I dislike the types of ga...

I like comments in computer programming source code. I've never been the programmer to claim, "My code doesn't need comments." Maybe it is because I've always worked on so many projects that I need comments  to remind me what I was thinking when I entered the source code into the text editor. Most programmers end up in a similar situation. They look at a function and wonder, "Why did I do it this way?" Tangent : I also like comments in my "human" writing projects. One of the sad consequences of moving to digital media is that we might lose all the little marginalia authors and editors leave on manuscript drafts. That thought, the desire to preserve my notes, is worthy of its own blog post — so watch for a post on writing software and notes. Here are my rules for comments: Source code files should begin with identifying comments and an update log. Functions, subroutines, and blocks of code should have at least one descriptive comment. ...

In my earlier posts (I, II, and Intro), I explained that I'll be using Xcode to learn Objective-C and the Cocoa Frameworks to learn about programming OS X and iOS applications. If you look back at those posts, you will find how to create a new command line application in either C or Objective-C. This blog entry compares "pure C" to the C code I'll be using within an Objective-C file. Because Objective-C is a superset of C, you can use any valid C programming code in an Objective-C file. After this blog post, I'm going to be doing all coding within Objective-C projects, for simplicity among other reasons. Hello, C Programming Begin by creating a new "Command Line Tool" project in C. Apple's Xcode handily creates the code to output "Hello World!" to the command line. Run the code and you'll see the results in the "debug area" of the Xcode window. Ah, for the old days when aspiring young coders had to type the "Hello W...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley May 6, 2013 Deadline June 2013 Issue BYOPC: Build Your Own PC Building your own computer lets you decide what matters most: processor speed, graphics, storage, sound or something else. Multiplayer gamers dominate the BYOPC movement, with a willingness to spend serious money for every potential advantage over opponents. Vendors recognize this, so many of the parts available target the gaming market. I enjoy assembling computer systems and encourage my students to try it. If you do join the BYOPC ranks, plan to build a powerful, high-end system. First, you will save more if you build a top-notch system. Second, such systems are easier to upgrade and maintain for several years. My experience is that if you plan to spend at least $1000, BYOPC is worth it. If you plan to spend even more, the benefits of BYOPC increase dramatically. Don’t build a cheap computer, unless it is only a learning exercise. I compare building a cheap system to assembling an ...

Can computer software evaluate student papers? The debate has waged for about three years in higher education, and lately it has taken on a new urgency. This article from 2012 raises the question. According to a new study [ http://dl.dropbox.com/u/44416236/NCME%202012%20Paper3_29_12.pdf ] by the University of Akron, computer grading software is just as effective in grading essays on standardized tests as live human scoring. After testing 16,000 middle school and high school test essays graded by both humans and computers, the study found virtually identical levels of accuracy, with the software in some cases proving to be more reliable than human grading. While the results are a blow to technology naysayers, the software is still controversial among certain education advocates who claim the software is not a cure-all for grading student essays. — http://www.aaeteachers.org/index.php/blog/714-study-robo-readers-more-accurate-in-scoring-essays , April 23, 2012 Now, a recent New Yor...

If you're going to develop iOS or OS X applications, you're going to be using Xcode, Apple's integrated development environment (IDE). The blog post is an extremely simple introduction to Xcode. It's so simple that I'm only going to discuss one command in the IDE: the "Run" application button. Before starting to program on a computer, I create a folder (directory) for my programming projects. I call the folder "Programming" to keep the contents obvious. You can name your programming projects folder anything, but be sure you can locate it easily. I like to keep programming projects outside my "Documents" folder, at the top level of my personal user folder. Most of the folders within the home directory for a user are created by the operating system. For example, Apple's OS X creates the following: Desktop, Documents, Library (usually hidden), Movies, Music, Pictures, and Public. The home folder for most users won't have as ma...