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solecism for january 8

A solecism is a ungrammatical combination of words or a verbal blunder. On the Active Voice blog, “Solecism” is a semi-irregular feature wherein I showcase sentences that need the services of a keen-eyed editor — or that just make me smile.

Our inaugural entry is the opening get antibiotics online sentence of the article, “Why do critics still sneer at sci-fi?,” by Sam Jordison, on yesterday’s Guardian Unlimited Arts Blog:

“The annual Hugo Awards for science fiction and fantasy have been running uninterrupted (with the exception of a brief hiatus in 1954) since 1953. “

this is not your father’s library

Library bookshelvesWe’ve heard it so often, it seems like a truism: in this era of instant electronic information access, libraries are like dinosaurs that don’t know they’re already extinct.

Well, maybe not.

A new survey has found that Generation Wired uses libraries far more often than you might think. In fact, Internet-savvy youth between 18-30 are the largest user group for library research services and resources. Furthermore, the survey found that library usage actually declines with increasing age.

The survey, a joint project of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Princeton Survey Research Associates International, and the Pew Internet & American Life Project, featured telephone interviews with nearly 3,000 U.S. residents 18 years old or older.

You can download a free PDF of the survey report, Information Searches That Solve Problems: How People Use the Internet, Libraries, and Government Agencies When They Need Help, from the Pew website.

Image: iStockPhoto.com

iphone wallpapers

hPDAphone wallpaperIf Santa brings you a shiny new iPhone or iPod Touch this Christmas, why not deck its halls with free wallpapers based on my hPDAphone templates?

Apple opens up the iPhone and iPod Touch to third-party developers in February. That doesn’t mean you have to wait to see what it will look like when you load it up with productivity apps, though.

You can download the wallpapers here, along with the original analog hPDA versions. Amaze your friends, stoke your imagination, and — who knows — maybe inspire a developer while you’re at it. (Click on the image to see the full-size version.)

Active Voice offers wallpapers and hPDA templates as free .png and scalable-vector .pdf graphics that you can download to your desktop and use in your favorite planner. They are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution – Noncommercial – Share Alike 2.5 License.

nara’s new ‘era’: 40 years in the making

Streams of binary digitsOn Tuesday, I participated in a webinar hosted by Government Computer News on “The E-Records Management Tsunami: NARA’s Electronic Records Archive to the Rescue.” It featured Michael Carlson, Director of the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) Electronic and Special Media Records Services Division and was hosted by Joab Jackson, GCN’s chief technology editor. A recording of the seminar is now available (60 min., Real Audio), and it is well worth a listen.

Will NARA succeed in its multimillion dollar effort to solve the federal government’s electronic information management crisis?

Maybe — but we’ll have to wait five years to find out . . .

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you can teach old writers new media

MagicianWhether you write to sell, invite, entice, or provoke, your words can’t do their job unless the audience sees them. In professional writing, distribution is everything. The availability of new electronic distribution technologies only increases the opportunities — and the challenges — for reaching them.

Here are two interesting recent articles on the intersection of writing and distribution, with significant implications for writers:

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one more thing…

hPDAphone Projects template.In conjunction with the launch of Mac OS X Leopard, Active Voice is proud to announce the complete set of hPDAphone templates is now available for you to download and use in your favorite personal planner. Ever since the original announcement back in July, I’ve been introducing new templates every few weeks — a little more frequently than new OS X rollouts, but not by much.hPDAphone template: calendar

What started as a lark has turned into the longest sustained burst of template-based creativity I’ve had so far. The responses have been overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic, and have buy ultram with mastercard spurred me to keep trying to come up with ever-more lickable designs. Along the way, I’ve improved my skills with The Omni Group’s transcendently brilliant OmniGraffle app, which means better graphic design options for my clients, for example QuinnCreative.hPDAphone: Address template

Look for occasional additions to the core set of templates — after all, there’s still a lot of blank space on the home screen. Also, look for a 2008.0 calendar template soon.

And if you decide to mix other templates in with your hPDAphone templates, don’t worry — you won’t brick your hPDA.

nielsen: passive voice must be cheered three times by you!

Putting the Cart before the HorseConsidering the name of my writing and editorial business, you might imagine that I would be skeptical of an article extolling the virtues of passive voice. But what if such an article is written by Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen?

Well, in that case, attention must be paid.

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paperjamming your computer

Cluttered DeskFor freelance writers, it’s all about the clip. All your research files, interview transcripts, and notes are there to help you create a professionally written product. But what do you do with the rest?

Considering how inexpensive external storage is these days, it might seem easier to just keep buying more — and larger — external hard drives or to upload your old files to an online storage provider. But those options have some very tangible drawbacks for freelancers.

As a freelancer, you have contractual and legal obligations to keep certain records for a specified time. Beyond those, disposal significantly reduces the amount of time that a program like Blacktree’s popular Quicksilver requires to index your files. It also cuts down the time — and narrows the results — of keyword and metadata searches.

In short, the less stuff you have to manage, the less you have to manage stuff.

That’s where PaperJamming techniques and templates come in. PaperJamming is personalized file management made fun. Here’s how to implement it on your computer:

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my hpda configuration

My first hPDAI discovered Merlin Mann’s hPDA concept around the same time I discovered the Rollabind disc binding system, and for me the benefits of combining them were immediately self-evident. I hacked my first “field-strength” ring-bound hPDA using covers from an old poly folder, a strap made from an elastic hair band, and three small Rollabind rings; it proved to be rugged, reliable, and indispensable.

The only problem I had was that the thin covers allowed the rings to torque sideways when stored in my back pants pocket, flexing the covers and the cards at their weak hole joints. So when Levenger introduced its CircaPDA this past summer — using the same extra-thick clear poly covers as their other Circa notebooks — I quickly retired my original covers and have been proudly packin’ Circa ever since.

Quality-wise, it was like moving up from a kit car to a Lexus. But regardless of the bodywork, it’s what’s under the hood that ultimately counts. Here’s what’s under mine:

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