Before I get into the tedious specifics, let me get right to the main announcement.
Daniel Bartholomew and I are very excited to introduce you to ScriptureLog.
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ScriptureLog
Scripturelog is a free, open source plugin for the popular Wordpress blogging platform that turns Wordpress into a collaborative online LDS scripture study journal.
The plugin installs volumes of scripture into Wordpress as hierarchical, inter-linking pages of books, chapters, and verses. Once the pages are installed, you can use the built-in features of Wordpress by yourself or in collaboration with others to read the scriptures, take notes, and discuss the gospel.
Today my company has arranged for me to attend the first Utah Open Source Conference .
I will be posting my notes on the sessions I attend in a subsequent post when I get a moment. However, it may have to wait until after the Weird Al Yankovic concert at the State Fair tonight.
Some of the most exciting developments in technology are those that break down barriers to entry into areas that have been previously monopolized by a select few.
If you are like me, at one time or another you have considered trying your hand at Screenwriting. Sometimes this desire is inspired by viewing a particularly awe inspiring film. Other times it is provoked by seeing an unbelievably horrible one.
But, like many fields, the barriers to entry into the field of Screenwriting for the uninitiated have felt prohibitive. For years now I have been looking for a free alternative to the expensive commercial Screenwriting software packages. And since I am not confident about correct screenplay formatting and style, I wanted a program with a little bit of hand-holding for newbies.
No such program appeared to be available…until now.
I have just discovered the Celtx project .
Celtx is an open source “pre-production program for film, video, theatre, and animation” based on the same mozilla framework that Firefox is developed from. It includes story development tools for creating “detailed backgrounds for scenes and characters” and for writing “properly formatted script that can be annotated with any type of media, including notes, photos, sound files, and video clips.” It also includes scheduling and collaboration tools for team writing. There are versions for Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000, XP, Mac OS X, and Linux.
When writing a script with Celtx, you simply use the tab key to rotate through the different formatting block types (heading, action, character, dialog, parenthetical, transition, shot, and text) and it automatically sets the correct formating in the script.
Celtx also comes with a short example script for a scene from “The Wizard of Oz.”
With increasingly cheap digital video production tools we are already seeing an explosion in alternative media production and with free software like Celtx, we may, in the not so distant future, be able to provide a viable alternative to Hollywood.
So if you have been sitting around day-dreaming about writing a good movie screenplay, download Celtx and check it out.
When version 1.5 of the wonderful Firefox web browser was released last November, I linked to some of the extensions that I have found most useful.
When the Firefox 1.5.0.1 upgrade was released in February, I found that the spell check extension, Spellbound, was no longer compatible! During the last couple of months, I have visited the Spellbound website hoping for an upgrade that will work in the newest versions of Firefox, but it appears that the project has been dead since before the November release of Firefox.
Today, I am very happy to have found the Spellbound development version available on a different site. Even though it is not a release version, it appears to work great with Firefox 1.5.0.1, and it includes great new features.
This new version spell checks form inputs as you type, underlining misspelled words and offering correction suggestions if you hold down the ctrl key while clicking on the word.
Get the Spellbound development version at:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=351130
(And if you are still aren’t using Firefox as you primary web browser, download it today! http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ )
