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Workflow of Dual CRIMPers -- those fortunate folks using both Macs and Windows PCs
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Posted by Franz Grieser
Apr 5, 2010 at 08:40 AM
Hi.
Similar situation here as for Steven and Tom.
I work mainly on a Windows PC and a Windows Tablet PC using OpenOffice.org, Microsoft Office, OneNote, Xmind and an old Infoselect database I still maintain for one project.
On these machines I write articles and books for a living. The books usually have to be written and pre-typeset in Word. Writing in Scrivener would be great but that would involve a additional step that I spare.
What I really miss is something like Tinderbox for two new projects (a mix of workshops, coaching and - finally - a book).
At the moment, I use a Mac Mini running Scrivener and OpenOffice.org (for compatibility) for writing a novel. The writing itself is done either on the Mac or on my Tablet PC or my desktop PC. For a long time, I simply used a USB stick to import the RTF or DOC files from Windows into Scrivener. I just give Dropbox a try to see if that works for me.
And I just started using Tinderbox again for the two projects mentioned above. Input will be written on the Mac and on my Windows PCs. I am still experimenting how to get the input into Tinderbox.
My only cross-plattform application is Xmind that runs fine on both Windows and Mac OS X.
Franz
Posted by Cady
Apr 6, 2010 at 03:05 PM
Thank you all for your input, it’s a big help to see it from your perspective. So the way to go is probably: (1) Share between platforms mainly a selection of documents - PDFs, RTFs, (DOCs),TXTs - using a sync service (sugarsync, dropbox etc.) or a USB thumb drive (or my iPod for that matter, set to enable disc use); (2) Consider a minority of cross-platform applications (Evernote, Personal Brain, Xmind etc.); (3) Deal with the harsh fact that at some point, one stops trying so hard to maintain identical sets of data on his two machines…
Cady
P.S. I’m trying my best to resist the temptation of downloading Tinderbox…
Posted by Franz Grieser
Apr 7, 2010 at 09:13 AM
Cady
>P.S. I’m trying my best to resist the
>temptation of downloading Tinderbox…
To be honest, the trial edition of TB is too limited (in my opinion) to give you a fair impression of the software’s power.
Instead:
- Read Steve’s Tinderbox Chronicles (part 1 - 3): http://welcometosherwood.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/an-introduction-to-tinderbox
- Take a look a the various screencasts provided by Eastgabe: http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/Screencasts.html
- And read the “Basic techniques” section on the Tinderbox Wiki: http://www.eastgate.com/wiki2/
Franz
Posted by Cady
Apr 7, 2010 at 01:01 PM
Franz,
Thank you for the warning and the advice. I’m off to browse those links (love the weblog!).
Cady
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Apr 11, 2010 at 01:05 PM
Just for the record, Cady’s summary of the various input, also covers in a nutshell my own experience working between Windows and Linux.
An additional disadvantage in the case of Linux is that some ‘cross-platform’ programs available for Windows and Mac are not available for Linux; Evernote is one example of a such a program which I use regularly.
An advantage is that there’s a lot of excellent free/open-source software to choose from.
Last but not least, another program that I have praised here in the past and which has helped me very much (within a network) is Agynamix Simidude, a cross-platform clipboard shared among networked machines.
Cady wrote:
>Thank you all for your input, it’s a big help to see it from your perspective. So the way
>to go is probably: (1) Share between platforms mainly a selection of documents - PDFs,
>RTFs, (DOCs),TXTs - using a sync service (sugarsync, dropbox etc.) or a USB thumb
>drive (or my iPod for that matter, set to enable disc use); (2) Consider a minority of
>cross-platform applications (Evernote, Personal Brain, Xmind etc.); (3) Deal with
>the harsh fact that at some point, one stops trying so hard to maintain identical sets
>of data on his two machines…