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Speare word processor
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Posted by Amontillado
Dec 6, 2017 at 01:54 AM
It’s an interesting catchphrase for software to make writing fun. Fun with writing starts with a Big Chief tablet and a pencil. I obsess over writing tools, but that’s the baseline requirement for getting a kick out of writing.
My grandpa gave me a portable Smith Corona when I was still in elementary school. That was life-changing. Sitting in the back seat of the family Rambler on the road, typing stuff. Whatever came to mind. Stories. Letters. Great fun.
Then came the day my Dad bought a Selectric. I’ll never forget rolling a sheet of paper into it one day and thinking it wasn’t the same thing as my S-C portable. That Selectric was a mighty engine of communication. That I couldn’t influence the course of starships in the galaxy wasn’t the Selectric’s fault. If the starships had been there, that electric typewriter and a first class stamp would have done fine.
Fortunately, for whatever subscription bubble may burst, open source projects will never disappear.
I like my pretty tools. Emacs works, too. With a spoon I can tunnel out of Alcatraz, and with that Big Chief tablet I can tell the story.
Posted by Hugh
Dec 6, 2017 at 11:06 AM
Ah, the IBM Selectric. What a wonderful machine. I and two friends ran a student magazine from one at university. The Selectric itself was highly prized. If you wanted to bring a rival magazine to its knees, you “liberated” (i.e. stole) its Selectric. This was especially prone to happen if your magazine was political in some way. Fortunately, our magazine was listings and reviews, so it never happened to ours. Happy days!
Posted by Paul Korm
Dec 6, 2017 at 01:40 PM
Their privacy policy is vague about security and encryption. Bad policy.
What appears to be a desktop version of the same app is available for download from the developers’ site—“Ribozum Author”
Posted by tightbeam
Dec 6, 2017 at 11:24 PM
Do you have a direct link to the desktop download? I couldn’t find it on ribozum.com. Registering for an account doesn’t seem to accomplish anything.
Their Kickstarter last year was a failure:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/speare/speare-a-revolutionary-writing-experience
I kinda like the software, but their oddball website, failed Kickstarter, dodgy security policy, and Facebook page that hasn’t been updated since August 2016 make me reluctant to use it.
Paul Korm wrote:
Their privacy policy is vague about security and encryption. Bad
>policy.
>
>What appears to be a desktop version of the same app is available for
>download from the developers’ site—“Ribozum Author”
>
>http://www.ribozum.com
Posted by Paul Korm
Dec 7, 2017 at 01:19 AM
Click the link I posted, scroll down to “Get the windows app for free”, click “Get the App”, register with a phony email address (they don’t send any email so it doesn’t matter). It took me a while to realize that as soon as I was registered I was logged in, so I clicked again on Get the App and was taken to a download page. Don’t forget to copy the license number before downloading because you’ll never have another opportunity to do that.
Much of their website is non-functioning abandonware—which could be indicative of the future for the the products, too.
bobmclain wrote:
Do you have a direct link to the desktop download? I couldn’t find it on
>ribozum.com. Registering for an account doesn’t seem to accomplish
>anything.