Fun writer tools
My installation of Microsoft Word decided to take a dive, and i didn’t have time to deal with it. Fortunately, there are really only two tools I use in Word that I can’t get from WordPad: styles and the word count. For a lark, I tried out Writely, and online word processor. it’s pretty slick, actually. At least at broadband speeds, it feels like an actual desktop application, but since it doesn’t have styles (or word count for that matter) probably the most useful aspect of using it is that it backs up your file to an offsite servier every so often. (I’m not sure how frequently, but for some reason I want to say every 10 seconds.) also, because it’s online, you can then access your files from anywhere, as well as charing editing duties with someone else. But it still doesn’t have a word count, so i was able to find a Word Count tool at Writertopia. Writertopia isn’t out of beta yet, but the did release two cool tools. One is the simple Word Count page, and the other is a progress meter, complete with silly graphics.
Now if only I could get Writely to automatically do a word count and update the reference to a progress meter on my site, that would be interesting.