Stuff I will use - LyX and LaTeX

A few hours ago, I discovered the future (and past...) of awesome document editing. Right now I'm in the process of saying goodbye to both Microsoft Office and Open Office.org for something which in my opinion is way better.

LaTeX

LaTeX is a document preparation system. It is a format whose purpose is to give the author a WYSIWYM (What you see is what you mean) way of doing things instead of WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get). Most document editors (like Ms Office and Open Office) go for the other method and require you actually format documents instead of writing them. LaTeX allows you to focus on writing the contents of your document and organize it with common items like images, chapters, sections, subsections, lists, tables, equations and loads more. These are then processed by the editor and are arranged at the end without disturbing the author in the process of his work.

LyX

LyX is the user friendly version of LaTeX. When writing LaTeX documents, you're pretty much writing code, because you have to add certain parameters before paragraphs and such. LyX is not quite LaTeX, there are few features that each system has that the other one doesn't, but they are almost identical in concept and internal format (as far as I know). LyX brings the power of LaTeX to a GUI and even with some differences in format, it also allows you to type LaTeX directives.

What is soooo cool about the system? This is what I find amazing until now, and I expect the list to grow:

• Chapter, Section, Subsection, Subsubsection, Paragraph, Subparagraph system is awesom. It automatically numbers them even if one part is deleted or moved, it automatically creates a Table of Contents which can be added in the document and so on. (You can also add unnumbered sections).
• Consistency in format. I am always bothered with choosing fonts and stuff in Office editors, here everything is simple and there are few common formats that make sense (Enchanced text, Code...).
• Labels and references. You can add a label to a section for example, and refer to it somewhere, where it will print the section number, the page on which it is and so on, even if these move. There are similar labels for Biographical references and so on.
• Notes. You can add notes, and these will not be printed and can be collapsed while editing
• Footnotes. These will be placed at the bottom of the page and can be collapsed like notes.
• Index entries. You know those large indexes at the end of the book? You just add an index entry somewhere in the text with a keyword and if an index is added at the end of the book it will contain this entry with a reference to the page.
• Designed for PDF and DVI formats which are both device independent (and way more professional that god forsaken .doc's - people... please never use .doc's, at least export the PDF).
• Math expressions. That's actually the best thing LaTeX is known for. I've seen several formulas online in LaTeX format and at first I thought that's all it does.

Now you might think "Hey, I want deeper control in the format of my documents". Well there's two very good answers to this:

1. No, you don't. There are so many different document types and formats here for articles, reports, books, letters, math articles, science reports and so on and all of them are standardized.
2. If you still don't like it, well everything is still customizable, so make it the way you want

This has been my best recent discovery and has changed my perspective of what a document editor is supposed to do. I still have to get around a bit with more advanced features but right now it seems Open Office.org is getting kicked out. LyX is also cross-platform and open source (big pluses here).

Enjoy everyone.

Stuff I use - Grooveshark

Before I start talking about Grooveshark, "Stuff I use" will be a category of posts where I intend to describe programs, websites, services... that I have used for some time now and have become an active part of my life.

Grooveshark


Grooveshark is by far the best music streaming service I know out there. Better than Last.fm, better than radio stations. Why?

• It's free (no account required).
• It's does not have geographical restrictions (at least not for Romania, never bothered to check if it works anywhere else).
• Library is updated by users (that means you can find basically ANY song... but sometimes the metadata is a bit off)
• You can play any song, anytime and even seek to any position in the song.
• You have a play queue which can have 200 (I'm not sure about the number, I might be WAY of, this I read in the FAQs and I'm not sure it related to this) which you can play in order, shuffled, repeat none, all or 1 song, and even add cross fade. It's your active playlist.
• You can go into Radio mode, which gives random songs that resemble what is currently in your play queue (like Last.fm does) or you can tune into preset genre radio stations.

Now I don't know details, but everyone there, every FAQ and every forum assures me it's legal even if users upload the music, which is awesome. But that feature list I said up there only scratches the surface. There are also free accounts which add even more great stuff.

• Personal library and Favorites section (5000 songs in library and 500 favorites for free accounts). This can be extended to 10 times the number for VIP accounts (3$ a month - 30$ a year).
• Keep track of user generated playlists. I have no idea how many one can have or how many songs can one contain, but the songs in those playlists don't have to be saved to the library.
• Create songs widgets that can be embedded on any website. (This could be available without an account, I'm not sure).
• Create playlist widgets the same way.
• Social features like friends and stuff.

The only thing I find it lacks is keyboard shortcuts. At least I don't know them. There are shortcuts for the downloadable app which runs on Adobe AIR (cross platform pluses : D) but it's for VIPs only : (.

The website is really too cool for music fans. Here's one of those widgets with a cool song I discovered last night.

Enjoy everyone, and have fun listening.