Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

My Turn is Low End Mac's column for reader-submitted articles. It's your turn to share your thoughts on all things Mac (or iPhone, iPod, etc.) and write for the Mac web. Email your submission to Dan Knight .

Programming for Yourself

Marc Zeedar
2001.03.29

My goal has always been to be a writer of fiction, but in the pursuit of that target my life has taken many twists and turns. For instance, in high school I got involved with journalism, and that led to a career in graphic design (the field I'm in today).

I'd been saving my money for an IBM Selectric typewriter (they cost about two grand back then), but then I saw my first personal computer (an Osborne I) and knew my days of White Out and retyping were over.

Once I'd bought a computer, I discovered BASIC programming, and that distracted me for a while. I wrote little games and utilities, and I dreamed of creating amazing things. Later, when I became a graphic designer, I learned to use a Macintosh and knew my PC days were over.

I'd used Borland's TURBO Pascal on the PC, so I bought the Mac version. Unfortunately, writing Mac software was far more complicated than I'd expected. I tried THINK Pascal, and eventually CodeWarrior. I wrote a few half-finished utilities and games, but though I was brimming with ideas, I was hampered by the difficulties. I spent hundreds of dollars buying Apple's Inside Macintosh series but couldn't fathom reading them. Besides, Apple changed everything every few years, and not being a full-time programmer, I couldn't keep up with the rapid API changes.

I tried HyperCard, and it was more my level, but it couldn't really create standard Macintosh stand-alone applications. It was slow, didn't work well with color, and didn't include many standard Mac user interface elements.

Then I read about REALbasic in TidBITS. It sounded exactly like what I was looking for. I downloaded a copy, and in hours I had my own working "SimpleText" word processor. When I saw how easy it was to add a feature like find and replace, I immediately bought a REALbasic license.

Being a writer, word processors have always been a passion of mine. I've gone through dozens over the past decade, but I've always found them frustrating. I hate the behemoth Microsoft Word, and I love the svelte WriteNow, but then the smaller program becomes limiting when you're ready to format your work of art. I'd finally switched to just writing everything in BBEdit, a text editor, because plain text can be converted to any program easily.

The biggest difficulty of fiction writing was organizing my work. For instance, for one of my novels I had collected over 30,000 words of notes in four different word processing formats. I had outlines, ideas, character biographies, scenes, revisions, and research material. And that didn't include any of the actual novel! Trying to find anything - when was Sarah born? - was an exercise in torment.

For years I'd dreamed of my own word processor, something that would make the writing process easier. Then one day it hit me - if all those disparate chapters and notes could be collected into a single file, keeping my novel structured and organized would be much simpler. I launched REALbasic and began to play.

The word processor that was born out of that was Z-Write, the world's first "nonlinear" word processor. I call it nonlinear because it allows you to organize your writing into sections of any length, in any order you like (unlike a traditional word processor in which your text is nothing more than a long, linear scroll). You can mix notes and chapters, and just print one or the other. In a sense, each Z-Write document becomes a miniature database of writing snippets for a large project. At any time you can easily export selected sections into RTF, plain text, or copy them to the clipboard to take to a full-featured word processor.

The idea is simple and easy to use, but revolutionary in its effectiveness. I wrote it for myself, but Z-Write was so cool that I decided to release it as shareware. The results blew my mind.

Not only have tens of thousands of people downloaded the software, but many have purchased it. Positive reviews appeared in various webzines and print publications - MacHome rated Z-Write higher than Microsoft Word!

Even better, from an inspiration standpoint, I've received hundreds of wonderful emails from writers worldwide thanking me for a remarkable achievement. Z-Write is not perfect, and I have many improvements in store, but it's an incredible start.

The key for me is that a program like Z-Write would never have been written by a programmer: it required a writer to see what was needed. I think that's true for most revolutionary ideas.

A programmer thinks about programming. A musician knows music; an architect, architecture; a dancer understands dance. But unless they know how to program, they cannot invent the software needed to assist them in their challenges. If you look into it, all innovative software - the first spreadsheet, the first desktop publishing package - was initially created by nonprogrammers or programmers who had a keen interest in another field. It only makes sense: How can a non-musician understand what a musician needs?

REALbasic gives real programming power to the nonprogrammer. If you can handle a scripting language like HyperCard, you can handle REALbasic. I'm so convinced of the power of REALbasic that I'm starting a magazine and writing a weekly tutorial column for Applelinks.

No matter happens in the future, Z-Write's success has changed my life forever. I had a little idea, threw it out there, and people responded. That's given me incredible confidence in all aspects of my life.

So take a risk! Learn something new! You never know what unexpected good will come out of it.

Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.

Recent My Turn articles

Using Low End Macs for Internet Radio, 08.18. When the local public radio station moved classical music to HD radio, it was time to find another way to listen. An old iMac with iTunes solved the problem.
'That's Not a Computer', 07.30. Salvaging a broken PowerBook by turning it into a desktop computer.
Upgrading a Digital Audio G4 to work better in Leopard, 06.02. In its original configuration, the dual 533 MHz Power Mac G4 was slow with Mac OS X 10.5, but add the right upgrades, and it runs Leopard quite nicely.
My 4 favorite PowerBooks, 05.28. The PowerBook 150 has a big screen for a vintage PowerBook, the 165c has color, the 100 is diminutive, and Lombard has USB and a great keyboard.
More in the My Turn index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: 17" MacBook Pro Core Duo, Apr. 2006 - The top-end MacBook Pro includes a 1680 x 1050, 2.16 GHz Core Duo CPU, and supports Apple 30" Cinema Display.
Group of the Day: G4 List is for those using Power Mac G4s or G4 upgrades.
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

Best iPod nano Deals, 11.25. Refurb 8 GB 4G nano, $99; new, $126; refurb 16 GB, $129; new, $150; new 5G/8 GB, $134.60; 16 GB, $161.12. Shipping included.
Best Classic Mac OS Deals, 11.25. System 6.0.8 floppies, $10; 7.1, $12; 7.5, $20; 7.6 $13; 8.1, $11; 8.5, $20; 8.6, $90; 9.0, $20; 9.2.2, $30.
Best 15" PowerBook G4 Deals, 11.25. Used 1 GHz Combo, $400; 1.5 GHz SuperDrive, $449; 1.67 GHz hi-res, $600.
Best G4 iMac Deals, 11.24. Used 15" 700 MHz CD-RW, $150; 800 MHz Combo, $229; 1 GHz, $289; 17" 1.25 GHz, $200; 20" 1.25 GHz, $509.
Best MacBook Air Deals, 11.24. Used from $899; refurb from $1,099; new 1.6 GHz/120 HD, $1,150 after rebate; 1.8/64 SSD, $1,150 a/r; 1.86/128 SSD, $1,350 a/r; 2.13/128 SSD, $1,694 a/r.
Best PowerBook G3 Deals, 11.24. Used 233 MHz WallStreet, $75; 266 MHz, $160; 400 MHz Lombard, $199; 400 MHz Pismo, $289; 500 MHz, $350.
Best 12" PowerBook G4 Deals, 11.23. Used 867 MHz SuperDrive, $348; 1 GHz Combo, $379; SD, $519; 1.33 GHz, $529; 1.5 GHz Combo, $549; SuperDrive, $609.
Best Mac Pro Deals, 11.23. Used 2.66 GHz 4-core, $1,300; 3.0 4-core. $1,919; refurb 2.66 4-core Nehalem, $2,149; 2.93, $2,549; 2.93 8-core, $4,999; new 2.26 8-core, $2,290.
Best Time Capsule and AirPort Deals, 11.23. Used 802.11g AirPort Extreme, $49; 500 GB Time Capsule, $150; new, $190; 1 TB dual-band, $280; 2 TB, $469; 802.11n AirPort Extreme, $170.
More deals in our archive.

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.