George Orwell on Writing and Thinking

From Politics and the English Language:

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you – even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent – and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.

…

What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is surrender to them. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing you probably hunt about until you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one's meaning as clear as one can through pictures and sensations. Afterward one can choose -- not simply accept -- the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions one's words are likely to make on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally. But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Worth rereading every once and a while.

Switcheroo version 0.4

I’ve released a new version of Switcheroo, the humble incremental-search task switcher for Windows.  Changes in this version include:

• The list that prevents certain windows from appearing in the main window is now editable from the options dialog.  (For example, “Program Manager.”)
• The main window now resizes to the full width and height of the list.
• Fixed a few minor bugs and tested on 32-bit Windows 7.

Essential Windows Tools

When working, I like everything on my computer “just so.”  I want to do things quickly and with minimal mental overhead.  Here’s a list of (developer-centric) tools that make that possible:

• VirtuaWin. This is hands-down the best virtual desktop manager for windows.  With a bit of tweaking, you can switch between desktops instantaneously by bumping your mouse pointer at the edge of the screen while holding down the control key. 
• xplorer2. I use the free “lite” version.  Great features:
• Tabbed views (just like your browser).  Keeps the taskbar clean.
• Filter a directory listing quickly using ctrl-h. 
• When in a folder, pressing F10 and enter starts a command prompt in that folder.  (With a bit more tweaking, get a cygwin bash prompt.)
• Cygwin + minTTY.  If you spend time on the command prompt, it’s worth it to learn your way around bash.  And MinTTY’s native-windows interface – with fully resizable windows and transparency – is worth the price of admission alone.  I don’t use the built-in command prompt any more, and neither should you. Great features:
• Color coded directory listings and grep results. 
• Press control-r and search backwards through your command history.
• Switcheroo. Yes, I wrote it, but what of it?  Switching between (and closing) running applications using incremental search keeps me from reaching for the mouse and breaking my concentration.
• Slickrun.  A floating, auto-completing prompt that lets you quickly open programs, folders, and websites.  With some batch-script ingenuity, the possibilities are endless.  For example, I can type “vup” or “vdown” to quickly adjust the volume.  Or “newmail” to write a new e-mail in Outlook.  For most commands, I only have to type the first few letters. Set up tip: change the colors, make the font larger, and set it to autohide and chase your mouse cursor. 
• Emacs. The One True Editor.  Learning it is a commitment, but worth it.  If you take the plunge, grab Ctrl2Cap and remap your caps lock key as another control key.  With a bit of setup, plays very well with Cygwin.
• Winsplit Revolution.  Not as essential with Windows 7’s built-in window positioning, but the fusion mode is still great. 
• Password Safe.  Securely encrypt a list of all your passwords.  Now you only have to remember one, which lets you online banking passwords more complex and harder to brute-force.  And you’ll stop using the same one everywhere.