A few tips for working with Word 2013

Over the past few weeks, I've been bunkering down to write up a big chunk of work I've been doing for my thesis studies. To make it a bit easier for dealing with some of the journals that this will eventually get published in, I've been doing this work in Word again, having previous stuck to Latex for 3-4 years (with brief stints with LibreOffice).

While I do still prefer to do large docs in Latex (large docs being more manageable when you can just split them up into a collection of small files which can be accessed quite easily, not to mention the nicer reference management, and safe in the knowledge that your images won't disappear or become randomly detached from their captions after a single keypress), and waver between liking LibreOffice and then dropping it again a few weeks later after running into yet more clunkiness/incompatibilities,  it has to be said that there are some nice things about Word.

This post will cover a few things that you may/may not know about working with Word. Some of these I only really figured out recently, and found that they do improve things quite a bit.

4th Anniversary of Christchurch Feb 22 Quake

Lo and behold, it's been four years since the devastating Feb 22 quake struck Christchurch, killing 185 people, flattening a large number of buildings (including the majority of those in the CBD), and terrorising the rest of us to no end. How time flies!



Here is a recording I made yesterday afternoon while having a bit of a thump around on the piano. (As usual, this is non-rehearsed, unplanned, and unedited - it is what it is). Listening to it again, I think it's quite fitting for today and the events that we are commemorating. Enjoy!

A Horrid Day - First World Problems? ;)

Today is turning out to be quite a bad day. Having held off for several weeks, the contractors responsible for digging up the pavements outside houses here in Christchurch finally got around to digging up our side of the street this week (having done the opposite side about 3 months ago, and the street behind us over the last 2 weeks). Why it had to be this week, and actually today that they got to this point it's hard to say...

Looking Back - Childhood Trip to Hamner Springs + Its Links to Blender...

This post was originally going to be a side note tacked on to the end of the previous post. But then it grew and grew until it got big enough to be it's own thing. So, here it is: The story of my 1997 trip to Hamner Springs, and its important links to Blender history...


EDIT: While looking up the maps, I found that I had been mispelling the name of the place. It should really be "Hanmer" not "Hamner". Still, truth be told, I like my spelling more... it sounds more... "tasty" ;)

Spooky Springs, Glitchy Locks, and Broken Lamps

This has been a weekend of mysteriously malfunctioning/misbehaving locks and springs...

DevArt - Graphics Glitches can be Pretty...

One of the things I love about doing graphics development is that sometimes, your code stuff-ups can have some very pretty results that you wouldn't have imagined... Today, I ran into one of these, and decided to capture it for all to see! Enjoy :)