I’m working on yet another big project. It involves two computers and one mobile device. They all have to talk.
I suppose I don’t need two computers to write a single book. Traditionally (which means since 1987 or so), that’s how I’ve done things.
DOS For Dummies was written on two computers, a Dell 386 PC and a Macintosh SE. The outline was on the Macintosh SE, courtesy of a great outlining program called Acta.
On the PC, I ran a multitasker called DeskView and had at least two tasks running: A DOS prompt and WordPerfect. Occasionally I’d open a third session to go online or play a game. Yeah, DeskView was cool.
I even wrote one chapter of DOS For Dummies on the Macintosh, just because I thought it would be funny. That was the only time I had to transfer files between the two computers: The Mac could read an IBM-formatted floppy, so I moved the file over using that floppy.
Today my setup looks similar: I use a Macintosh as my design computer. There I craft my illustrations using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. On the PC I run Word and write the book’s text.
It’s easy to send files back and forth: The project’s folder on the PC is shared on the network. The Mac can easily access that folder, so to copy files back and forth I drag and drop.
The setup works quite effectively, save for those few times I grab the Mac’s mouse to move the pointer on the PC’s screen.
Oh, and the mobile device is connected to the PC. Screen shots are captured on the PC, but then need to be beamed over to the Mac for editing, then back to the PC for eventually collection and sending to the publisher.
Yes, it’s a strange system, but it works.
Well, it works most of the time. It could work better, even automatically. I’ll explain how in my next blog post.
