Writer & Geek

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Writing can be a daunting task. It can be extremely time-consuming. Or sometimes it becomes hard to put your ideas on paper. Over the course of our journey as a writers, We have come across various tools which helped us write better. And here, We are going to share some of it with you.

{11:58} Grammarly is among one of the best writing tools out there. It checks the spellings and grammar, with the ability to switch from American and British English. It also comes with an extension which you can add to your browser which is quite handy while framing emails or commenting on someones Facebook status. Saves you from the embarrassment of spelling and grammar mistakes. The paid version has a lot more features such as proofreading, plagiarism checker, vocabulary enhancement, and a lot more. But yeah, it costs around $11/month. One of the downside is Grammarly is not available on phones or tablet devices. You need to have a computer or laptop at your disposal to use it.

{13:12} If like an Indian, you need things for free, look for another tool called Hemmingway App. It is an app which “makes your writing Bold and Clear.” The thing cool about this tool is that it checks the readability and identifies adverbs, passive voices, simpler alternatives for words, hard and very hard sentences. The whole process of proofreading becomes so much easier.

{16:02} As the plagiarism checker comes under the premium plan of Grammarly, we use Small SEO Tools Plagiarism Checker. It is as effective as Grammarly and helps you find out anything which is remotely plagiarised. Simple to use and easy to identify.

{17:32} The Microsoft Word helps you transfer and share files by the use of OneDrive. You also get to store these files without wasting any space on my computer. So, when I am working remotely or do not have access to a computer, I use OneDrive to share the files with my clients.

{18:37} Celtx is a tool used for script writing. The ease to use, the ability to switch from scene to scene, the transition, writing dialogues, everything becomes so easy with Celtx.

{20:14} Pixabay is not so much of a tool, but it is a website where you can source royalty free images. I have been using the images from this website for almost all my blog posts. You can even edit the stock pictures to personalise for your use. You do not need any permission or licensing. Makes life a lot simpler.

{22:26} Sometimes the stock images sourced from Pixabay or any other royalty free image website might not suit in itself to be a blog post image. This calls for a bit of editing which can be done with Canva. It is one of the best editing tools that can be used online. You get the ability to make Facebook, Instagram, Twitter posts with ease using this handy tool. You will also find stock images on Canva which you can use for free.

{25:27} A logo plays an important part in the marketing aspect of any business. Inkscape is an amazing and easy to use tool for creating logos and manipulate with the existing pictures and turn them into vectors. It is easy to learn and if you have any plans to get into logo making you should check out Nick Saporito’s Inkscape tutorials. He explains it in detail and with complete correctness. Do go check his channel out.

Image: Pixabay

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This episode is a discussion on the evolution of our musical taste over the years. From BSB to John Mayer!

Image: Pixabay

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{00:00} Contrary to popular belief, Columbus did not actually discover America. Almost 500 years before Columbus, Lief Ericsson, a Viking, landed on the coast of Newfoundland. But even he wasn’t the first to reach Americas. Native Americans had already migrated to this region thousands of years ago.

{02:50} We discovered the existence of Neanderthals in 1856 when quarrymen found the fossils of human-like species in the Neander Valley in Germany. In the 1820s, a skull was discovered which belonged to a neanderthal girl. But this discovery did not get much attention.

{04:28} Neanderthals lived in caves which were intricate in design with many passages and were dark. Everything happened inside these caves, everything! They had a social life where the young took care of the old. After death, the buried the corpse and they were very interested in making jewellery, paintings and carvings.

{06:32} The biological characteristics of Neanderthals were different from human beings to adapt to the cold climate of Europe. They had a stockier body with muscle mass and were shorter than modern humans. They had to adapt to the severe cold of the ice age as well. They weren’t as athletic as human beings. Once they settled down in Europe, they did not move around much. They had a larger cranial capacity.

{08:30} A study of the ear canal of Neanderthals revealed that they were not very agile. The evolutionary changes happened to the Neanderthals when they were settled in Europe. They were comfortable with the conditions in the areas they settled down. There wasn’t much innovation that happened during their time of existence compared to humans who were innovating.

{12:20} Humans explored more of the world and migrated to different parts of the world and also the population of modern humans were increasing compared to Neanderthals who never exceeded more than 70,000 in number at any given time. Humans were agiler and made advancements in making weapons and tools like the invention of bow and arrow.

{13:58} There was a time where modern humans and Neanderthals co-existed. There are different theories on how Neanderthals became extinct. Some speculate that humans killed them off or we interbred into them and slowly all the purebred neanderthals ceased to exist.

{15:42} Since they were stocky, and lived in dense forests, they used heavy spears and hunted in close proximity. Since they were muscular and strong, they could hunt with spears. The dense forests later retreated back and areas turned into grasslands and this caused a difficulty for them to hunt for prey. They had a higher metabolism rate than humans. This meant they had a bigger requirement for food. There are multiple such reasons that ultimately resulted in their extinction. Diseases might also be a reason for their wipe out. Humans migrating from Africa might have carried diseases which Neanderthals weren’t able to survive.

For now, it remains a mystery as to why such a species ceased to exist.

Image: Pixabay

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We continue our discussion on podcasting and get into the technical aspects of recording and producing a podcast.

{01:00} Podcasting is huge in North America. But the similar growth isn’t seen in Europe and Asia. This is mostly attributed to the fact that English is the primary language in North America whereas there are a wide variety of languages spoken in Europe and Asia.

Apart from this, most people in North America use apple devices whereas Android is more popular in Europe and Asia.

{03:30} Walkthrough of the podcasting equipment and software used for Writer & Geek Show. We started with a Samson Meteor Mic. But this being a condenser mic, we had to record late nights due to the ambient noise that came through.

{06:00} We use Audacity for our software processing. Audacity is a free software that can very well handle the processing required for podcasting. ALong with Audacity we used Voicemeeter as a virtual mixer for combining the inputs from two Knox USB/XLR mics which we use now. We also use a software called Levilator which helps in levelling out the audio volume throughout the episode.

We also purchased Yamaha MG10XU mixer. This is very versatile entry-level mixer and has helped us drastically improve our audio.

{12:35} Podcast can be managed using CMS like WordPress but for our podcast, we use Jekyll as the CMS. A custom rss feed is created and submitted to iTunes. For submission, an Apple ID is required and the podcast feed is submitted to iTunes. Once verified, the podcast will be available on iTunes.

{13:55} There are many apps for listening podcasts for mobile phones and desktops. Our favourite is Pocket Casts. It has an Android app and a web player. It is lightweight and very user-friendly.

{15:32} Media file hosting has to be separate from the web hosting. We use Libsyn for media files. there are other services like SoundCloud and Simplecasts etc.

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Our podcasting journey started few months back with the launch of Writer & Geek Show. In this episode we discuss on how we started podcasting and how you can start one too. We also talk about the advantages of having a podcast.

{04:15} Vishnu started listening to podcasts back in 2014 starting with Shop Talk Show. Somewhere in 2015 he started a podcast without having a clue as to what the podcast should be all about. Without any good recording setup, he created episodes using his iPad and hosted the mp3 files on Google Drive.

{08:52} Interest in podcasts was revived and we decided to start a show. We discuss science, tech and history most of the times, so we decided to put it online for an audience to listen. Motivated to create, we upgraded our podcasting equipment as well. Started with just one USB condenser microphone. Now we have a complete setup with dynamic mics, mixer, headphones etc.

{13:00} Motivation is to have these conversations and learn as we produce episodes. Shankar writes at Rambling Joint. WHich serves as an inspiration for the podcast research and vice versa.

The discussion then moves on to the Writer & Geek Show and how we started it.

Image: Pixabay