A couple weeks ago I wrote about the time required to become an expert songwriter. That advice could have been just as well for any craft, not just songwriting. And the number of hours that I referenced, 5,000, was arbitrary. There is no magic … [Read more...]
Average Words Per Song And The 80/20 Rule
In preparation for my 2008 song-a-week project, I wanted some numbers to give me an idea of how much writing I would need to do. Using the 80/20 rule—only 20 percent of my writing will make the cut while 80 percent will go into the waste … [Read more...]
The Best Of Graham English 2007
It's time for my yearly reflections and celebrations. By far the most popular and most controversial post of 2007 was The Zen Of Attraction. I'm surprised at the attention it received because I wrote it as an aside. Some people loved it and some … [Read more...]
How To Use TextMate As NetNewsWire’s External Blog Editor
I used to be an Ecto user but I have since seen the light and call TextMate my be-all-end-all blogging tool. The only thing I missed was being able to use Ecto as my external blog editor while reading feeds in NetNewsWire. Not anymore! Thanks to … [Read more...]
Update Twitter, Facebook, iChat, Adium, And Skype With Quicksilver
I'm a Facebook fanatic. I joined immediately after they opened to the public. In the beginning, there wasn't much to talk about. None of my friends had joined and there really wasn't that much I could do there. But since then, the buzz has caught my … [Read more...]
Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies For Your iPhone
In an attempt to hack their creativity and artistic output, Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt created a deck of cards they called the Oblique Strategies. Whenever they came up against a creative dilemma--and especially while under a moment of pressure or … [Read more...]
How To Expand Your Google Adwords Keywords With TextMate
There are lots of tools out there to expand your Google AdWords keywords by adding brackets (exact match) and quotes (phrase match) to your keyword list. Some of them are free, some are not, and even fewer options are available for Mac. But if you … [Read more...]
My New Method Of Automated Journaling
I've been hacking this auto-journal script for a while and I've recently settled on using a local install of WordPress combined with AppleScript and Quicksilver. It's really pretty easy. Follow MacZealots' tutorial on Installing WordPress on … [Read more...]
SEO Automation: How To Track Multiple Search Engine Keyword Rankings Instantly
With a little help from Dave Taylor, author of a number of cool tech books, including the book that inspired this time-saving tip, Wicked Cool Shell Scripts, I was able to save myself a tremendous amount of time and energy. Time that I used to spend … [Read more...]
Append To Inbox Quicksilver Action
For some people, Quicksilver doesn't work as advertised. For example, I can't get the 'append to...' action to work as a trigger. And since there's one file that I'm continually appending, I wanted to customize my workflow. That's why I created my … [Read more...]