copywriting

A Mac-owning friend was reasonably showing off his almost-one-click Lorem Ipsum generator, and I wondered if I could do the same in Ubuntu: not just have local generation of lipsum text for Greeking out example content; but also have it so I can summon it entirely from the keyboard, almost without having to stop typing.

It's pretty straightforward to set up, actually. First, you need to download the lorem-ipsum-generator .deb package from http://code.google.com/p/lorem-ipsum-generator/downloads/list. Then, assuming it's gone into your Downloads directory, run:

% sudo dpkg -i ~/Downloads/lorem-ipsum-generator_0.3-2_all.deb

It should install with no further prompting on recent Ubuntu implementations. Run the following to work out where it's installed:

% which lorem-ipsum-generator
/usr/local/bin/lorem-ipsum-generator

It'll almost always be in /usr/local/bin. Next, open System > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts and select "Add". Add a shortcut called "Lorem Ipsum" and use the command "/usr/local/bin/lorem-ipsum-generator -g -p N", where N is the number of paragraphs you'll want to generate at once. You should see this new shortcut at the bottom of the list. Click on the text saying "Disabled" and when the text changes to "New shortcut..." press your desired shortcut combination: on a PC I use START-l, for (l)ipsum. Using the START or Apple key prevents conflict with existing shortcuts.

Now, to copy some lipsum text into your current buffer, you can press:

1. START-l (lorem-ipsum-generator opens)
2. ALT-e (text copied to clipboard, and generator closes)
3. CTRL-v (copy clipboard into your current application)

Three meta keys aren't ideal, but I'm hamstrung by the built-in shortcuts for lorem-ipsum-generator and Ubuntu's clipboard respectively. But that should be it: if you've got a well-behaved application then when you CTRL-v you should be back in the textarea or editing window you just left, and your lipsum should appear. All together now: lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt....

Some six months ago I received a newsletter from a respected company, active in open source, and providing graded services including a reliable free one. However, the first paragraph of that newsletter (ostensibly written by the CEO) said:

We hope you are enjoying the — service for all your — needs. We are passionate about our customer promise: to provide the best online — solution in the market with a focus on ease of use, personalization, security, and privacy. To keep you updated, this monthly newsletter highlights places to use —, new features, the latest market news, and other solutions that you might find interesting. Thanks again for using the — service and please let us know how we are doing.

Today I received an email from Matt Mullenweg. Here's how it began:

If you were living under a rock you might have missed our 2.7 release, which included the most significant interface update in WordPress' short history and has been pretty well-received.

It's also been pretty bug-free, which is why there was a longer-than-normal period of time before an update.

We won't fault you for the rock thing, but for rockers and curmudgeons-who-never-upgrade-to-a-.0-release...

It's probably unfair to single out the first newsletter---after all, lots of companies end up with flat, generic and slightly spammy copy in their newsletters---but my reaction to Mullenweg's email reminded me really vividly of my reaction to the email from the other company. It takes guts to write in Mullenweg's style when you know you're talking to a large and varied audience, but I think it's paid off (to the extent that I'll forgive him the minor typo that just slipped off the end of that quote!)

There's no hard and fast rule for this, except that if you're not interested in your copy then nobody else is going to be. Another tip is to get Matt Mullenweg to write it for you. He's probably got lots of free time now that 2.7.1 is out.