Windows

I have been doing quite a lot of manuscript editing recently and realize that many people—including academics—don’t understand the differences between the symbols hyphen, en-dash, and em-dash. So here is a quick explanation: hyphen (-): is used to join words (“music-related motion”). You type this character with the Minus key on the keyboard, so it is the easiest one to use. en-dash (–): is used to explain relationships between two concepts (“action–sound couplings”) or in number series (0–100). I haven’t found a way to type this on Ubuntu, but on Windows, you can use the Alt key and press the ASCII code 0150. On Mac, you get it by pressing the Option key together with the Minus key. In Markdown and HTML code, it can be written with the command –. In LaTeX, it is written --. em-dash (—): is used to break up a sentence—like this one—and can be used instead of commas (,). On Ubuntu, it can be typed with the Alt gr key together with the Minus key. On Windows, you can use the Alt key and press the ASCII code 0151. Mac is the most logical, using the Option and Shift keys together with Minus. In Markdown and HTML code, it can be written as —. In LaTeX, it is written ---. Looking around, I see that it is actually even more complex than this. On a How-To Geek page I learned that the minus sign used in mathematics (−7) is not a hyphen but has its own ASCII code and HTML representation: −. I also learned that from a typographical perspective, there are also “non-breaking hyphens” (‑), “figure dash” (‒), and “horizontal bar” (―). ...

I am back at work after a long vacation, and one of the first things I started doing this year was to reinstall several of my computers. There is nothing like a fresh start once in a while, with the added benefits of some extra hard disk space (not reinstalling all those programs I never use anyway) and performance benefits (incredible how fast a newly installed computer boots up!). I have been testing Ubuntu on an Asus eee for a while, and have been impressed by how easy it was to install and use. I have been a Unix/linux users for years at the university, but have given up every time I tried to install it on any of my personal computers. Ubuntu is the first distro that actually managed to install without any problems, and which also managed to detect most of the hardware by itself, at least enough to actually work on the system. ...