@PrairieMoon: That's the Ozzy song that was in the queue, actually. I love the song. :D

@LindaJeanne: Exactly! Even if you forget to take it out nobody will notice! ;)

@Dr.Preston!: GNOME is much more lightweight than, say, KDE.

@Hasteur: L'Arc-en-Ciel? Haven't seen anyone mention them in a long time.

@pinecone99: Try pricewatch.com and see if you can find something cheap if you really want to save it.

@Jason Fitzpatrick: I think we've all had moments like that. Mine always seem to be related to external storage. Every time I buy an optical drive or some other kind of storage, it seems to go obsolete shortly after. Got a new CD-ROM and days later writeable drives were released; got a DVD reader and consumer DVD…

@marco88: Looks like Zim has a completely different purpose. That said, I love you for bringing it to my attention. It will probably be useful for me :D

I don't know how much use I will get out of this, but it's an easy install in Debian and looks like it's worth trying out. Good find.

@ColbertForPrez: Check the downloads page, it has links for how to build it on OS X.

I do something similar, but I use made-up words that are easy to type and won't appear elsewhere. Just to be safe, I also add a note at the beginning of the document that tells what to search for later.

VOTE: LyX

@LuckyLymon: I was going to say something similar, but you already explained it well. Starting with "well . . ." is a good indicator that what follows may be complex or unintuitive, or that the answer is simple but there will be a caveat.

One of my favourite language tools is dict, a dictionary client. On Linux, you can install it and dictd from your distribution's software repositories. (Other platforms, try here)

@MrEvil: Yep, my hand cramps up when I try writing for extended periods even today, but at least I don't get the graphite or ink all over my hands like I used to.

@MrEvil: I said something very similar in an earlier comment. (link to conserve space)

@Posco Grubb: @thenewmrssalazar:

@HalLumos: That being said, even though I'm great with a mouse and have a wacom tablet for my computer, I still prefer to do my drawing freehand.

@Posco Grubb: Yeah, I completely agree with you about that. I don't mind doing some mathematics-related things on the computer, but it's definitely an acquired taste* and I couldn't imagine doing anything particularly complex that way.

@thenewmrssalazar: That's the best part: TeX, LaTeX, and LyX are all open source. No purchase, no licensing, no limits on use. Just download and start using them however you like! You can export to PDF or other formats (DVI, PDF) for accurate printing on other computers that don't have TeX.

@Ghost in the Machine: I have to second what perkypenguins said about touch-typing. If you want to learn to type faster, ignore the drills and download an IRC client (or use some other kind of group text chat) instead.