Category: Software

Lee Hopkins, antipodean blogger extraordinaire and contributor to Shel and Neville‘s For Immediate Release podcast, and I have been bantering on various posts about the lack of an offline blog editor that, well, does what we want it to. This led me to make an utterly idiotic suggestion.

There was a recent flurry among the blogging PR community recently about the International Association of Nobodies – an organisation created to provide a refuge for any blogger who has been bullied by another. My suggestion was that we take the IAN as an example and set up our own group: Blogger’s Off Line League Of Content Kreation Systems (the use of K in kreation, is not, as some have suggested, a pathetic attempt to create a childish acronym, but instead a calculated PR move that will certainly add to our appeal to the kidz).

Sadly, I had no idea that Lee was as juvenile as I am. He is certainly giving this project the serious attention it most definitely does not deserve. For God’s sake, he’s even asking for logo designs! Of course, I couldn’t possibly resist that challenge.

I felt that the real requirement here was to create a logo that represented the serious and professional nature of B.O.L.L.O.C.K.S. and this certainly does that. I mean, it would look great on a t-shirt, don’t you think?

So, how far can B.O.L.L.O.C.K.S. go, exactly? As far as we can stretch them, I say. As Lee wrote:

Whenever I next hear young men using the phrase, I shall instantly know that they are talking about offline blog editors.

My thinking exactly.

[tags]B.O.L.L.O.C.K.S., Blogger’s Off Line League Of Content Kreation Systems[/tags]

So, having had a look at a few offline blog editors, what stuff is missing from them all that would be nice to have?

How about being able to moderate and manage comments offline too? It seems dumb being able to post from an editor, only to have to log into your blog’s Admin screen to check on comments. It could make the editor a one-stop-shop for the day-to-day management of a blog.

[tags]offline editors[/tags]

The discussion about offline blog editors only covers a certain amount of the different ways one can blog. For example, one could:

• Use a blog’s inbuilt editor
• Use an offline editor
• Use a browser extension
• Sending posts in via email
• Post link lists automatically from del.icio.us
• Post photos and text from Flickr
• Post news and stories from Digg

I use all of the above, except for the emailing option, which I have never got working with WordPress, though I did when I used Blogger for a short while. I can actually see the use of it, for example, it would allow to blog when mobile by sending an email with my mobile phone.

Most of the uses of these blogging methods are pretty obvious. Posting from Flickr is the easiest way to get a photo onto a blog, and it offers the chance to edit the text. From Digg is a nice way of quickly getting an item from there onto your blog. The pain with these things is the need to edit the post afterwards to add a category or tidy up some formatting.

I tend to use Performancing for Firefox for many of my posts – especially those quick thoughts on something I have read or a change I have just made to my blog. It’s a quick and easy way of getting a post written without letting the momentum slide. I use an offline editor to write longer posts, or ones that just take longer to write. Like this one – I started it last night, and have revisited it several times today before finally posting.

But the WordPress editor still comes in handy, especially when I am blogging from away from home – like in the office, as well as for tarting up and correcting previous entries.

Of course, this isn’t to mention all the other software I use to blog, like The GIMP for photo editing, Writely for taking quick notes or recording thoughts to be expanded on later, Meebo to discuss ideas with other people, and talk things through.

[tags]blogging, wordpress, flickr, digg, blogjet, performancing[/tags]

Following all the recent discussion about offline blog editors, I thought I would give Zoundry a pop, following a recommendation that appeared in my comments from Dan Masters. It’s another free one, and I’m using version 1.0.18 to write this post.

I may as well get it out of the way now: I don’t like it. I genuinely believe that one’s initial reaction to a piece of software is the most important, and from the off I just didn’t get Zoundry. Part of the problem is the cluttered interface:

And the image handling is a bit of a nightmare too. I selected the option to use my blog’s file upload feature rather than Zoundry’s own FTP system, and to be honest, writing this now, I haven’t a clue what it is going to do. The screenshot file I inserted above was automatically reduced down to a thumbnail, but I don’t think it is linked to the original, so I am guessing I will have to sort that out manually later. Update: to be fair to Zoundry, it inserted thumbnails and added links to the full size originals. Using the WordPress filesystem is also an improvement on what BlogJet does – as it keeps all uploads in the same place. Shame the UI doesn’t make it clear just how good a feature this is!

Another user interface problem is in the link box. I select the word I want to link from, hit the (tiny) link button, type in the URL, and the link title, and hit return. Nothing happens. I sigh, and move the mouse to click on ok.

The joy of BlogJet, my #1 offline editor, is it’s simplicity. It has some pretty good features, but the interface is clear and clean and much more pleasant to use:

But Zoundry does have some nice features: being able to tag posts with a number of services, rather than just the standard Technorati, Qumana-style automatic insertion of links from the clipboard, downloading your blog’s entire history to a local backup (it would be interesting to know if this could be used to run two blogs, say one at your normal location, and a ‘backup’ blog at a hosted service, like WordPress.com, say).

But it is the interface that does it for me. Too cluttered, too ugly and the text formatting buttons are way too small. So for me, BlogJet is still my favourite, with Qumana a useful backup option.

Technorati : Zoundry