I discovered that some blogging software (including Blog Writer) uses Microsoft Internet Explorer as it’s engine to build articles off-line. The problem is the HTML code generated using this method. It’s not very clean code, and it kept my sites from validating.

One of the podcast networks I belong to (for Motivation on the Run), has a requirement of validation before acceptance to the network. When I tried to validate the website all the articles written with Blog Writer failed. Ones written in the WordPress built-in editor, passed. It took some investigating to discover what went wrong. The posts contained a lot of additional code that caused it to fail. I had to clean them up by hand, and that took some time.

My requirement list isn’t big, but each item is important. End result, no one makes an off-line editor that covers all my needs, but BlogDesk comes close.

Requirements

1. Clean code
2. Good picture handling
3. Post-dated publishing
4. Publish to draft
5. Easy linking
6. Easy HTML insertion

This article is written in BlogDesk and produces the cleanest HTML code of any of the editors I’ve researched and used.

The Good

1. Easy to install and configure
2. Produces good code that does validate
3. Publishes to draft
4. Easy linking to outside articles
5. Easy HTML insertion

Needs to Improve

1. Picture handling

This version of BlogDesk is supposed to handle pictures like I need, but so far, I haven’t been able to replicate the process. It’s probably user error, but if so, the software could use a more intuitive way to handle pictures.

I almost always link pictures to a thumbnail in the article. Every time I have tried this feature in BlogDesk, it doesn’t work. It seems to upload only the image inserted into the post, which it resizes before uploading.

Currently, I write the article in BlogDesk and publish as a draft to the website. Then I head to the WordPress built-in editor and insert and configure the pictures like I want them. This method is working, requiring an additional step. This is an issue I will continue to experiment with.

One of the strongest recommendations for this software is the availability of the author. He is quick to respond and truly wants the application to be the best. That’s a big plus.

[tags]BlogDesk, Qumana, Zoundry Blog Writer, WordPress[/tags]

Reader Poll: Best desktop blog editor? – Lifehacker

Technorati : Lifehacker, WordPress, blogging software

Blog Writer is easy to install using their executable download and clicking “next” a few times. One installed and started, a blog must be setup and configured. For this you need the blog name, URL, and the posting URI for the blog as well as the login and password information. As soon as you set up a blog, Blog Writer retrieves the categories from the site without help. It also downloads all the posts that are on the front page (from what I can tell) and allows for offline editing of posts that have already be published. It doesn’t change the publish date or time, but allows corrections to be handled with ease and then re-published.

One thing to keep in mind, though. The spell checker works great, but the dictionaries are not available with the initial download and installation. They must be downloaded and installed first, but the reason is the different languages that are supported. For me, the English dictionary was the choice and it downloaded and installed in a few minutes.

Once the blogs are configured, you are ready to get started. Opened, Blog Writer looks like any software writing package and is very intuitive. The icons and buttons are familiar to everyone that uses OpenOffice, Microsoft Word or Wordpad.

You can see from this screenshot the new, folder, save and undo arrows, as well as many other that are used every day. On the bottom are all the tools for formating the text. The feature set for this software is bigger than any others because it writes its own inline style sheet for control. Not only can you control the things that are found on other blogging tools, but this allows for additional formatting. Because an inline style sheet trumps a linked style sheet, font styles, and colors can be changed on a whim as easily as highlighting text and clicking a button. Just that easily and presto, chango, red, comic sans MS writing. I have not found this in other software packages. I know that font styles and colors, as well as font sizes need to be under control, but I really like the fact that I can bring attention to a word, sentence or paragraph with just a click of a button. And colors and large fonts do catch the attention of people cruising by your blog. They will stop and at least read the attention grabber, so make it pay off. That’s worth noting. In fact, I have been toying with an idea that I may implement, now that Blog Writer is in my arsenal.

The date and time are just as easy to configure. If you want a post to be available at 10:00 PM tomorrow evening, just set the date and time as you publish and that is when it will publish for public viewing. I have been a clock watcher on this fact, because I use future posting on a daily basis. If I sit down and write several articles in a row, I don’t want them showing up on the website within twenty or thirty minutes of each other, so I spread them out, but posting one at the current time, then posting the second one a few hours later and the rest, the next day. Flawless so far, is all I can say.

As you can see, inserting a picture is easy and the options once inserted are plenty. Drag and drop is supported as well as the insert button on the toolbar. It resizes and inserts the thumbnail, then makes the full size picture available from the website. The thumbnails can be adjusted or tweaked if you want it larger or smaller once it is inserted. It will upload the pictures using the regular upload feature, or it can be set to use ftp to a designated folder. As of this writing, I have been unable to get the ftp option working, but the standard upload has handled anything I have thrown at it.

The save feature, like others, uses the blog title for saving, which makes it easy and fast. I regularly save my articles when I am writing, and this keeps me from having to stop what I am doing and think about a name for a file. It’s just done, no extra thinking required, which is a good thing.

Another capability in Blog Writer is found with a few tabs. There is a tab set for Edit/Designer, which is where you write your post. Beside the designer tab is a XHTML tab that allows you to see the underlying code. The last tab is a preview tab to see what it will look like on the website. The last feature has some shortcoming because it doesn’t take into consideration the width of your blogs columns, displaying everything at whatever width you are working with at the time. It does download part of the Style Sheet to show the article with a header with the proper colors. It’s just weak for me, so I don’t use this.

Another thing Blog Writer does, that I have not had the opportunity to try, is linking to products for buy. I have yet to sign up for an account, but might try it for a future article explaining that feature at length. I really don’t know anything about it, but it looks like Zoundry is an affiliate of another company and with links they, and more importantly, you, can earn cash.

That’s about all I have for now, but will keep you informed if something changes. I do like this ability to change, just for change sake. That is what this week’s Motivation on the Run is about, Change.

Technorati : Blog Writer, BlogDesk, Blogging software, Zoundry

This review is written with BlogDesk and will look at what I like and what I would like improved with this piece of software.

What I like …

1. easy to install
2. works with multiple blogs
3. multiple blogs can be on different platforms (WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, etc.)
4. post to multiple blogs simultaneously
5. handles pictures with ease
6. edit existing posts from your website
7. spell checker
8. control over allowing comments, ping and draft publishing
9. seamless font and positioning control
10. templates for posting
11. technorati tagging

What I would like improved …

1. change date and time w/Wordpress
2. easiness coming out of ordered list (it’s a trick)

The easy to install and working with and posting to multiple blogs are self-explanatory. I have used the simultaneous posting to multiple blogs and it works nicely. Just fill in the check boxes for the blog and category you want it posted to and your done. Picture handling is one of my main reasons for using blogging software. It lets you manipulate the picture placement better and faster than working the html by hand. You can place the pictures where ever you want and either have text above, below, or wrapped around the picture. Easy as pie.

The editing existing posts could be easier, but it does work and allows you to re-publish and overwrite the existing article. The other controls are like working in Microsoft Word. To make your text bold, italics, underlined, or to use strike throughs is as easy as highlighting the word and clicking the header button. The same applies for changing the font color or using the built in highlighter .

If you do a frequent type post, BlogDesk allows you to build a template and use and re-use it to make posting simpler. I have built one for my podcast on Motivation on the Run and will try it out this next week. The ability to include Technorati tagging seems a requirement now for this type software. Every one I have looked at includes this feature, but it is handy.

Saving is done by using the title of the article, so all you have to do is click the save button ever so often and you are in good shape. Any saved article can be retried by clicking on the open icon or menu and choosing which one you want to work on next. This particular post has been in the works for a time and when opportunity presents itself, I open BlogDesk and write another paragraph or two.

There is a good help file included, but you should need it on rare occasion, like how to get out of ordered list mode. And if memory serves me correctly, I had to locate that tidbit on the website because it wasn’t in the help file. Just remember that when you want to stop the numbered list, you must use the “out-dent” button.

The only real problem I have with BlogDesk is the future post option. The software author has been very helpful with this, but it still doesn’t work properly. In the way I write articles, I use the future post feature in WordPress several times each day. At first, the feature didn’t work at all, but in the latest version of the software, 2.5, it works better, but not best. In WordPress, if I want an article to appear at 5:37 PM and set it that way, it appears at 5:37 PM. It works every time flawlessly from within WordPress

and also with the other blogging software I will write about in Part II. BlogDesk will take the future date or time, but if I set it to post at 5:37 PM, it may show up and 10:37 PM or 8:53 PM and that causes me a few problems. Some posts are timed for a reason, and the ability to control that time is essential. I’m sure this will improve as the software matures, but it is a very real issue for my use.

Overall, I am please with this software and would rate it with the following:

• Installation – 5 stars
• Feature set – 4 stars
• Overall – 4.5 stars

Tags: BlogDesk, WordPress, Motivation on the Run, Technorati, Blogging software

Qumana was very easy to install and configure for several of my blogs, with auto-discovering working very well. It picked up the current categories of my WordPress sites and displays them in a box to the right of the writing area. To simplify the description, here is a screen shot of this article.

Putting the picture into this article is much harder than it should be and the software does not offer the option of inserting a thumbnail with automatic handling for the full size picture. The picture does give you the idea of the general layout of the software, however.

The interface is pleasing to the eye and the different features are easily accessible to the user. The text formatting buttons are across the top and allow for bold, italics, and underlining along with alignment tools for left, center, right, or justified with highlighting and the click of a button.

Once the text is where you want it, you can build bulleted lists, again with a quick click and typing.

• You can have a standard un-numbered list

• That allows for putting your items in nice order

Or you can use a numbered list

1. using standard
2. outlining one number deep.

Indent and un-indent is also available by putting the curser where you want and clicking the button. It’s that easy for indenting and marking a block-quote, which is a common need.

The other big feature is spell checking that can be turned on to alert you to mistyped words as you type with the ever annoying red squiggly line. The only problem with this feature is that is puts a red squiggly line under every work you type until the word is complete. Before completion, the line follows the curser letting you know the, so far, this is not a known word. I have turned it off and just run the spell checker before posting an article the nice part is you get to decide what you want to do with it. Check as you go, or all at one time.

Qumana allows you to sign up for an account that lets you insert ads into your blog posts and get paid when someone clicks the link. You are not required to sign up or insert ads, but it is available if you use your site to generate money to pay for the hosting or bandwidth charges.

Here’s the biggest issue I have with this package and why it is the first eliminated from my competition. Qumana does not allow me to set the time I want it to post to my site. Articles written in Qumana post when you publish them and I can find no way around this, and for me this is the death nail. Because of the way I write, this is the second most used item for me. I work on several articles at the same time and might finish them within ten or fifteen minutes of each other. By setting the publish time, I can keep two articles from posting at almost the same time. I also use it to publish articles that are not time sensitive as far as a week in advance in case I get really busy and don’t have time to finish anything else I am working with.

It does, however allow you to allow or dis-allow comment and trackbacks from the choices to the right of the typing area. Also, if you want more room to work with, you are able to hide the properties box and use the full width of your screen.

One feature that I forgot to mention is that the link button will automatically fill in with what ever is on the clipboard, so if you copy an address for a website, all you have to do to insert it is click the link button and it auto fills for you. It made hyper-linking each mention of the software in the article easy to do.

Lately, I have notices several prominent bloggers using Qumana software, and if not for the biggest shortcoming for me, it would still be in contention. If future releases add this feature (future publishing), and they make the picture handling better and easier, I may take another look, however, the other two candidates, BlogDesk and zBlogWriter, do both of these well, although the future publishing will not be completely fixed until the next release.

This article is written and published using the Qumana blogging software. As you can see, it does have a lot of versatility and plenty of features for most writers. By eliminating this software from the competition, I do not want to leave the impression of a less than complete package, because it is not. It just misses on one of my main requirements.

Oh, and it also let you tag the post with keywords. Easy as pie.

Tags: Qumana, blogging software, BlogDesk, zBlogWriter

WordPress on a Stick for Meeting Notes » idano – Dan Masters on Web Design, Blogging, and SEO
While in a meeting, I noticed a guy in my department had some program that he uses to keep track of his notes. I thought that was a good idea and vowed to check the software out when it dawned on me – WordPress on a stick.

Think about it – when you do a post it automatically time stamps it for you. You can setup different categories for different types of meetings or subjects and meeting notes can have one or all of those categories. Also, WordPress has it’s own search engine that searches the content of the posts so you can find all meeting notes with a certain word or phrase in it.

[tags]wordpress, on a stick, great ideas[/tags]

One thing that blogging software, like BlogDesk, makes easier, is picture handling. All that it requires is having a picture on your hard drive and inserting the image. The software does all the heavy lifting by allowing you to decide where you want the picture and the words in relationship with each other. BlogDesk handles this job easily.

It also allows you to make changes to small things, like font color. This is something that can be used for emphasis if not overdone. The other interesting one-click feature is the ability to insert a background color behind the text. This serves the ATTENTION grabber extremely well. I don’t believe I have ever needed this, but just having it available gives me a feeling of power.

One issue that has jumped up with BlogDesk is a feature of WordPress I use on a daily basis, future publishing. It is easy to write several articles and post them at intervals. BlogDesk does not allow for publishing an article later that I can find. WordPress just requires a future date and time stamp, but BlogDesk won’t save the file if the date/time stamp is incorrect. This requires saving as a draft to WordPress and then going there to set the publish times.

Pros and Cons are abundant with this software, but I will save that for a later time. For now, I want to see if all this formatting will show up when published.

It also asks you to set up the media repository, which is the ftp information for your site. Once entered, it tests to see if it will work, and on mine it still does not. It is able to attach to the ftp site, but can not download the proper information to go to the next step. That is something I will work on when time permits.

All three packages (BlogDesk, Qumana, and zBlogWriter) handle Technorati tags easily and zBlogWriter includes six more options for tagging, including Flickr. Font and type, as well as font color are easily changed by highlighting and selecting from a drop down list.

The interface for zBlogWriter is clean and professional looking with a generous space to write in. In full screen mode it reminds me of working in an email client. It has a place for your title, tag words, trackback links and the date and time stamp.

So far, except for the ftp issues, this appears to be a nice package. more later …

Technorati : BlogDesk, Qumana, blogging software, zBlogWriter

I have changed a few setting on the preferences under the Edit menu and things are looking good for this one.

I am a little concerned by the big Qdroppad on my desktop that is always on top and not just a little distracting. I will need to determine if it is necessary and if it can be disabled.

The interface is similar, but more professional looking than the BlogDesk product, but so far the function is identical. Use the typing window to type, with the categories and post options available at the fingertips.

More to come as I use the different products.

Tags: blogging software, qumana, blogdesk

]]> http://www.larryhendrick.com/weblog/2006/04/15/qumana-blogging-software/feed/ 2 http://www.larryhendrick.com/weblog/2006/04/15/an-experiment-and-review/ http://www.larryhendrick.com/weblog/2006/04/15/an-experiment-and-review/#comments Sat, 15 Apr 2006 20:10:54 +0000 Larry http://www.larryhendrick.com/weblog/?p=344 I am looking at different methods of entering posts on the website and am running an experiment over the next few weeks. I have identified three software packages that allow for writing offline along with better file handling properties than the default page on the website. The three programs are also free, which makes them even more appealing. They are BlogDesk, Qumana, andzBlogWriter, and each support themselves in different ways, which will be a part of the reviews.

The plan is to use each for multiple days and write reports as I go, then compile the reviews into a single article. I hope this will be helpful to all of us.

fyi … there are other software packages available, for free or fee, but these are the ones that looked worth trying after going through their websites.

This post is written in BlogDesk and my initial reaction is positive. It is very easy to set up and when I told it I was using WordPress, it know the setup and only required the briefest of interaction from me. This would be great for beginners and works with all major blogging platforms.

Tags: BlogDesk, Qumana, technology, WordPress, zBlogWriter