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Tech Tip 132 - Software for the Serious Blogger – Part 2

By Scott Nesbitt - Sunday, July 29, 2007

Introduction

In our last Tech Tip, we looked at some blogging clients for the PC and Macintosh platforms.  This week, Tech Tips takes a look at some great cross-platform and web-based tools to make your blogging experience even easier and more enjoyable.

Taking It Cross Platform

If, like me, you use multiple operatingsystems (Linux and Windows in my case) and want to keep your blogging experience consistent across those platforms, there are a couple of really good applications for doing that:  Flock and the Sun Weblog Publisher.


Flock

Flock is a Web browser that's based on the popular Firefox browser, but it differs from Firefox in an important way:  it's billed as a "social Web browser." According to its developer, Flock enables you to "share photos, automatically stay up-to-date with new content from your favorite sites,and search the Web." It also packs a nice little blogging client.

Using Flock's blogging client, you can post to just about any blogging application on the Web. Flock's preferred services seem to be Blogger, WordPress, and TypePad. As with the Linux blogging clients discussed earlier, Flock offers only a small number of formatting options. If you want to get around that limitation, you can edit the HTML source of your blog entries directly.

One useful feature of the Flock blogging client, though, is called Web Snippets. You simply drag and drop text or graphics that you frequently use – say, some pithy quotes or a favorite smiley – onto the client and you can insert them whenever you need to. It's like having canned content right on the tip of your mouse.


Sun Weblog Publisher

For many people, a word processor is a very familiar environment for writing. If you use OpenOffice.org or its commercial cousin StarOffice, then you might want to check out the Sun Weblog Publisher (SWP).

SWP turns the word processor component of those office suites into a nice little blog editor.  It enables you to write your entries in a familiar interface, which means that you can easily add formatting, tables, lists, and images. There's no need to fiddle with HTML code, and you have a little more control over the formatting of your blog entries.

On top of that, you can open your old blog entries and save them in OpenDocument Format or as PDFs. SWP supports Blogger, WordPress, Roller, and a handful of other blogging services. You also have to pay for SWP -- $9.95 (USD). It's not a lot of money, and you might find SWP to be worth the price.

Blogging on the Web

Of course, the Web itself offers a few options for the blogger who wants to escape the confines of their blogging software's interface. You can use these tools anywhere, and you don't have to install additional software on your computer. Best of all, many of these applications (like the ones described below) are free and they're definitely easy to use.

WriteToMyBlog

WriteToMyBlog is an online word processor that you can use to create posts for your blog. Well, as long as you use Blogger, TypePad, WordPress, or Movable Type, that is. While its range of supported blogging applications is limited, WriteToMyBlog makes up for that with its range for formatting options.

WriteToMyBlog's toolbar gives you access to a far greater number of formatting options than just about any blogging client out there. You can paste text from Microsoft Word and not lose the formatting, insert images and links, edit HTML code, add tables and character formatting, and more. And you can access all of these functions with the click of
a mouse.

Like Journler, WriteToMyBlog lets you insert photos from Flickr and videos from YouTube into your blog posts. On top of that, if you have multiple blogs through a single service (like Blogger) WriteToMyBlog lets you choose the blogs to which the entry will be posted.

The biggest question mark around this application is security. You're essentially opening your blog account to strangers. According to its developer, though, WriteToMyBlog doesn't save your blog account information on its servers. If you choose to save your account details, they're stored (according to WriteToMyBlog) "using strong encryption in your browser's preferences." So, it's pretty safe. Just use WriteToMyBlog with care.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets

Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a powerful and popular online productivity tool. While it can't match the features and power of Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.org, Google Docs & Spreadsheets can help you tackle a good number of your productivity chores. The Docs component isn't just a word processor -- it's also a good blogging client.

Not only does Docs give you a variety of formatting options as well as the ability to insert tables and images, you can instantly post what you’re writing to a blog. All you need to do is click the Publish tab in the Docs interface. From there, click the You can change your blog site settings at any time link and enter the information required to access your blog (you only need to do this once, unless you move your blog). Then, click the Post to blog button.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets seems to work best with Blogger. That's to be expected, since Google owns both services. But, I've successfully used Docs to publish entries to a couple of WordPress blogs as well. The only aspect of using Docs that I don't like is that you can only post to one blog at a time. You have to keep switching your blog site settings if you want to post the same entry to multiple blogs, or post new entries to a different blog service.

Conclusion

No matter what blogging software or operating system you use, there is a blogging client out there for you. Some have more features than others, but in the end the blogging clients out there give you a lot of flexibility when it comes to maintaining your online presence. If you're looking for a list of more blogging clients, visit this page.