Earlier this week I signed up for a blogger account. God only knows why. I mean I've so many options open to me. They include the OpenDiary.com diary I've had for six years. I stay with this one off and on as I've developed a small community of friends and it's been my main blog when I get tired of all the hype from all the others. Will still use it eventhough I may not use it much at times. Then we had a livejournal account for a short time. I just didn't like it just because I was silly and didn't totally get the whole "BLOGGING" thing. Then I think my next one was MySpace. And I liked that one until I started getting reports of people, friends and family, not being able to access the blog and MySpace got too junked up. I still have a MySpace account but haven't updated it in quite a long time. Then we have FaceBook's "Notes" feature. I like this but it has the drawback of having a limit on how much one can rant about in a given note and anyone who knows me or has read me I can go on and on and on and on.
ONe problem I've had with all these services is they are web based and you have to be online to use them. One thing I hate is I work really hard on an entry and hit the post button and sit and wait and wait and wait and all I get back from VO is "Busy" and then the stomach dropping notice that Safari quit unexpectedily... And unless I was using OpenDiary that autosaves your last sesson, there a well crafted, or at least wordy document has gone to that trash basket in the sky.
I'd love OpenDiary even more than I do now if they designed a OSX platform for an off-line blog editing program. And who knows this MarsEdit that I *AM* going to get around to talking about may be able to handle Open Diary.
So. I had been hearing on things like Screenless Switchers and the Mac-cessibility podcast and on a few webpages people talking about this MarsEdit thing.
I had thought early on it was a website publishing tool, but when I found out it was just a blog publishing tool I was thinking forget it. And passed it by.
However, as I've this new blogspot account, and I remember hearing about blogspot on the little website for MarsEdit I figured what the hell. Once I found out it had a 30 day free go I downloaded and installed it.
The only problem was it came to me in the form of a zip file and I still, after having switched to mac over a year ago haven't the slight where zip files go when they become unzipped files.
But this was solved when I first tried searching for any new files downloded that day, and then for the keywords "MarsEdit". This second one paid off and it looks as if the things unzip in the same folder the zip files are downloaded to. I recently changed where my download files go but am thinking of changing it back.
Once installed I went to my Macintosh HD and to applications and then made a little icon pop up on my desktop. Could of stuck it in the doc and this I may still do, I'm just lazy and have yet to drag it to the doc.
As I remember it, other than finding the MarsEdit program after unzipping the program was more or less straight forward to get running.
I'm sorry. I hadn't intended on reviewing a software so early on in my blogspot life and didn't exactly pay strict attention to how easy the install was. Installing stuff is still an area on the mac that slightly confuses me. Perhaps as it isn't as big a dramatic pain in the ass as installing things on Windows. Ya tend to really remember the painful things in life...
Well obviously I've got it up and running and I don't remember having to employ my government issued "sightling in a box" (TM).
Okay well when you first run MarsEdit it walks you through connecting it with a blog. It asks you if you've one already and if you haven't any it will help you set one up. After this you can connect other social networking things like Twitter to it and there ya go.
I really haven't fooled around with it a whole lot outside of filling the internet with even more crap than it otherwise would have.
I haven't clearly sorted out how to envoke and make use of the spelling checker. It seems a bit strange so might in future copy my finished blogs to TextEdit or Mail to spell check. For now though, you get my stunningly misspelled blatherings right from my slightly wonky brain to the world.
For the most part I've not run into too many problems using voiceover with the program. All the toolbar menus are nice nad labled although there is a bit down at the lower right that says "B" and makes a beepy noise at me. Not sure what that is about. Also you have to make sure the publish to thing isn't set to drafts otherwise when you hit publish to blog it jst publishes locally and will not show up on blog spot. This has got me the last two times I've gone to publish. I set it like this in settings so I could be sure to have a copy even though there is a save draft option. All you have to do is go down and change from draft to published in the pop up button and it should publish your blog in moments.
Another feature I really love that has been around for ages that I'm late to the party with are tags. I love tags! You can sort your posts into tag groups so if you blather on and on about Ben Folds and say the nice young men in the clean white coats want to see how obsessed you are, they can poke around your blog and see you've 493857203437584921 entries where in you've talked about Ben Folds. Or Macs, or blogging or whatever.
You can make your own tags and the list grows as you write about new things requiring new tags. You make them up and add them and they are kept in a nice little list with check boxes and so say your second blatherfest about Ben Folds you don't have to retag it you just check the Ben Folds checkbox. Easy as pie.
One last thing I'll say before I go to is one good thing about off-line editing is if you need to hunt up sites for information you can go to Safari and look stuff up without going off your edit page. Also the publishing seems to take place much quicker.
I think I will buy this program next week when I get money. It is $30 USD and seems well worth the money. There are some things like adding media that I don't know how to do yet and as I learn I will share but for now I strongly recomend this program. It is fairly accessible and over all makes blogging easy as composing an Email. I'll paste bits from the marsedit website below in case my rambelings haven't been convensing enough. *smile*
The addy is:
http://www.red-sweater.com/marsedit/
Press, Awards, and Links
“Nearly every word I write for Daring Fireball is published through MarsEdit.”
John Gruber, Daring Fireball
“Anyone who’s ever lost a Weblog post owing to a browser freezing or site going down will appreciate this tool.”
Lisa Schmeiser, Macworld
“MarsEdit is a joy to use.”
Derrick Story, O'Reilly MacDevCenter.com
You love MarsEdit, too? Why not blog about it?
Also consider showing your love by putting this badge on your site. Thanks!
Badge by Rick Graham
MarsEdit 2
Download And TryPowerful Blog Publishing For Your Mac.
Write, preview, and publish without a web browser.
Why Blog From Your Mac?Why Blog From Your Mac?
Browser-based interfaces are slow, clumsy, and require you to be online to use them. While your blog's web interface struggles to perform the simplest of tasks, MarsEdit uses the power of your Mac to provide an amazing blog editing experience. MarsEdit is a desktop blog editor, so you can write a blog without giving up the comforts of your Mac.
Intuitive Interface
MarsEdit's no-nonsense interface works just like email. Edit your drafts in a convenient text editor, spell-check, and publish.
Flickr Powered
Quickly scan your entire Flickr library, then insert an image into your blog post with the click of a button.
Wildly Compatible
Works with WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, TypePad, Movable Type, LiveJournal, Drupal, and Vox. And that's just to name a few.
Easy Uploads
Upload images and files directly to your weblog. When you want to reuse an item, just select it from the media catalog.
Perfect Previews
Build a template to match your blog, then let MarsEdit's live preview show you how your posts will look before you publish them.
Re-Blog It!
Add a "Blog This" bookmarklet to your browser, and start new MarsEdit posts with the click of a button.
Powerful Markup Macros
Tired of typing the same things again and again? Set up macros with MarsEdit to easily insert commonly used snippets.
Offline Freedom
Write when you want to, without an internet connection. Fine-tune your masterpiece on the plane, and publish when you get home.
Use Your Favorite Editor
Combine the power of MarsEdit with your favorite editor. Integrates cleanly with BBEdit, SubEthaEdit, TextMate, or TextWrangler.
Custom Features
Extensive AppleScript support makes it possible to add features we haven't even thought of. The sky is the limit!
Note to self... Get a flicker account. Why doesn't photobucket get support? Ah well just as well as all my photobucket album is a jumble of unorgnized crap. I do want to post pictures in my blogs so what is one more photo album site online to go with "MySpace, "FaceBook" and "PhotoBucket"? LOL Well that's all Ive got to say. Go download this nifty little program. I'm sure you'll like it too. P.s. to myself, read the help files and pay stricter attention next time you get a software that you may review so you don't sound like a kid making up a bookreport on a book they didn't read just skimmed. LOL It will make you look less demented...
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