Skip to main content

Damnit - I'm Beholden to a(nother) Windows Application

WriterSplash So, I'm finally getting back to blogging. I had a very long hiatus. Sorry about that.

It seems that life got in the way (if you call getting married and starting up a new company "life" - I know I do).

Anyway, back to the same old blogging tools on the Mac OS X platform. Nothing really satisfied my needs. I had previously been using Qumana, and wrote some positive articles on it before. It's unchanged in the last year, and still pretty good, but it did leave me wanting more and something that felt a bit more "solid".

Best likely candidate would be MarsEdit. I love what Daniel Jalkut is doing with this application. Great stuff. But, I am one of those types that wants a WYSIWYG-like experience. I'm quite good at flinging around markup, I just don't want to have to do it while I'm writing - it's just too distracting from the task at hand. MarsEdit does have some excellent image integration, and I feel that at some point it WILL be my blogging tool of choice. I'm continuing to watch.

Last year, I tried Adobe Contribute 4, and even participated in the Adobe Contribute CS3 Beta test. While it is WYSIWYG, it's just not for me. The team made significant progress in the CS3 edition, but the tool still had lots of little problems that distracted from the writing experience and the application itself was quite the resource hog.

If you are seeing a theme here, it's all about reducing distraction; reducing friction in the writing process.

OK, so I decide that my new wife needs to blog about what we learned while planning our wedding. She's a Windows user. So, I set her up on her own Wordpress blog and find her a blogging tool to use. I chose Windows Live Writer.

And, you know what?

Windows Live Writer rocks!

Every bit of it is very well done. And, it's FREE. I do hate to say it, but you have to give Microsoft props when they get it right. Well done WLW team!

So, for now, I will be blogging with Windows Live Writer running from my VMware Fusion based version of Windows XP executing on my MacBook Pro (when on the road) or my iMac (when at home). Now, that's a mouthful.
Labels:

Comments

  1. VirtualBox Corrupts My VMware VMDK Files! at Brian Berliner’s BrainJune 22, 2008 at 10:58 AM

    [...] started blogging again, and wrote about how I am now using Windows Live Writer as my blog editor. Problem is, that I use Mac computers [...]

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bill PetroJune 30, 2008 at 1:53 PM

    Brian,

    Since you wrote this, are you still enamored with Windows Live Writer? Have any of the Mac applications since improved? I'm frustrated by the lack of ease-of-use of the WordPress editor, and am looking for something more powerful, and more drag-and-drop friendly.

    Thanks,

    -Bill

    ReplyDelete
  3. Brian BerlinerJune 30, 2008 at 11:12 PM

    Hi Bill,

    Nothing new to report. Windows Live Writer is still the best blog editor on the Mac. It's sad, but true.

    Rick Segal (of JLA Ventures, Canada) seems to feel the same way. Check out:

    http://ricksegal.typepad.com/pmv/2008/06/thanks-but-they-aint-windows-live-writer.html

    Enjoy!

    -Brian

    ReplyDelete
  4. Brian BerlinerJuly 2, 2008 at 11:21 PM

    I just discovered Blogo, a new Mac program for creating and editing blog posts (also works with Twitter). $25:

    http://drinkbrainjuice.com/blogo

    It look promising. Still a bit buggy, but not bad.

    -Brian

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bill PetroJuly 3, 2008 at 4:49 PM

    Brian,

    I'm checking out Blogo now. I like how it integrates with the WordPress draft capabilities. I've been playing with ScribeFire, which is a Firefox extension. Quick, immediate, splitscreen, but not as well integrated into WordPress.

    -Bill

    ReplyDelete
  6. Bill PetroJuly 4, 2008 at 10:25 AM

    Brian,

    I took your advice and played with Windows Live Writer. It is much better than I expected. Simple to use, yet powerful, permitting drag-and-drop photos, text wrap, and simple integration with WordPress. Now, it's the one to beat. I'm back to using VMware Fusion on my Mac again.

    -Bill

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ben JacksonDecember 30, 2008 at 12:16 AM

    Hi Brian,

    We just released version 1.2 of Blogo. The new version is much more stable and includes support for the new comments API in WordPress 2.7, as well as integration with Ping.fm, a faster local preview and offline editing, so you might want to take a second look.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kernel-based Virtual Machine hits Linux

Many congratulations to my good friend Moshe Bar and his team over at (stealth-mode startup) Qumranet . Techworld reports that the KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) project has been accepted into the 2.6.20 version of the Linux kernel distribution. KVM is an Open Source kernel driver that basically allows a Linux kernel to host virtual machines, as plain old Linux processes, that can run Linux or Windows (or other x86-based operating systems). It runs only on hardware that support Intel's VT instruction set (which is fine) and will soon support the AMD-V instruction set as well. This is cool for a number of reasons. It's Open Source, released under the GPL. It basically turns the Linux that we all know and love into a "hypervisor". Linux-as-hypervisor makes sense because Linux already knows how to manage devices, memory, processes, multi-cores, etc. VMware ESX is, essentially, a "hypervisor" - a small kernel, built on Linux as it turns out, that
2 comments
Read more

Bill Coleman Joins 3tera Advisory Board

I think this move surprised a number of people, since Bill recently wrapped up Cassatt Corproation, getting the technology and people  acquired by Computer Associates . However, I was not surprised at all. The announcement, via  3tera Welcomes Bill Coleman : You may or may not have seen the recent press realease.  Bill Coleman, IT/Silicon Valley luminary, Founder and CEO of BEA Systems, has joined 3Tera’s Advisory Board. Yes, this alone is a great testimonial to what we have accomplished in our field.  Getting dignitaries such as Bill does not come easy.  But here’s the best part - this has a lot more than just marquee value and I doubt that Bill would have joined us if that was the case.  Bill, especially since his most recent stint as Founder and CEO of Cassatt Systems, is an extremely knowledgeable visionary in the area of utility and Cloud Computing; and, data center automation. So, Bill will be extremely valuable, reviewing and tweaking both our business plans and techno
Post a Comment
Read more

Big In Japan Open Sources Their Ruby On Rails Tools

The kind folks over at Big In Japan have graciously decided to Open Source the code they used to build their demo web sites . It's all Ruby on Rails code, and it's being released with a GPL license. The code trees being made available include: elfURL ~ URL Shortner FeedVault ~ OPML file storage FrankenFeed ~ RSS feed merger InstantFeed ~ RSS feeds via email QwikPing ~ Ping Server SocialMail ~ RSS via email Very cool. I just love the Open Source community . I have actually been writing some code of late, and it's great to have some reference code to check out. Not sure if I'm going to go with Ruby on Rails yet, however. And, for the record. I have no idea if this is big in Japan. Tags: Open Source , GPL , Ruby On Rails , Big In Japan , Brian Berliner , brianberliner
Post a Comment
Read more