Are You Efficient In Your Blogging?
I think I’m a fairly busy guy. And I find it hard to churn out posts almost every day like Andrew. Here are some of the top reasons why I don’t churn out posts regularly …
- My blog is online. Wordpress needs to me to log in and edit the post. And saving isn’t automatic.
- Email blogging doesn’t work all that well. I can’t see what my posts look like and image editing is a pain in the butt.
- Given the choice between blogging for pleasure … and working for $$$, I usually have to complete more important work first.
- I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I like having stories & research into my posts … and that takes time.
- I run multiple blogs and am always torn between posting personal posts (like “Do You Love Me?”) and techie posts.
And to be honest, blogging on Rachit.org is a sort of release for me … whenever I have a mindblock or something clouding my work … then I start blogging and get everything in my head out there …
And then I’m in nirvana 
(Kinda like that feeling after sex 
)
Anyway, I digress. So I’m guessing most people don’t blog that often because of problems similar to mine …
There’s an easy solution to all this!
It turns out, most of my problems have an easy solution. Instead of churning out posts all that one go, I could just let them simmer and keep editing them till I was happy.
The answer was a desktop blogging program!
A desktop blogging program would allow me to write my posts from my computer, keep editing them (It’s like the difference between Outlook Express and Yahoo! Mail) and finally post them out when I was ready.
I knew there were a couple of options from a long time ago … but I was resistant to changing to a desktop program (after all, we are all moving towards web 2.0 … from outlook to gmail … it didn’t make sense to bring blogging back to my desktop)
Microsoft’s here to help?
A couple of months ago, I was reading the news like every morning … and I read a couple of press releases from Microsoft.
They were releasing something called Windows Live Writer.
It is pretty freaking cool man! I’m not usually one to endorse Microsoft applications (that post about dumping MS Office for OpenOffice is still sitting in my drafts …)
But this time Microsoft’s done a great job. The best part about Live Writer is that it works beautifully with Wordpress, Blogger, TypePad and all other non-Microsoft blogging platforms.
Intelligently Learns All About My Blog
Setup is such a breeze - it installed the software, asked for my blog address and automatically configured itself.
And here’s the best part … it downloads the template and adjusts accordingly. I run 3-4 different blogs and it automatically knows which fonts to use, what my blog will look like.
Lets me edit in peace
Of course, Live Writer has all the works - WYSIWYG editing, tags, FTP uploads, image editing on the fly, inserting maps etc etc.
But the best reason I like it is that I can start posts at once … and finish them in peace. And I can edit them in peace (I’ve lost several posts due to the Internet problems with my Wordpress sites).
Here are some of the posts I’m still working on …
Anyway … go check it out, and comment here on how you like it, yeah?
Go check out Windows Live Writer (highly recommended, opens in a new window)
you’re gone over to the evil umpire…..
if you want to do offline editing, you can use a text editor, compose your blog entries, insert URLs in parenthesis, eg:
“my good look friend rachit (http://www.BestStraightDudes.com/rachit) who would like to”
and include your image links in the text post also.
so when you logon to WP, just past the entry in, cut and paste the image and hyperlinks using the image and link tool.
voila.
microsoft specializes in making the mundane more complicated. yes? or yes?