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Blogging Tools and Apps

MarsEdit: Offline Blogging App for Macs

Monday, September 10th, 2007

For all the Mac bloggers out there (and that should be most of you - and if not, just hang on, I’ve got something special in the works for you PC users! Linux folks - you’re excused from reeducation, of course): MarsEdit is a handy offline application that allows you to compose your blog posts whenever, and wherever, you like for posting at any time.

I’m three days into a 30-day trial of MarsEdit but all indications are go for a purchase at the end of the trial; at almost $30, it’s not exactly an impulse purchase of software but it’s certainly in the range of most pro bloggers. And that’s who, I believe, will benefit most from MarsEdit’s tools and approach.

Why blog offline, you might ask? Well, as the Red Sweater site points out, most browser-blogging interfaces are notoriously slow and finicky. (Can I just mention here how many times I’ve lost a post in WordPress’s dashboard? ScribeFire, while somewhat better, isn’t a vast improvement either.)

Also, sometimes you’re not near an accessible network. How would you like to blog from the local Starbucks without spending the $6 a day for access? Simply use MarsEdit, draft your posts while you sip your latte, and then send to your blog when you’re back home and hooked up to your own network.

The Mac-based interface is simple, intuitive, and pretty easy to manipulate. It’s an uncluttered approach that threw me at first, but once I figured out the “Markup” pull-down menu, all I could think was “Genius! Why isn’t WordPress or ScribeFire this easy?”

According to the site, MarsEdit also integrates and plays well with the usual suspect text editors - BBEdit, SubEthaEdit, TextMate, TextWrangler. (No Smultron?)

Some of the toys I haven’t played with yet. There’s AppleScript support to add features at whim, and macros to save time with markups used frequently. Heck, just the sheer and simple beauty of writing all my blogs with so little manipulation is worth the $30 for me.

Definitely a BP Keeper.

Posted in Blogging Tools and Apps | No Comments »

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