Tag: blog editor

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Review

Flock Built-In Blog Editor

Flock – the social web browser built on top of the Firefox – has a built-in blog editor. When I first launched it I was hoping to have some sort of Notepad for quick and easy blogging. Something that would look like Performancing plug-in for Firefox.

Unfortunately blog editor from Flock falls short of any other editor, even the one in WordPress itself. Editor window is very basic. Although Flock’s Accounts and Services tab allows you to have more then one blog configured, you have no idea what blog your post is coming to. XML-RPC API that WordPress uses is called MovableType. Maybe they are the same, but for non-technical people this is more then confusing.

Ability to choose from half a dozen fonts and regular named sizes doesn’t quite cut it to be a quickie notepad for any blogger. I can hardly imagine anyone using this crippled tool. Unfortunately, as with the whole concept of Flock, a thing that tries to be too many things for too many people ends up being nothing for all people. Here’s my prediction for next year – Flock will flop.

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Review

Windows Live Writer Blog Editor

windows-live-small Next in our blog editor review is Windows Live Writer. Not sure what’s the version I am still downloading five minutes after launching a setup, but I hope it’s the latest one.

(5 minutes later) It’s the version 1366, which have to be updated to version 1367 via Microsoft Update. Downloading patch separately isn’t possible. You have to watch out for these things, you know!

The installation of this blog editor software wasn’t even close to the simplicity of previous packages. First – you have to download the installer. Then installer searches for Windows Live Writer installations on your computer and then downloads and installs updated core version. Then you have to go through Windows Update to …emm… update Writer to the latest version. Obviously, Microsoft doesn’t look for simple ways of doing things.

During the install process I noticed that Microsoft, being an innovator everywhere, uses the term ‘weblog’ instead of more common ‘blog’. Guess it makes some sense to people at MS, but it totally escapes me. While installing the Writer itself, the installer offered to poison my laptop with Messenger, Mail, Toolbar, Photo Gallery and Family Safety modules. I politely declined. Upon finishing the installation, the setup program decided that now it has powers over my machine and opened Windows Live homepage without even asking. But I expected that anyway.

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software

Qumana Blog Editor

Qumana Blog Editor Review - iStudioWeb BlogFor the second round of blog editor software reviews I decided to go with Qumana Blog editor. Available at Qumana.com, this free software is available for both Windows and Mac OS platforms. Current version as of writing this post is 3.0.1. The software is written in Java. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but it forced me to install Java run-time on my laptop in order to even proceed with install.

SEE IMPORTANT UPDATE at the end of the post!

Externally, Qumana Editor is not really different from Zoundry. The interface looks more contemporary and buttons even have bubbly glow. However, editor allows same basic WYSIWYG functionality. Two tabs below the editing window let you flip between editor and source view.Tags for WordPress are inserted in the actual text of the post. I am no WordPress guru, but I am sure it’s done a little different. Default Times New Roman font for WYSIWYG editor looks horrible and there is no chance of changing it without changing the actual post.

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