Blogging: A Tale of Two Tools

A while back I reviewed BlogJet, a very cool offline blogging tool. I have been using it faithfully since I first downloaded version 1.1. My 30-trial was about up, so I went ahead and registered it. At $19.95 it’s a steal.

However, as I outlined in my previous post, it’s far from perfect. I feel it’s probably a version or two away from addressing my complaints. The good news is that the developer is responsive and is currently soliciting input for version 1.2. If you are using BlogJet and want to offer your input, you can do so here.

Because of the shortcomings of BlogJet, I am also using ecto, another offline blogging client. It doesn't sport a WYSIWYG editor, but it does a whole bunch of things that BlogJet 1.1 doesn’t do. Specifically, it supports ...

• Extended posts. I use extended posts, so that I can put more posts on a single page. It makes my page load faster and give readers an opportunity to scan more posts at a glance.
  
  
• Image Thumbnails. The most recent version of ecto supports thumbnail images. Since I make pretty extensive use of thumbnails, this solves a major problem for me. I no longer have to do this from the TypePad interface.
  
  
• Post Previews. This enables me to view the post as it will appear before I actually post it to my blog. With BlogJet my only alternative is to post live to my blog and then edit it until I get it right. This is not a very good solution.
  
  
• URL Pinging. This is a fabulous feature. ecto automatically pings any blog aggregator that I specify. I enter the URL once in the program. Thereafter, whenever I upload a post, the URLs are automatically pinged. Very cool.
  
  
• Custom Publishing Times. In an ideal world, I would write my posts ahead of time and select a custom publishing time. This would allow me to “get ahead of the writing curve” and “bank posts” for future publication. I have used this feature some, and I really like it.

If ecto ever adds a WYSIWYG editor (like BlogJet) or BlogJet ever adds the features I’ve listed above, then I can dispense with one of these tools. I will also become a raving fan and voluntary evangelist! In the meantime, Ive resigned myself to using both. Bummer.