So about 6 months to a year ago I was really big on using Blog Desktop Clients as opposed to the web based back ends that were included in most blogging software.
In an attempt to not blog from work as much I installed the desktop clients that I used on a regular basis. I still felt the need to blog on my breaks and lunch though and found myself logging in and using the web-based editors.
My biggest issues that kept me from using the web based editors was the lack of inline spell check and the automatic or semi-automatic addition of Technorati links. Well WordPress 2.1 (still in Alpha) addressed the spell check issues and then so did Firefox 2.0.
To address the Technorati issue I did a search on Google add found an article over at Lorelle’s site that had a JavaScript driven bookmark that create the links for you and then you just pasted them into your HTML in your post (See Lorelle’s post – A Tagging Bookmarklet for WordPress and WordPress.com Users).
With all of that I have not used a desktop editor is over a month and I am liking it. I had not found an editor that I was 100% sold on. Everyone one that I tried was cool in one way or another but not enough to really impress me. The last editor that I was using was the Microsoft Live Writer but it was just too buggy. That goes back to the original reason I looked for a Desktop Editor – I wanted to focus on content not the thing that helped me make the content.
I was content with logging into WordPress to do my posts and like I said I had been doing that for about the last month. But then today I visited Performancing.com and remembered that they had a Firefox extension that allowed you to post to your blog.
I downloaded and was immediately impressed on how integrated it was in the browser. I had some issues at first getting Firefox’s spell check to work with it but a quick search got that fixed up. The Performancing plugin even has automatic Technorati links – sweet. One other feature which I had not been using is the fact that Performancing can also send a bookmark of your post to your delicious account and use the Technorati tags to place your post.
I have already used the extension to do several posts today and have to say that I am really happy with it. It looks like Web 2.0 is kicking some but in the web verses desktop application arena.
Technorati Tags: Performancing, Blogging Desktop Editor, Zoundry, Quamana, BlogJet, W.Bloggar