As someone who runs multiple blogs, one of the most annoying aspects of my work is having to log into various sites when writing. That means I have to keep track of multiple lists of published and unpublished posts and be online if I want to get something ready for publication. Sure, I could use a text editing application and just write the stuff there, then transfer it over, but then I’m dealing with a bunch of little files, editing issues (particularly regarding links and images), formatting issues… It’s a mess. Being a visual person, this is not only annoying, but completely detrimental to productivity.
With that in mind, I figured it was time to find out about blogging software. I did some research, grabbed a bunch of packages I found and reviewed them. During the tests, here’s what I was looking for:
- Ease of use/Design
- Cost
- The ability to write while off-line (then again, this one’s a given)
- The ability to upload pictures
- If my blog’s backend can do it, this should be able to as well.
- The ability to edit uploaded posts.
- Code produced must be clean enough to be easily readable/editable.
While this comparison review won’t focus strictly on these criteria (because most of them satisfy it to some extent), they’ll serve the primary determinant factor in what I end up using. Of course, every one of the software packages I tried had its own distinctive features outside of this, and while I’m not necessarily looking for these extras, I’ll be looking at them for the sake of the review.
This review includes the following applications:
- MarsEdit
- Ecto
- MacJournal (and vicariously, WinJournal)
- ScribeFire for Firefox
- Flock
Of course, if you just want to go ahead and skip to the conclusion, by all means do so.
First up…MarsEdit
Hey there, i read about your switch from Linux to mac os x.
How is it going, are you still happy with you macbook?
I am considering the purchase of a macbook too.
Since 2003 i used Llinux for all my home-purposes, i tried different distributions, started with Slackware, switched to gentoo, ended up in Kubuntu since i like the advantages of Ubuntu/Debian and the KDE environment.
Have you ever regret buying the macbook, did you switch back to ubuntu for some reasons?
Would be nice to get your opinion on that .-)
BR – Jens
Hey Jens,
If I were any happier with my MacBook my wife would be jealous. I highly recommend it if you do a lot of typing: they keyboard is wonderful. As far as software is concerned, it’s nice to have your system get out of your way, and the Mac does that better than any system I’ve ever tried. Ubuntu gets close, though and I might instal it on this system to see how it goes: the fact is that, philosophically, I’m still attached to the Free Software and Open Source movements, although I’m far more interested in simply working than spending time evangelizing for it, and on that front the Mac just can’t be beat. (I will tell you, I miss working on the command line: I still haven’t gotten used to the Darwin file structure.)
I will tell you, after a short while, you start seeing some of the flaws, and as great as Mac OS X is, you realize there’s no such thing as a perfect system.
Mac OSX is built over the code base of FreeBSD,but FreeBSD still scores mightily as a suitable free (as in freedom)OS, and closer to Unix than Linux. My favourite FreeBSD variant is GhostBSD, but my favourite BSD is OpenBSD, which must surely be the most secure OS on the planet. You might take a look as these too.
If you want a Linux variant that run on a Mac (ppc type) you’d be better off with Debian than Ubuntu. I’ve had it running on my Linux box for over 10 years. I COULD get a more efficient (for older machines) distro but this has served me well, as have my BSD boxes.
Good luck!
Graham Todd