Mobile blogging just got better, the Wordpress app was just made available on iTunes. A full review will be posted in the near future after some testing.
Archive for the 'Other Software for Bloggers' Category
As Tara mention earlier, I’ve been using mojoBlog for a Joomla blogging tool. So far I’ve been really enjoying it. The tool is basically a stripped down version of Wordpress. I don’t have all the features, plugins, or template options, but it’s eons better than trying to use the Joomla content system for blogging. The only real modification I made was to go into the template and modify the RSS links in the footer section. They’re setup to go to the default feeds, I wanted to redirect them to my feedburner links.
Supposedly you’re supposed to be able to bring in some Wordpress plugins and whathaveyou. There’s a disclaimer saying some will work and some won’t. I’ve only tried one plugin and it didn’t work. I’d be interested to hear if anybody has successfully installed anything.
I’m not anywhere near into photos and photography as Tara and Smitty are, but occasionally I do post a picture or two. Since I’m not a “photo person”, I don’t have any fancy software to crop, edit, or tweak any of the pictures I might have. Two freebies I wanted to mention to you are Irfanview and Picnik.
Irfanview is something I’ve been using for probably three years or so. It’s a great tool for easily cropping, resizing, resampling, reducing red-eye, etc. Another great feature is that you can do batch processes on any folder or group of files. So anything you do on one, like changing to grayscale for example, can be done to any number of photos with just a couple clicks. Renaming can also be done with the batch tool which can be very handy when standardizing a bunch of files that have crazy names from a camera, scanner, etc.
Picnik is a tool I just learned about last week. It’s similar to Irfanview in that’s it’s free and easy to use. This one is web based and I think the interface is much more simple to use. For my “day job” I train faculty and brainy people with PhDs how to do things on computers. We’re always trying to find simple, easy-to-use tools and applications for them to use. These are two we’ve had success with, and I’m sure you’ll find easy to use as well.
For you Joomla users out there: have you ever wished for something more than the default blogging tools in Joomla? They sure leave a lot to be desired - they make for some pretty ugly blogs, and you have to install extra bits even to have commenting!
Chalupa runs his lebowskipodcast site on Joomla. It’s not a blog in and of itself - it’s become a fan site for an awesome movie. It does, however, have a blog. Chalupa posts almost daily, and he’s got a lot of people reading. Unfortunately, Joomla’s blog tools make it difficult to read, and the commenting add-ons are ugly and cumbersome.
We’re in the process of updating the site - making it easier to get around in, and more aesthetically pleasing overall. One of the biggest changes that we needed to make: clean up the blog and make it more… useable.
Enter mojoBlog. The folks at joomlify have created a rockin’ Joomla component. It’s Wordpress for/in Joomla! And just like Wordpress, it’s free! Doesn’t get much better than that, folks, especially since before this component, you had to pay. For crappier stuff.
The install was smooth as can be, but it took a little doing to get the admin menus to display. A note to any of you who want to install this: install as the main Joomla admin, not under a secondary Super Admin account. It’ll save you headaches and it’ll keep you from having to mess around in your userID tables and caches…
If you’re running Joomla and looking for an elegant blog tool/solution, mojoBlog is your tool. When we get lebowskipodcast up and running with its new threads, I’ll post a link so you can check it out.
Last week I talked about an RSS generator called Podcast RSS Buddy. I said it wasn’t exactly working out for me and today I’m going to talk about one that is. Normally I try to find things that are free, but sometimes you literally get what you pay for. Podcast RSS Buddy wasn’t free and FeedForAll isn’t free either; in fact, it costs a little more. The bonus is that FeedForAll gives you a 30 day trial, it’s much more sophisticated, and is a much better program for long term use.
I’ve decided to list some features instead of talking at length about them. This program is easy to use for both beginner and advance users. I highly suggest you check it out.
- Easy to use interface
- Create and manage unlimited feeds
- Manage, modify, and re-order feed items
- Validate your feed
- Multiple extensions (iTunes, Dublin Core, etc) available
- Spell check
- Creation wizard
- Publishing options
- Export to HTML, CSV, or text
- Search and Replace
- Load and manage/modify pre-existing feeds
- Automatic date management
- Automatic feed repair
- Mac version available
In my last post I talked about podcasting and I figured I’d continue. RSS feeds are something that are important to me. If you’re creating content for the internet, having an RSS feed that has accurate, up-to-date information, and is something you’re comfortable with is very important. You might remember the main reason I didn’t like podPress is because of what it did to my RSS feed.
Since I have a Joomla installation for my podcast website, I needed something to create an RSS feed for iTunes. A co-worker of mine suggested Podcast RSS Buddy. This is a cheap, somewhat easy to use program that includes five free uses, then it costs about $20 to purchase a license. This program is made for iTunes so it has the proper fields all ready for you to fill in. Having this feature is one step up from just using the auto-generated feed from your blog.
I used this tool for almost 15 months until I decided it was time to move on to something more complicated. If you’re not very tech savvy, this is a program I think would work well for you. I like to tweak things and sometimes start all over and rebuild something I’ve created. This is where I ran into some problems.
When I formatted my computer and re-installed the software, everything worked fine until I tried to import my feed. When I imported the feed, that Podcast RSS Buddy made, it couldn’t find several of my items, put several items out of order, and some of the data wasn’t correct. There also appears to be no way to re-order items within the feed. Another problem I ran into was that changing or updating the podcast information would sometimes make some of my episodes disappear. After I fixed the missing episodes, my updated podcast information would be gone. To be fair, the program is still a work in progress so there are some bugs to still be worked out.
Pros:
- Easy to use
- Built-in fields for iTunes
- Cheap (with 5 free uses)
Cons:
- Data doesn’t transfer well between machines
- Import function does not always work
- Some bugs still present in software
If you’re wanting to just try something, I would suggest giving this program a whirl. You get five free uses. If you’re planning to be creating a podcast feed long-term, I would suggest maybe looking for another program to fit your needs.
This isn’t earth-shattering or new, but I thought I’d share with all of you how I handle some of my email. If you’re hosting your own Wordpress blog, you have most likely bought a domain that it’s being hosted on. You probably also have an email address setup there like admin or your name or something. Personally, even though I’m good buddies with the guys that started the Squirrel Mail project, I find most email systems a little clunky and not fun to use. I’m a Gmail man myself and have forwarded my emails for my blogs over to a Gmail account.
This probably sounds like extra work and not a big deal, but it keeps me from having to log in somewhere else to check it. I should also add that I have 1 personal blog, 1 movie review blog, this blog, a podcast website and blog, and another blog I don’t post to very often anymore. So if you count alerts, notifications, fan/hate mail, etc….that can turn into a lot of email. So what I’ve done is setup forwarding on all of those mail accounts to one Gmail account of my choice. I’ve also used filtering and automatic labeling so I know exactly where these emails are coming from, and what they are for. I also have some of them auto-archived so they don’t clutter my inbox. Another cool feature with Gmail is I have the option to reply to these emails as the sender it was originally sent to. That means it looks like I logged into one of those accounts and replied. Add on the fact Gmail has lots of storage and great searching capabilities and what more could you want?
I know some people prefer email clients like Outlook and Thunderbird. Most of the people I know using these kinds of programs also download all their mail to one computer. I’m not a big fan of that because then I can’t check my mail from wherever I am. You also have the potential for losing all of your mail and contacts if your drive crashes. I know there are other email solutions out there and I know some of you are using them. Let us know how you like to manage multiple email accounts.
If you have already setup a Google Analytics account and now need to add your tracking code to your Wordpress site, I highly recommend using a plugin. A plugin for this task eliminates the hassle of having to copy and paste that code into your template. Plus, you will not have to repeat this task every time you switch templates.
Google Analytics for Wordpress is very easy to install and setup. After you download and upload the folder to your plugins folder, you’ll need to activate it from the Plugins menu in Wordpress. Your next step will be to copy/paste your account number from Google Analytics into your plugin’s configuration page. Your account number can be found by logging into Google Analytics, clicking on the edit link for your account and then clicking on the Check Status link. From here you’ll be able to pick two types of code to paste onto your site or blog. The account number is within the code in both pieces of code.
You’ll then paste this account number into the appropriate box in your Google Analytics configuration page located in a sub-menu of Plugins. Some other options you can check are Track outbound clicks & downloads, Track AdSense clicks, Track extra Search Engines, Track the administrator and integration with Urchin.
To check your stats, you’ll need to login to the Google Analytics page to do so. This is normal. This plugin doesn’t import any stats to your Wordpress Dashboard.
If you’re using FeedBurner for your feeds, and I highly recommend you do, you can easily re-direct your feed links from your self-hosted Wordpress blog to Feedburner using the FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin. Yeah, so that’s a mouthful. After you download, upload, and activate this plugin there are just a few things left to do.
1.) You’ll need to already have your FeedBurner account setup. You could do this afterwards, but you’ll need this information for configuration.
2.) If you’d like FeedBurner to handle the feeds for both your posts/entries and your comments, you’ll need to setup two feeds - one for each.
3.) Go to your Options menu in Wordpress and there should be a submenu called FeedBurner. This is where you’ll enter your feed new FeedBurner feed URLs you just created.
4.) Last step is to test this out. Most templates/themes have links on them somewhere for your built-in RSS feeds. Test them out. If they don’t work I’d suggest trying them in ten minutes. If they still don’t work go back and check your spelling. That’s usually my most common mistake.
Well that pretty much covers setting up this plugin. There will be more posts in the near future describing some of the features you’ll find useful, or may want to check out, in FeedBurner.
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