39 Best Freeware Blog Desktop Publishing Utilities

As I mentioned in my previous post, many bloggers look forward on using stand-alone desktop applications to prepare their blog post before publishing them. WriteToMyBlog provides free web-based solution, but it has several drawbacks:

1. You need Internet connection when you work with the site.
   
2. You depend entirely on the site functionality and operation speed.
   
3. You have to provide your login data to get connected to your publishing platform, which many users do not feel comfortable to do.

Desktop Blog publishing utilities, while having their own problems, successfully bypass the noted limitations. You can work offline on your article generation and formatting, and publish it as soon as it is ready. That saves valuable online time and traffic, if your data plan is not unlimited.


In the Rating list, I am going to present today, I listed free software assisting bloggers in preparation, formatting, and submission the posts to their hosting sites with minimum amount of time and best outcomes. Presented utilities are to help those using free blogging platforms like Blogger and Wordpress, and those who prefer maintaining their Blog on the independent Web Site using server-based scripts.


I presented this list on this blog for the first time in January 2008, when there were just 14 utilities included. As of today, there are already 39 free computer programs, scripts, and plug-ins on the list. Feel free to review the collection, input your rating and experience, and even add some items that might be currently missing from consideration.


RateItAll List: http://www.rateitall.com/t-24825-blog-publishing-freeware.aspx


The programs with the highest rating are:

1. Windows Live Writer
   
2. BlogDesk
   
3. Qumana
   
4. W.bloggar
   
5. WordPress
   
6. Zoundry Blog Writer

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BlogIt - New Facebook Application for Bloggers

Six Apart, makers of Movable Type, Typepad and other popular blogging services, has launched a new Facebook application designed to broadcast your posts to several of the most popular external publishing systems at once.

Blog It allows you to compose and post updates within the Facebook interface and have them simultaneously appear on any one of the ten supported services, including Movable Type, TypePad, Pownce, Twitter, Blogger and WordPress.

The idea behind Blog It is to simplify the process of updating all the various sites and services you use, offering a single interface for updating all your sites. It’s a bit like turning Facebook into a fire hose that sprays your thoughts across the web.

FriendFeed is also toying with similar, though much more limited cross-posting features, like the ability to send comments to Twitter. Blog It, however, offers far more complete updating capabilities.

Which isn’t to say that Blog It is feature complete just yet. For now, you’ll miss niceties like a rich text editor or the ability to upload and include pictures in your posts. In the video below, Six Apart’s David Recordon makes it clear that the company is aware of the application's short-comings and promises feature upgrades in the near future.

But while Blog It may be a work in progress, even in limited form, it’s the easiest way I’ve seen to broadcast posts across platforms. It offers the ability to pick and choose which posts go where on a per-post basis so you’re always in control of who sees what. Every time you add a new service to update, Blog It offers the option to automatically post to that service, though you can always uncheck any of the services when you actually post something.

Blog It is a pretty slick Facebook app, perhaps the best I’ve used. And while it still lacks a few features (OAuth support is reportedly in the works, but for now you’ll have to give Blog It all of your passwords) it definitely makes it easier to broadcast your life to multiple locations. It's a nice cure for the fatigue of having to keep up with all of your data streams by logging into each service separately.

Recordan has hinted elsewhere that Six Apart may expand Blog It to work from other platforms — like Plaxo’s Pulse, or perhaps even as standalone AIR application like Twhirl — but for now Blog It is tied to Facebook.

To get an idea of what Blog It looks like in action, check out the video below where Recordon walks you through the process of setting up and using Blog It (and also offers the best OAuth metaphor I’ve heard: “it’s like a valet key for the web”). If you’d like to jump in with both feet, you can go ahead and add Blog It to your Facebook account.

BlogIt - New Facebook Application for bloggers

Source: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2008/04/six-apart-launc.html

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