I just want to blog...

Windows Live WriterImage via Wikipedia
... from my desktop!

I recently became the owner of a Mac mini. I'm trying to make the transition, but a lot of things that I can do easily on a Windows machine are becoming problematical on a Mac. Ok, well, so far just blogging (and adding music to my mp3 player, but that will be discussed in another post). I didn't realize how many web apps I used, so some things like email and document creation don't matter as much (thank you Google Docs).

I do run VMWare with Windows so I can run programs like Windows Live Writer but I thought I would look for something similar on the Mac side. I love Darren of Problogger who has a post covering just this topic:
14 Essential Mac OS X Applications for Bloggers: "A number of blogging friends have recently made the switch from using PCs to using Macs as their primary blogging machines.

Each time that one of them makes the move I tend to get an email or call a day or two later asking for advice on different applications to help with their blogging. Lately I’ve been saving my recommendations and have compiled them into a single email. I thought that I’d share it here on the blog also as I know many of you are Mac users.

Of course some of these 14 applications (not listed in any particular order) are not exclusive to Mac users – but hopefully it’ll give a little insight into the type of tools that I’m using.
but after looking at the blogging tools, nothing compares really to Windows Live Writer. Not to mention the cost, free.

A quick post to twitter brought the response BlogMate, which is a free plug-in for yet another paid app. I started this post using the BlogThis Chrome extension (luckily Chrome also runs on Mac), but I want something more robust and flexible. Windows Live Writer does much more than let me write posts on my desktop, I can add photos from my flickr account, save drafts, post drafts to my blog, have it connect to all of my blogs in one place (very nice for cross-posting), it imports my blog template so I will know exactly what the post looks like, allows much more flexibility of adding photos, videos, maps ... and so much more. Yes, I can do this all by hand, but Writer makes it so much easier. 


So, if someone out there knows of a Mac equivalent of WLW, let me know. Please!

-- transitioning PC user ...

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Comments

  1. You could try Blogo: http://www.drinkbrainjuice.com/blogo Although I don't think it's nearly as advanced as what you described for WLW.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Chris, I'll check it out.

    You know, Holland isn't that common of a last name ...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

If you leave a spammy comment with a link to payday loans, viagra, sex toys, vulgar language, etc, it will be deleted.