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February 19, 2005
Publishing articles in a blog
I am currently listening to Porpoise Song from the album "Doorway To Norway" by Oranger
Like that tag above? I put it there with one click. How? Simple, I have stumbled on a tool called ecto. I have been putting it through a trial run today, and I have to say I am pretty impressed. For $17.95, you read that correctly - $17.95, you get a tool that allows you to easily create, preview and publish blog entries from your desktop. I am using the MAC OS x version, but a windows version is available for the same low price. Since, I am brand new to the world of moveabletype, I am not sure if the tool covers the full breadth of what you can do, but I have found it to be very feature rich. It includes text/html editing, spell checking, the ability to save drafts, preview what you have written, and of course publishing.
It can be configured to warn you if you have forgotten to apply a category, keywords, and titles. Overall, I am pretty impressed. it seemed insane to me that the only way to publish a blog was by logging into an admin section of a site, and then writing up my brain dump. I figured there must be a tool that allows you to do it from the web. A google search later and I was trying out ecto. You can edit tags, so if you want the a href tag to pop in a new window, edit the tag and your done. I added the "I am currently listening to" message on the itunes tag you see in the beginning of this article.
One thing it can't do is create Categories. I have seen this other tools, so I am assuming it is a limitation of moveabletype itself. As far as images and binaries, I have not tried to upload anything yet, so I can't speak to that. Once I have tried it I will post a follow up.
By the way I am currently listening to A View Of The City From An Airplane from the album "The Quiet Vibrationland" by Oranger
Pretty cool ain't it!
Posted by pmadsen at February 19, 2005 05:08 PM
