The Blogging Journalist

Wavelog Allows Multimedia Posting From Nokia Phones

Oliver Luft at journalism.co.uk reported January 15, 2008, that "Telewaving is today launching Wavelog, an application that allows users to post multimedia content directly from Nokia mobile phones to blogs."

"The Wavelog system works with s60, the software run on smart Nokia multimedia phones like the N95," Luft wrote.

To read the entire post, please see "Nokia mobiles gets a multimedia blog publishing application."

Technorati Tags: Oliver Luft,Journalism.co.uk,Telewaving,Wavelog,Nokia

Eric Berlin: 'How Does StumbleUpon Help Bloggers?'

Eric Berlin. "executive producer of Blogcritics.org and publisher of Dumpster Bust, wants to know "How Does StumbleUpon Help Bloggers?"

It's a good question. I've wondered about it and other services and widgets I've see on some sites, especially tech bloggers' sites.

The Sunday Times Profiles Ben And Mena Trott

The Sunday Times of London has a January 7, 2007, post on Ben and Mena Trott, the husband and wife team behind Six Apart. the company that produced the Movable Type, TypePad and Vox blogging platforms.

To read the article, please see "Couple make the big time in blogs.

Have You Tried The New Blogger?

Have you tried Blogger since Google officially took it out of Beta on December 19, 2006? If so, please consider sharing your observations with TBJ readers. I suspect most of our readers probably have moved beyond Blogger.

By the way, I have a Blogger account but don't use it for blogging. I keep it to experiment with layouts and designs. Hopefully, Google will start to pay more attention to it. It's an entry level platform for many new bloggers.

Om Malik's Homage To A Few Blog Software Creators

I just read Giga Omni Media, Inc founder Om Malik's homage to a few blogging platform creators and applaud him for acknowledging them while they are still alive. They helped make blogging popular and accessible. See "How Ev, Dave, The Trotts and Matt Changed my Life."

He's referring to Evan Williams, co-founder of  Pyra Labs, which gave us Blogger; Scripting News proprietor Dave Winer, creator of Radio Userland and other blogging and Internet tools we use; Ben and Mena Trott, co-founders of Six Apart and creators of Movable Type and TypePad; Matt Mullenweg, "founding developer" of WordPress

Om, whose GigaOm blog is a must read for technology news, is currently a WordPress user. My Technology Free Press is a WordPress blog hosted at An Hosting here in Chicago. This blog is on TypePad.

Technorati tags: Om Malik, GigaOm, Evan Williams, Blogger, Pyra Labs, Dave Winer, Radio Userland, Scripting News, Ben and Mena Trott, Six Apart, Movable Type, TypePad, Matt Mullenweg, WordPress

Mossberg Gives Vox A Favorable Review

Walter Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal's influential technology columnist, has given Vox, a free blogging service" from Six Apart Ltd.," makers of TypePad and  Movable Type. The company also owns LiveJournal. He wrote:

One of Vox's best attributes is its ability to label each individual post, or entry, with a different privacy filter, so that instead of setting your blog to be entirely private or entirely public, you can pick and choose what you want to share.

Vox also excels at making it easy to add photos, audio, videos and book links to your blog without any prior expertise. Vox is supported by ads that aren't intrusive or distracting."

I have a Vox account and really like the service. I predict it will be a huge success.

To read more, see Mossberg's review reposted at HeraldNet.com of Everett, Washington, under the headline "Vox's blog service still needs tweaking.

Valleywag: 'Let Blogger Free'

Valleywag, a "tech gossip rag" in Silicon Valley, California, contends that "Google hasn't really cared about Blogger since the start."

"The search engine company bought Pyra Labs, maker of Blogger, on a whim, after Sergey Brin ran into Evan Williams and thought what he was doing was cool," writes Gawker Media owner Nick Denton, who is handling blogging chores at Valleywag, now that he has dumped blogger Nick Douglas, who did the writing from February 2, 2006, when Valleywag went online, to  November 13, 2006.

I was quite fond of the kid's style. But it's Denton's publication, so he has the right to fire his editor, and set Valleywag on a new course.

Now back to Blogger. Denton said, "The blogging platform, like many acquisitions and whimsical internal projects, has always had to wait in line for engineering time. Google's hardcore techies don't really get blogs," Denton added. "The product's interface has been cleaned up, and reliability improved, but the functions have been neglected. And now there's a new charge to the indictment."

To read about that alleged charge, see "Let Blogger Free.

Boston Globe Interviews Six Apart Blogging Executives

Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray has a Q & A at Boston.com with Six Apart president and founder Mean Trott and executive vice president Andrew Anker. If you are interested in reading it, see "A voice to more personal bloggers.

I read the interview because I want to know where the company is headed. I also use Six Apart's TypePad and Movable Type blogging software. Using the latter forced me to spend a year learning how it really works. Something I'm glad I did, although I don't really put that knowledge to much use.

As you can tell from this site, I like simple blog designs. That's because I'm more into information dissemination as opposed to design. However, as a former newspaper layout artist, I know and understand the importance of good design. A boring design can be the kiss-of-death from people really into the visual experience.

Google's Blogger.Com Went Down This Morning: Why?

"After getting hacked this past weekend, Google Inc.'s Blogger publishing service suffered an outage on Thursday morning [October 12, 2006], that kept both Blogger.com and the Blogspot hosting service offline for two hours," reports Juan Carlos Perez at ItWorld.com.

To read about it, see "Google's blog hosting platform suffers outage.

Nicole Harms: 'Choosing A Great Blog Program'

Nicole Harms at Associated Content has advice on "Choosing a Great Blog Program." Writes Harms in an August 24, 2006 post:

There are many different types of blog programs available to today’s beginning blogger. Many people decide to blog to make money through advertising, but before you can start blogging, you need to have a program to run your blog. What programs are available, and which ones are the best blogs using?

Harms said "Before shopping around for a blog program, you need to organize your blog. Think about what your blog topics are going to be. Do you want to blog to make money or simply to have a place to record your opinions? Once you have a few ideas, it is time to find a blog program to host your blog!"

I recommend it.

Lorelle VanFossen On 'Word Press For Beginners'

Today WordPress expert Lorelle VanFossen published an impressive post headlined  One Year Anniversary Review: WordPress For Beginners. Her evangelism on WordPress' behalf is commendable. Even if you don't use WordPress, her post is worth reading.

By the way, I have a WordPress account at AN Hosting here in Chicago. However, I have yet to use it. I may try to set up a blog there this weekend.

Glad To See Mini's Post About Windows Live Writer

Mini, I wondered what you thought about Windows Live Writer. Glad to see your post about it. I love WLW , although I wish clicking on "new" would give me a page minus content from the previous page. Nevertheless, it has most of what I've been looking for in a blogging tool.

Duncan Riley has suggested that I try Blogdesk, which I intend to do.

By the way, Mini, who blogs under the name Who da'Punk, is the anonymous and controversial proprietor of Mini-Microsoft, my favorite blog for a non-corporate perspective about happenings at Microsoft. Dare Obasanjo takes second place. If anyone can recommend other non-technical blogs by Microsofties, I'm open to suggestions. 

With Windows Live Writer, Microsoft May Have A Winner

Om Malik, writing about Microsoft's Windows Live Writer blogging tool over at GigaOm, said in an August 13, 2006 post:

Mac-happy bloggers often use either Ecto or by Mars Edit as their desktop blogging client. Given that those two products are pretty close to perfection, we are unlikely to switch to another client. Windows PC users, on the other hand have had to choose from w.Bloggar, Qumana or some similar tool. And they all keep searching for a better one.

Today they got one: Microsoft Windows Writer, a WYSIWYG tool that only after a few minutes of use (thanks to this new set-up) seems to be pretty good. (Was this part of the Onfolio acquisition?) Mike is admonishing Microsoft for not supporting Mac - he is right. They could be a lot more inclusive, or perhaps the WWDC kitty-cat jokes got to them.

I'm blogging with it now and like the feel. However, since I just started using it tonight, I can't give it a just review. I'll try to do that in about a week, after I've analyzed every feature. It just might ween me away from Qumana and w.bloggar. I use Qumana 2.0 and Qumana 3.0 in tandem to compensate for the shortcomings in each.

By the way, two previous posts I put up tonight disappeared after I used Windows Live Writer to retrieve a third, make a correction and repost it . I don't know yet whether it was my fault or a quirk in the beta software. Anyway, Microsoft may have a winner on its hands.

To read more of Om Malik's review, see "Windows Live Writer, Write On! " 

The Windows Live Writer Blogging Tool

LiveSide.net, which says it's "not affiliated with Microsoft," posted an article today with screen shots explaining and promoting the Windows Live Writer blogging tool.

See "Windows Live changes the way you write your blog."

Six Apart Releases Another Movable Type Upgrade

San Francisco-based Six Apart, known throughout the Blogosphere for its TypePad blog hosting service, Movable Type and the social networking site Live Journal, has "released an upgrade to its flagship business blogging tool Movable Type and announced availability of Movable Type Enterprise with priority customer support in the United States," according to a July 12, 2006 press release at the Six Apart Press Center.    

Six Apart is upgrading my blog, The Diplomatic Times Review, from 3.15 to 3.3. Hopefully, the upgrade will take place by the end of the week. Maybe it will make me blog there more often.

Six Apart Releases Another Movable Type Upgrade

San Francisco-based Six Apart, known throughout the Blogosphere for its TypePad blog hosting service, Movable Type and the social networking site Live Journal, has "released an upgrade to its flagship business blogging tool Movable Type and announced availability of Movable Type Enterprise with priority customer support in the United States," according to a July 12, 2006 press release at the Six Apart Press Center.    

Six Apart is upgrading my blog, The Diplomatic Times Review, from 3.15 to 3.3. Hopefully, the upgrade will take place by the end of the week. Maybe it will make me blog there more often.

Did Blogging Force Microsoft to Retire Frontpage?

David Flynn at ZDNet Australia reported May 24, 2006 that, “In a move which reflects the changing face of the Web, with advanced users scaling up to Dreamweaver and blogs becoming the new home page, Microsoft has closed the book on its 10-year-old Web site authoring software.” That software is FrontPage, which I used along with Publisher when I first started designing my webpages.

“In its place,” Flynn wrote, “are two new programs aimed at developers and designers, while Word 2007 now doubles as a blogging client.

Flynn, who “traveled to Seattle as a guest of Microsoft,” said, “Expression Web Designer steps up to the plate as Microsoft's new program of choice for building Web sites and is expected to ship before year's end.”

For more, please see “Office 2007: FrontPage is out, blogging is in.”

Would You Blog With Word 2007?

Joe Friend, "a lead program manager on the Word software design team," has a May 12, 2006 post at Joe Friend: Microsoftm Office Word in which he proclaims:

Word is a great tool for writing stuff, right?  Blogging is all about communicating with words (and pictures, too). So, why not use Word to write your blog posts?

I love the look of the blogging interface. It's very pleasing. and has many tools I could use. But I rarely use word, and don't have it on my laptop although it's on my desktop. I don't use it enough to justify upgrading to Word 2007 anytime soon. Of course, I might if Word 2007 is offered as a stand alone and is not too costly.