Well, this is my first blog and my first post from MarsEdit. I’m pretty sure I have noting to say worth immortalizing online, but one never know as you go down the path…

Plex Media Center – Add Media and iTunes from Alexis Gallisá on Vimeo.

Great list of shortcodes for WordPress.com blogs. Some work with Marsedit and some apparently don’t. good list anyway.

Shortcodes « Support « WordPress.com: “”

[digg]

Hagan de cuenta que MarsEdit es una aplicación que abres desde la Mac y desde allí puedes, si quieres, subir un nuevo post a tu blog. Si no quieres, está bien. Y yo la estoy estrenando.
Lo que me da risa, si es que algo debía dármela, es ver cómo nosotros, jóvenes emprendedores, posmodernos, sexies, con hartas ganas de divertirnos, vamos poco a poco prefiriendo hacer las cosas por nosotros mismos.
No es que se haya puesto de moda el clásico ‘hágalo usted mismo’, de la parte de hasta atrás de ‘Popular Mechanics’, sino que parece ser que todo tiende a ser controlado por nuestras maravillosas voluntades. Ya lo decía Lipovestky: algo apesta, pues todo está bajo nuestro control.
Y es que sí es cierto. La neta. Cuando todo está bajo control todo pierde el chiste y la carnita. Por ejemplo, imagínenese ustedes, lectores míos, que supieran todo de todo, imagínense, estaría fatal, porque entonces un regalo ya no sería un regalo sino simplemente lo que sigue.
Bueno, solo quería presumirles esto y y presumirles también que estoy leyendo ‘Extremely Loud and incredibly Close’ de Safran Foer quien, en definitiva, es un genio de las letras.

Abrazo.

This is going to be an interesting test of whether I prefer creating my blog entries online in the WordPress interface or in the latest version of Red Sweater’s MarsEdit application. I have to admit I’ve got used to the WordPress interface since I’ve been blogging, and the fact that you can arrange text around your images so that it all looks seamless is a real plus point for me. Also, as I currently only blog from a Mac Pro, then I’m always online, so access to the WordPress interface is easy.

So what’s the interest in MarsEdit? Well I plan on buying a MacBook (some day) and I’d like to be able to travel about and perhaps update my blog as and when I feel like it, without an internet connection in sight – sort of roaming reporter style. Given that I’ve got rid of my car and will be relying on either my bicycle or public transport to get around, it’ll be nice to be able to create content for my blog while sitting on the train for example.

I have pitched right in and am writing this entry directly in MarsEdit so we’ll see how it pans out. First up, it’s rich text I’m after. I want to make the words Red Sweater bold in the first paragraph. In WordPress you get a WYSIWYG editor, so it’s simply a case of highlighting the text and clicking on the ‘B’ icon. Here it’s much the same, just highlight the text, go to the Markup dropdown and choose bold from the list. Ok, MarsEdit isn’t WYSIWYG with the default setting of BBEdit as the editor, so instead of seeing the word change to bold type in the editor, you just see the HTML tags around the word. Having said that, with the Preview window open, you get to see the results straightaway – I can live with that, in fact I might even prefer it. You can choose from a selection of other editors like WriteRoom etc., so there’s flexibility in there.

The second thing I wanted to try out is adding an image. I’ll start out with Red Sweater’s logo, aligning it to the top left of my post and letting text flow around it to the right. Here goes… place the cursor where I want the image to go, click on the Media button, drag the logo image into the Media Manager window, choose the alignment and click Upload & Insert. There, what could be easier? Ok, I’m missing the padding that the WordPress editor puts around an image, so the ‘r’ or Sweater rides up against the text of the article, but hey it’s not bad for a first attempt. I dare say as long as I know what the HTML tags are for doing it I’ll be able to sort that out. Actually that’s a good point – using MarsEdit may take a little extra effort initially but I expect the plus side of having all these HTML tags floating before your eyes is that you can tweak it quite easily if you have the know how.

Right, the next test will be a little trickier. I want to add a screen grab around about the third paragraph, have it aligned over to the right, and make it a bit smaller than real life. Here goes…. Ok, first reaction is yikes! My preview window is showing a huge image bisecting my post. However, I can see a width=904 tag and a height=681 tag, so my initial thoughts are that if I reduce those values to 25% of what they are, I’ll get an image reduced in size accordingly. Ok, so change 904 to 226 and 681 to 170 and… yep, that did it. Ok, in the WordPress editor you can choose from four preset sizes and you can resize dynamically with a drag ‘handle’, but this still seems perfectly workable.

Right, I have two tests left. First is to add a hyperlink to the word MarsEdit in the first paragraph, so you can jump to the product page easily (aren’t I good to you). Second test will be to publish this little effort. Ok, I’ve already copied the link to the clipboard, so let’s go and highlight the word and see what the Markup menu has to offer… ah, Paste Link did exactly what I wanted, turning the word MarsEdit into a clickable link. I’m almost there, just have to choose a few categories and publish it. Picking the categories is just a case of ticking the ones you want seeing as MarsEdit has already downloaded my ones from WordPress – ok that’s done. Finally, the Send to Weblog icon looks like just what I’m after, so in a few minutes this little effort will be visible to the whole world.

I have to say my first experience of MarsEdit has been a positive one. Everything seems inuitive, and while I may not have been as creative with this post as I have been with others, well it’s a start. When I do finally get my MacBook I think I’ll be buying a copy of MarsEdit to use as an offline editor. The learning curve may be a bit steeper that the WYSIWYG editor WordPress now gives you, but the freedom of creating blog content on the go is quite appealing – just need to save for the MacBook first!

Click to enlarge...

Addendum – I’m editing this post in the WordPress editor now as I’ve got one observation to make. The screengrab I added above and reduced to 25% of its size doesn’t have a link to the full sized version of the image, which is what you get by default when using the WordPress editor (see the example at the start of this paragraph). This may be as simpe a finding some setting or option in MarsEdit so I’ll have a look. Still, not bad for a first attempt eh?

Hello World from MarsEdit.

We have no idea how to slug, keyword, and tag.

While looking around for some Applescripts¹ to make blogging with Marsedit faster I stumbled across this fantastic article that lists several freeware applications that are sure to make it better and easier for you. I already use all of the freeware listed plus the two paid apps.

Some Apps that aren’t listed that i use on a daily basis are ImageWell for fast and easy image resizing and editing and SnapNDrag for easy screen capture. Add those two to the list and that completes all the software I use to blog.

Convert Your Mac Into a Blogger’s Dream Machine
My blogging career started almost simultaneously with the purchase of my first Mac a year and a half ago and it’s been a great experience so far. Below are the applications that I use daily to administer my personal blogging empire.
All but two of these applications are freeware, but the two that aren’t, namely MarsEdit and CSSEdit, are worth every penny.

Convert Your Mac Into a Blogger’s Dream Machine | MacMembrane

^FOOTNOTES:

I tend to write these posts using Red Sweater Software’s MarsEdit blogging software, which, among other things, supports previewing the results of Markdown-formatted posts.

OK, so I’ve become rather fond of Markdown, now that I have figured it out, and I was dismayed to find that the free hosted WordPress.com account doesn’t currently support it; this means that my Markdown-formatted stuff looks like ass once posted. Well, no, but it does look like Markdown, and not like fully-formed HTML. Bum.

Workaround 1

In the presence of both MarsEdit and BBEdit, I suggest the folowing workaround:

• Install the standalone version of Markdown in the BBEdit Unix Filters folder (usually ~/Library/Application Support/BBEdit/Unix Support/Unix Filters);
• Write the post in MarsEdit as usual, and format in Markdown as desired;
• Once the post is completed, use the ‘edit in BBEdit’ command (File:Edit With BBEdit — the keyboard shortcut is alt-command-J by default) to send the text to that hallowed editor;
• In BBEdit, pass the text through the Markdown filter by selecting the text, and then (to quote from John Gruber’s original documentation) “choose Markdown from the Filters sub-menu in the ‘#!’ menu, or the Filters floating palette”.
• Save and close the temporary file to send the file back to MarsEdit;
• Review the returned text in MarsEdit, and post to weblog.

This is a workaround, and it’s pretty clumsy, but it works now. I don’t know if TextWrangler supports Unix Filters, but if it does, then this should work there as well.

Workaround 1.5

If you don’t have BBEdit, but you do have too much time on your hands, you could probably wangle something by saving the post to a text file, running it through the markdown.pl filter from the command line, and copying the resulting text file back into MarsEdit. But if you’re going to do that, you’re probably in a position to just go straight to….

Workaround 2

This is something I have yet to write out properly, but what needs to happen is for an AppleScript to take a selection of text, pass it through the Markdown script, and return it to replace the selection. Post. Like I said, I haven’t written it, but I suppose I’ll figure it out, at which point I’ll make it available.

Ideal World

The great folks at Red Sweater software have already said that they’re looking at rendering Markdown text as it’s posted. That would make all this stuff redundant, and in fact it would be awesome. Consider this a feature request.

I’m messing around with Wakoopa, which tracks the programs you use and lets you review them. It’s pretty neat, although I’m not too sure I like the points system. I have the same problem with Plurk — it’s cute and it’s a good way for the sites to keep users, but all in all it’s annoying. I hate being required to have a certain amount of points before I’m allowed to change my theme or username; in Wakoopa’s case, add a review.

But that stuff out of the way, I’m liking what I see. I love to write reviews, so Wakoopa is right up my alley. Plus, it works with Windows, Mac and (most recently) Linux!

While I type this, I’m also messing around on MarsEdit — double fun! I’ve heard really good things about MarsEdit and wanted to give it a try. (It was a good reason enough to turn on the Mac, which I haven’t touched in months.) The interface is simple and easy to get used to.

Remind me to never try to update wordpress without backing up my files first! Yes I know…my inwils.co.uk blog is hosted with my domain and I am constantly trying to design and update the blog in order to move to that site permanently, but with varies problems I have been using my inwils.wordpress.com for a while. (plus blogger) Anyway today I decided to get stuck into upgrading the wordpress client on my domain, and it went dreadfully wrong, making me have to reload and install both the software and the database again. Then it wouldn’t work with MarsEdit! Luckily I think it is all sorted now. So its back to daily blogs if I can manage it and then some redesigning of my own homepage. Yes I know I said I was going to do it ages ago, but things have cropped up, and now I am starting on it in earnest.

Sad day yesterday, Tosca, my cat, who had been ill, sadly had to be put to sleep and is no longer with me. Sad I know and I do miss her and often think I can hear her or expect her to meow when I come home, but really it has caused me to change me life a bit. All her stuff has gone now and I just keep her photos to remind me of the times when she was young and healthy rather than how she was like at the end. Positive happy thoughts.

With it being bank holiday, I decided to go to stars this morning to meet my bezzy and was brave and had a mocha! It was nice and I haven’t had much of an effect from it which is good news. While I walked up there I was listening to Deception Point by Dan Brown, a good book so far. In the book, they have found a meteorite from space what has a bugs in it. The thing that I found very interesting was when they started to talk about how versatile and adaptable insects are. Apparently, they can live in all extremes of climate, from deserts to the polar regions. While testing nuclear bombs, scientists actually went to ground zero to inspect the levels of radiation and actually found cockroaches and ants, going about their normal lives while radiation levels were really high! Also their size is limited on Earth because of the effects of gravity. If we had less gravity then they could be bigger, since its the effect of gravity on their exoskeletons that makes them have to be small. Eventhough these facts might only be fiction from a story book, I was still amazed by them! It also reminded me of a memory that I had totally forgotten! When I was at grammar school I remember that we had to do screen printing on our art aprons. I remember quite clearly that I did a green image of a locust, and above and below it were the words…

“Insects Will Rule!”

How forward thinking was I! I also remember that I took a lot of stick over it, oh the traumas forward thinking people have to suffer! Perhaps, out of all the intelligent and complex being on the planet it will be something as small and adaptable as a cockroach that actually ends up surviving and out living us all as a species. I wonder if they have created a survival technique to avoid being stood on yet!

Just before I sign off, wanted to let you know that I have learnt ‘Chill Factor‘ from the internet with some help from a dance instructor called Ami. And I was able to dance it tonight at line dancing…I was well shuffed!!

Work tomorrow so signing off now…don’t forget to have fun!

MarsEdit 2

If you blog, Red Sweater’s MarsEdit 2 will simplify your life. They tout it as “Powerful Blog Publishing For Your Mac.” I agree 100%!

Have a look at the Macworld Review of MarsEdit.

今天发现在GAE上的blog挂掉了，也没有一个错误说明，就一句：”A server error occurred. Please contact the administrator.” 我联系了自己半天，也没发现问题在那里，估计是我把theme给折腾残废了，昨天晚上就发现其中的一篇文章打开后出现了Meta标签里的文字在屏幕上显示的问题，然后迟迟没有得到MarsEdit对于上传到Micolog上的文章无法显示分类的问题的回复，然后又折腾了一下MacJournal，也不成功，等到把Ecto下载完，我的blog再也登陆不上去了，很好，决定不折腾了，放弃！

今天我象丧家之犬一样的又来到了wordpress.com，希望看在我对党国的忠诚，GFW别再把这个wordpress.com往墙上撞，不然我真的无家可归了。

目前发现MarsEdit和MacJournal对wordpress的支持非常好，现在我把目光移到了刚进门还没有洞房的Ecto身上……

根据MarsEdit的Daniel的方法，我成功的在本地看到了分类，而且标签也能正常使用了。但是在一个测试页发布后又发现了新问题，第一：本地选好了分类，发布后到blog一看，还是没有，和没选一样；第二，我的RSS Feed居然只出来了一篇文章，其他的一概没有。麻烦～

经过一天的使用，发现在MarsEdit上可以设置Micolog的标签，并实现摘要，方法见下图。不过分类（Micolog上称为“目录”）的问题还是没有解决，在MarsEdit上看不到blog上已设置的分类，也没有发现在MarsEdit上可以建立新的分类，可能是MarsEdit对Micolog的支持度还不够。




在写新的entry的时候，选中”View” -> “Keywords Field”以及 “Excerpt Field”，这样在New Post窗口就会出现Keywords和Excerpt栏，前者可以在Micolog中当成Tag来使用，后者是摘要。不过奇怪的是明明在View栏下有”Tag Field”，却不能选择，没搞明白原因。

苹果上类似windows live writer这样的blog客户端不多，可能我孤陋寡闻，之前用过MacJournal，或许Micolog太过冷门（其实我也想用WordPress，就不用这么劳民伤财的自己改theme了，不过GAE只支持Python），捣腾了半天也没能和现在这个blog配合使用，google了一圈，发现了现在用的这个MarsEdit, 研究了一下，终于开始了蜜月期，不过发现几个问题：第一，无法下载blog上的目录和标签，所以现在改用Technorati了，第二，没发现怎么设置摘要，这是个大问题，还有待研究。 最后上个设置图，应该可以解决大部分问题了。
P.S.
Technorati不能用了？还是也撞墙了？



I’ve been a Mac user since early 2002 when I switched Mrsdave’s home computer to an iBook running OS X. I’m not sure exactly what it was that prompted me to buy it, I hadn’t used a Mac in years, but it didn’t take long for me to be hooked on it. Mac switchers are like ex-smokers, we’re incredibly annoying and condescending to anyone who hasn’t made the change for the better.

Sadly for me, a few months ago my much loved PowerBook G4 had a gravity related failure. I was able to restore a backup to a Mac Mini which I had not long borrowed from my little sister, which meant that I still had everything in the configuration that I’m used to, but it meant that I had to sacrifice portability.

The first thing I tried to do to free myself from my desk in the hut was to supplement the Mac Mini with Mrsdave’s old iBook. Although seven years old, the iBook is still in working order, however the rigours of web 2.0 just about kill it. I then dragged out my superseded work laptop, `a five year old Compaq, and installed Ubuntu on it. Ubuntu was fast and had all of the options that I wanted, but would not  connect to the wireless router in the house unless I downgraded the security settings. That was a deal breaker, so I begrudgingly installed Windows XP again.

I use XP at work, and even with a number of helper applications to fill in the gaps I still find using it a pain in comparison to OS X. I set about installing all of the utilities and software packages that I wanted on the old Compaq, but I had to find some extra ones to do things that my work laptop doesn’t get used for. On OS X I use a program called MarsEdit, which is an offline blogging editor, it’s much better than using the WordPress online editor, much like using a real mail client is always better than webmail. I’d never looked for a Windows equivalent to MarsEdit before as my work laptop is never used for personal stuff, but it didn’t take me long to find Windows Live Writer.

I love it. It’s a great piece of software. All of the things that take heaps of configuration to get working on MarsEdit work automatically on Live Writer, it has basic photo editing built in and a bunch of other nice little features too. I don’t know how on earth Microsoft managed to make a piece of software this good, I’m assuming that they bought out another developer, but I cannot find a bad thing to say about it. Apple needs to release a piece of software just like this.

I feel dirty. I think I need to take a shower.