Blog Editor or Weblog Client are synonymous terms for software you run on your local machine (desktop) that lets you post to your blog. In some cases, the Weblog Client can even manage your weblog entries. You might think of Weblog Clients as the equivalent of email clients such as Outlook and Eudora Mail but instead of pushing “send” you push “publish”. Essentially, the Blog Editor or Weblog Client allows you to write a post even if you are off-line; then, the next time you connect to the Internet, you can publish that post.
Blog Editor or Weblog Client software offers several advantages over posting directly into the blog via a web browser: the ability to save drafts, a nicer interface, fancy formatting features, features like cross-posting to multiple blogs, faster uploading and addition of photos, the ability to keep local backup.
To learn more, read What is a Blog Editor or Weblog Client?. Then read Top 5 Reasons to Use an Offline Blog Editor. All you need to do to get started is pick a Windows or Mac Blog Editor depending on what kind of computer you use.
How Do I pick a Blog Editor?
Windows users should read Top 10 Blog Editors for Windows. There are a number of great options for Windows users but a recommended option is Windows Live Writer; it comes from Microsoft, it is free and has the familiar feel (for most people) of working with an Office application. If you do not have one, you will also need to get a free Windows Live ID. A blogger put up a detailed walk-through which explains how to set up Windows Live Writer for Drupal 5.x which is what we use for Talk of the Sound.
Mac users should read Top 10 Blog Editors for Mac. There are a number of great options for Macs but I am going to recommend you plunk down some money to get the best. MarsEdit is one of the most celebrated of publishing utilities for Mac OS X, it has a free 30-day trial and costs $29.95 after a free. I know it is tough to pay for this when you can get similar software for free but the software is that good. At the very least go for the free trial and if I am wrong you can always find a cheaper solution.
Whichever blog editor you pick they are all going to require that you set up your blog within their software so that when you push “publish” the software knows where to send your blog post. The way the software communicates is something called XML-RPC. You don’t need to know how that works or why but you will need a few pieces of information in order to set up your blog. Set up requires that your know the Software Type, the “API endpoint URL” for the blog and your Blog ID. I know that sounds complicated but it really just means you need to fill in the following bits of information when adding a new blog editor.
How do I set up Talk of the Sound on my Blog Editor?
Talk of the Sound
Software Type: Drupal
API endpoint URL: http://www.newrochelletalk.com/xmlrpc.php
Blog ID: if click on your blog on the Talk of the Sound site you will see a URL at the top which looks something like this “http://www.newrochelletalk.com/blog/999” where the numbers are the number of your blog on the site, otherwise known as your “Blog ID”. Enter that number in this field.
The rest of the fields in set up vary from application to application but are self-explanatory. At some point during the set up you will need your User ID and Password so have that handy.
