As Talk of the Sound has grown, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people posting articles, not just comments. Obviously, these folks want their articles to be read and articles with a photo are more likely to be read (its just human nature) so we want to explain the best, easiest, fastest way to do this.
The simplest way to publish articles and photos to Talk of the Sound is to user software like Red Sweater’s MarsEdit (Mac) or Microsoft’s Windows Live Writer (Windows). These programs allow you to add a photo or upload a PDF file along with your article.
To use this type of software you need to do a one-time set up your blog. Once you have set up your blog within Talk of the Sound in MarsEdit, WLW or similar, posting is as easy as sending an email.
This one-time set up requires access to something called an API for the Drupal software that is the Content Management System we use for the site.
An API is, one regard, like a key that allows the developer of software to to unlock some other software so the two programs can do something together. In this case, you can use MarEdit/WLW to interact with Drupal. I encourage people to do this because the Drupal interface is not terribly user-friendly whereas programs like MarsEdit and WLW are very user-friendly. Thus, contributors are more likely to post since it is less hassle.
However, there is a risk-factor with an API (on our end not yours). We are giving out a key to unlock a part of our site. We want to know who has the key. If we allow just anyone to register and get a key then we will have crazy Russian hackers and spammer dudes from India and China trying to post tons of crap to the site (spam, comment spam, etc.). If there is some additional flaw in the software a person could get administrative control of the site and then cause havoc including deleting the entire site. So, we don’t just hand out the API to every Tom, Dick and Sandeep.
The only way to get the API (key) to our Drupal software (the door) is that we have to personally give you the key and we only give the key to people we know and trust.
They way we know you is that you contact us and ask if you can publish articles to the site using MarsEdit, WLW or similar software and we change your account type from “registered user” to “editor”. An editor on Talk of the Sound is granted two permissions that a registered user does not get — the ability to access the API and the ability to upload files which includes image files and PDFS (we do not want people to upload video as it is much larger; for video we recommend embedding video uploaded to a service like YouTube or Vimeo (we use YouTube).
Once you have been approved as an Editor, you can then set up MarsEdit, WLW or the blogging software of your choice (google for “Top 10 blogging software apps” for the most recent reviews of the most popular and then take your pick). There also now blogging apps to blog via iPhone, Android and iPad. Right now, we prefer iBlogger for the iPhone and Blogsy for the iPad.
During set up you will be prompted to provide the URL for the site (http://www.newrochelletalk.com) and your login (user ID and password). If you are on a Mac and using MarsEdit there is one wrinkle. You will be asked for the “Blog ID” and the default is “1”; you will need to replace the “1” with the word “blog”. No idea why this is the case but it just is.
If you further questions consult our FAQ. If you want more information on any part of this article be sure to Google for it.
Here is a fuller explanation of API from the folks at ComputerWorld.