Free Biz Ware

Excuse the pun in the title. BlogDesk is a desktop blogging tool (also known variously as an offline blog editor, desktop blog editor, etc.)

Instead of going online and using the web interface to write your blog post, BlogDesk allows you to compose your post on your computer (even when offline). LifeHacker compared a few other blogging tools.

More small businesses are now using blog as a as a channel to engage and communicate with customers. If you maintain a blog, BlogDesk and help you in several ways which I will outline in this post.

After using BlogDesk for more than a year, I can heartily recommend it!

Why should you use BlogDesk?

There are many desktop blogging tools out there, why should you use BlogDesk?

Here are some features that could proved to be time savers and the deciding factors (they did for me).

1. Offline Editing
   You don’t have to be online to write your post. Write it anywhere - while waiting for that flight, or at the cafe.
   Even in the age of wifi everywhere, slow connection to your blogging site could be a real pain when editing.
   Simple write your post at desktop speed and post it when you are ready.
2. Image Editing
   This is undoubtably the most indispensible feature! To post an image, simple copy it and select “Insert Image from Clipboard”.
   Image size too big?
   No problem, resize it with the built in tools which can also crop, rotate, create shadows, create thumbnails. Combine this with Ifranview and you have everthing to create images for your blog.
3. Imaging Uploading
   Adding images to a post can be a real hassle. For example if you use Wordpress, you have to upload each image one by one and then link to them. With a slow connection (like where I am in China) this can take an hour!
   With BlogDesk, once you paste the image, it automatically uploads it for you.
4. Manage Multiple Blogs
   If you have multiple blogs, they can be setup so that you do not have to sign in to each blog to write a post.
5. Drafts
   Just fire up BlogDesk and write a draft whenever a thought come to your mind. It is a quick and easy way to maintain regular posting.
6. Create Templates, Frequently used text blocks
   If you write certain type of article that has a fixed format (like my application reviews), you can create templates or save them as text blog.
7. Free
   Cant beat that price! Opensource would be great but thats the authors choice.
8. Great Support
   When I first started using BlogDesk I had problem getting it to work with the file upload. The author responded quickly and after sending me a few patches, locate the problem and fixed it.
   Keep up the great work Johannes!
9. Small Footprint
   Unlike some tools it isn’t a huge install nor does it require Java and run so slowly.

To be honest I have not try as many desktop blogging editors so I can’t do a comparison. BlogDesk basically met most of my requirements right away that I don’t have to look further. Let me know if there is some extremely killer feature that I definitely got to have on other editor.

Room for Improvement

Well I can only think of one and it is a feature request really. Eversince the idea of portable application caught on with me I really like the idea of running application and storing the data independently from the system. This way I can bring a portable harddisk or usb disk and use the application from any PC. It would definitely be a huge feature if BlogDesk can do this.

Until then here is what you can do to have the data saved in another location other than the user folder.

1. Go to C:\Program Files\BlogDesk
2. Open the file BlogDesk.cfg with a text editor (like notepad2)
3. Change[Main]
   UserPath=
   
   to

   [Main]
   UserPath=d:\your-data-folder\BlogDesk\UserData

4. If you have already installed BlogDesk copy the data from
   C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\BlogDesk\UserData

This way when you reinstall your operating system you will not forget to backup all the work you had done.

Using with Vista

Since I’m on Vista, I should add a note to the FAQ page.

Chinese support

BlogDesk does not have Chinese support at the moment.

Where to get it?

• BlogDesk is at http://www.blogdesk.org/
• Current version: 2.7
• Function: Offline Desktop Blog Editor

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