One of the things I’ve been doing lately is writing offline. It feels weird to write blog posts, and not make them immediately available online. I keep looking at them, and editing them, using larger, more intelligent looking words, and moving things around. It is a horrible time sink and also really amusing to me as I come to the cafe and post a bunch of content that I’ve previously written.
Currently, I write, edit and organize my blog posts using Crimson Editor, a tool I also use for programming.
I know many people like to use other pieces of software specifically focused on blogging and blogging offline, but I find, probably due to my web development background, that organizing a post in a simple text editor is easier. I can’t organize categories and tags really, but I feel more comfortable keeping one application open for development, notes, and blog posts, rather than three.
I have been using NetNewsWire for keeping up with RSS feeds though, since I am only online at the cafe. I typically like using Bloglines the best, despite their issues, but hosted applications are only useful when you have Internet access.
I think that many people forget that while Internet is becoming more ubiquitous, it isn’t everywhere, all the time yet, and so offline options need to be considered as well. If you are developing an online application, it wouldn’t hurt to figure out a way (maybe through AIR) to give people an offline way of reading/interacting with their data until they get offline.
One of my favorite websites that takes advantage of offline/online issues is Gmail. Properly configured with Google Gears, I am able to delete e-mails, respond, tag, and more and once I connect to the cafe’s net access, it syncs up my changes, and a fair bit of e-mail work still gets completed without having to resort to applications like Outlook.
I have to admit though, working with a limited window of Internet access has been very stressful for me. I am used to being connected all the time, and have become dependent on the Internet. In the end though, I’ve always loved hearing what other people use though for blogging software, especially when offline. So what applications or services do you use to stay “connected”?
3 thoughts on “Blogging Offline: Internet Withdrawals”
Before posting my blogs, usually what I do is to organize and format the text, body, titles inside the microsoft word processor.
The only thing left then, is to copy/paste in the post window, find a suitable image, fill in the tags and click post.
Internet is becoming rather distracting and dealing with all the clutter becomes bigger problem each day. It won’t be long now before we start seeing products that focus on simplicity and cleanliness like Twitter, Frugal WP Theme and Zen Habits blog which is all about simplicity.
~Igor
Personally I prefer to use Windows Live Writer since I can write whole posts offline and then simple press a button to upload them when I come in contact with internet. It’s possible to create categories, add links, images, etc. You can also see a preview of how the post will look online.
Great free tool if you haven’t checked it out.
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