And more...

I've been using .Text  at work for about 2 days, and my first impressions are not great.  A few things that I'd like to see improved.

• Attaching files to a post is difficult, or impossible.  I haven't figured out how to do this yet.
• Adding pictures to a post is also very cumbersome.  You have to add the picture to a gallery, view the gallery, copy the image, open your post, and then paste the image in the post.  I must be doing something wrong, but all the .Text forum instructs you to do it this way. Ugh.
• Using BlogJet with .Text is buggy, sometimes it just doesn't work.  But I found a patch that we're going to apply to see if things improve.

Other than those two major issues, I like .Text.  I like the look and feel a bit better than dasBlog, I love the skins.  A few people I've talked to believe that .Text performs better than dasBlog, but I don't have as much content on my blog, so I can really compare.  I asked these people about their decision to use .Text instead of dasBlog, here's some of what they said:

I recently purchased two tools that I use all the time.  The first is a blog reader, it takes RSS feeds and combines them for easy viewing.  It's awesome.  It's called FeedDemon.  It's just under $30 and well worth it if you read a lot of blogs.

The second tool is BlogJet.  In fact I'm using BlogJet to create this entry.  It just makes adding entries to your blog much faster and easier.  Take a look at my previous BlogJet post for more information.

I recently purchased BlogJet and absolutely love it.  I'm also a big fan of FeedDemon.  I just discovered that I can configure FeedDemon to automatically launch BlogJet so I can quickly blog about entries in my FeedDemon Channels.  The setup is absolutely simple.

• Launch FeedDemon
• Click "Tools" -> "Blog This News Item" -> "Configure Blog Blog Publishing Tools"
• Click "Add"
• In the "Name" field add a descriptive name, I just entered "BlogJet"
• In the "Command Line" field enter the location of BlogJet.  You can browse to the .exe or just enter the default location: "C:\Program Files\BlogJet\BlogJet.exe"

I'm sure there are ways to customize this even further.  If you figure it out please add a comment to this entry so everyone can take advantage.

Feedster has taken an anonymous look at the the users of myFeedster, their web based aggregator, and calculated the "Feedster Top 100", the most popular RSS feeds based on the number of subscribers.  This is a very interesting list, and well worth a look.

Click here to see the list.

I just learned something really useful...

If you're not satisfied with the way BlogJet inserts text when you click BlogJet This! button in Internet Explorer, you can change the template for this action.

Copied from: BlogJet weblog :: Main Page

If you want to change the template, find C:\Program Files\Blogjet\Data\Templates\blogthis.htm file and edit it.  Here are the variables that you can use:

{$ .URL $} - page url
{$ .Title $} - page title
{$ .Text $} - selected text

I changed my default template to:

<p><blockquote><em>{$ .Text $}</em></blockquote></p>
<p><blockquote><font size="2">Copied from: <a href="{$ .URL $}">{$ .Title $}</a></font></blockquote></p>

It's pretty simple and very effective!

I just installed a new tool called BlogJet.  It's really awesome!!  It's a client tool for windows that allows you to manage your blog(s) without opening a browser.  It totally streamlines the process of uploading entries into your blog.  And it works with all major blogs!

Blogosphere is a very interesting site that tracks trends on blogs, top sites, and more.  It's like a heart monitor for the blogging community.  If you want to see what kinds of things are making blogs so popular you should take a look at this site.  I found the trends section to be the most interesting.

Blogs are just a fun tool for posting rants on the web, right?  Wrong.  Blogs have become much more than that.  Professor John Palfrey is using a blog in his Cyberlaw and the Global Economy class.  In fact, it's a required part of his class.  If you dig a little deeper you'll see that Harvard Law has a LOT of blogs.

Blogs are coming of age.  They are used as tools to build community (clubs, schools, churches, etc), they can be used as a help system, content management, and more.  If you haven't taken a serious look at blogs, you should start right away.

If you'd like an idea of how many, and how often, weblogs are updated then go to weblogs.com.  This site is updated every second, it's amazing!

Happy blogging.