Blogo and Skitch for adding material to your blog from the desktop

Ok, I know...it has been awhile between posts again. The main reason for this has been my schedule. I am teaching much ore now and also trying to get ready for another trip to Tanzania! I am very excited about that and look forward to sharing information (and photos) from the trip when I get back.

A second reason that my posts have not been flowing freely lately is that I find the Blogger editor lacking. It does everything fine, but it just isn't convenient (can you say spoiled user here). For this post I am using a new desktop blog editor, Blogo. I am just using this tool for the first time, but I must say it is very easy to get up and running. I have been using MarsEdit, which I like overall, but I have a very hard time with graphics uploading to my posts with it. There seems to be a problem with Blogger and MarsEdit concerning graphics that I cannot seem to fix. Blogo seems to have no such issues. One feature that I really like about Blogo is the preview of my post. When you select preview it shows you how the post will look within your blog. It grabs a template from your blog and shows you EXACTLY how your post will look once posted. Other packages may do that, but MarEdit didn't.

The graphic of the Blogo logo was captured with Skitch. I have to say that I love this tool. Skitch is a screen grab tool, but I must say it is the easiest one I have used. One of the features in Skitch that I am really drawn to is the ability to scale you screen grab before you save it. After you capture the section of the screen that you want to capture you simple drag the size of the window to get the graphic to the desired size. The dimensions of the graphic are listed in the bottom corner of the window and are updated dynamically while you drag the window size. This makes it very easy to get the graphic the size you want right from the get go. Skitch also comes with a web account to store your captures online for easy retrieval. I LOVE THIS APP! It is in beta right now and so the price is right....FREE! I must say however, I have tried to use a number of screen grab programs and Skitch beats them all for ease of use and working the way I need it to.

Sadly, both Blogo and Skitch are for MAC only, so PC users are out of luck. Both of these programs are excellent additions for anyone blogging from a MAC. I am a much happier blogger using them!