I have recently shifted to using a MacBook Air (thanks for the applause, now can you please give me some money so that I can buy some food?) and for the most part, I have not missed the Windows Environment. If anything, I have fallen in love with the Mac. The fact that I was reading Steve Jobs’s biography by Isaacson almost simultaneously had nothing to do with the brandmiration (brand+admiration) that I have recently developed about Apple.
However, one of the things that I DID miss was the Windows Live Writer. Being a (paroxysmally) prolific blogger often left high and dry by my Internet Service Provider, I needed the WLW to help me keep the thoughts alive long enough to transform them into drafts and then into blog posts.
But I started to like writing in WLW so much, that eventually, I was using it to write my blog posts even when I was online. I hardly ever used the wordpress.com interface for this blog or the even worse blogger UI for the blogspot blogs. So naturally, when I shifted to the Mac, I saw this lack of an offline blogging tool as a major put off and my blog writing came down, and then, almost stopped for a while. (No I am not giving lame excuses: this is a legitimate claim!)
So, I started to look for free programs that could take the place of WLW; to no avail.
MarsEdit was the one everyone recommended, but when I weighed the options, the choice of buying food to keep body and soul together won over the choice of getting a fancy software to bolster and already expensive machine. And then, I ran into this program, called the PixelPumper (horrid name for a blog writing tool!).
The focus seems to be on sharing pictures and all, and it lacks one of the biggest advantages of WLW: Live previews of posts. MarsEdit allows previews using some tweaks, but this one is just bare bones.
Anyways, considering the time I spend traveling and without internet access, this tool is something that I needed.
Of course, you shall ask why not use plain old MS Word for the same function; but it has several restrictions and I have never felt comfortable blogging from MS Word. There always have been some bugs and the experience was never very smooth.
PixelPumper seems OK for the time being, though a bug has already cropped up. I cannot seem to be able to add another blog (under the same wordpress.com user ID) to this. There’s this new little blog I have started: Germ Theory. And it just won’t “take” with PixelPumper. Any suggestions?
Scepticemia 
I use Evernote for all kinds of writing.
Note taking. Jotting down ideas. Creating to-do lists. Copying snippets from the internet. Writing logs (many of which may become future blog posts).
Of course it doesn’t plug in to your blog and publish posts on the fly. You still have to do the hard work of publishing it. Still better than your MS Word!
In case you are not using Evernote, please use my invite link. 🙂 You will love their desktop and phone apps.
https://www.evernote.com/referral/Registration.action?uid=27423314&sig=8e42e6abd4e2d03eb35032bc8f6dcb80
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I am looking for a blogging app. I do not need to jot down ideas per se, but then again, invention is the mother of necessity. Will use the link when I have better bandwidth access! Cheers!
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You might use Microsoft One Note…Its an amazing tool for recording and auto-syncing any stuff be it articles, photos or voice recordings of your ideas….it comes with the Office package or as a separate download…
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Will it plug into my blog and publish posts? And is it packaged in the MS Office for Mac package? I do not want to pay extra for another MS product when I can get MarsEdit for cheap.
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I have no idea about the package! 😛
ms word 2010 can directly publish posts though..
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Same story here,
I keep searching for a better replacement to WLW every month, just incase someone finds a perfect one, but so far no one has got something close to it.
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SmartXBlog is desktop blog editor for both windows and mac , it has WYSIWYG editor, image editor, online news, image and video search, drag and drop option, bookmarks , rss feed available from nearly 100 popular websites and you can even add your own rss, pop up alerts of your comments and you can preview and publish your post directly to your wordpress account .I think it is best available blogging desktop editor for windows and mac. Free trial can be downloaded from
http://www.smartxblog.com/
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Hello Pranab and all. I was a Windows Live Writer user too and I know how much more productive you can be using a blog editor app.
The good news:
We will release a new Mac app called Blogo, blogging made easy, again.
Blogo is a blog editor mac app that enables users to write, publish and manage multiple blogs faster and easier than ever. Writers can easily edit and embed images, videos and music, manage comments, preview posts (Much better than with WLW) before publishing and even work offline.
I really believe that many writers like all of you guys (from this discussion) can be more productive and happy using Blogo.
We are in private beta for now. If you want to test it, visit our site and download it:
http://www.getblogo.com
If you need any help, send me a tweet @amurepinho. Cheers!
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