Top 10 OS X apps to supplement blogging
Last week I shared a little info regarding the WordPress plugins I rely on to keep 5ThirtyOne running as it should. The list received a decent amount of attention and opened the door as far as questions regarding the rest of my personal setup. More specifically, favored applications and methods for shuffling content on to 5ThirtyOne.
I’ve rolled through my applications folder in an attempt to collect the Top 10 OSX applications to supplement bloggers in this blog era. Understand that the list does not reflect actual desktop blogging apps. Rather, the focus is on apps which supplement blogging.
Granted, a true grassroots blogger would manage just fine with nothng more than a WordPress.com account. Chances are that anyone who has landed on this post is interested in a little padded convenience as opposed to raw functionality. Bloggers have access to a great collection of applications and utitlites to create a consistent blogging environment.
Never leave the keyboard with Quicksilver
Blogging requires constant contact with the keyboard. Any action that require you to lift your finger tips away from the keys will henceforth be labeled as anti-bloggism. The key to alleviating such non-productiveness? Quicksilver. Launch files, open folders, meta tag items, upload to Flickr, etc. without ever leaving the keyboard. The list goes on and on. The possibilities seem endless thanks to an assortment of plugins and tutorials which revolve around this wonder app. Price: Free.
Browsing + Blogging = Firefox / Flock
While I am a strong supporter of Flock, I’ve returned to Firefox due to a small quirk I’ve noticed in the way the integrated WYSIWYG editor handles markup
As hard as I tried, complete control over browser behavior fit my routine a little better. Add to that the fact that Firefox supports keywords for instant access to bookmarks. If it’s a browsing & blogging “experience” you’re after, grab Flock. If you’re looking for bare bones control, continue on with Firefox. Price: Free.
Del.icio.us + Pukka = Endless ideas
The secret to maintaining a steady flow of traffic is consistent posting habits. The social bookmarking site del.icio.us can be used as both a content
Your river of news within NewsFire
One of, if not the most, visually pleasing RSS reader to date for OSX. With iChat-esque notifications of unread items, live search, favicons, and complete integration with software such as Pukka, Ecto, and MarsEdit, NewsFire handles feeds like no other. Every imagineable keyboard shortcut comes preconfigured for opening links in defualt browsers [behind the reader!], posting to del.icio.us [via Pukka], marking individual feeds [or all feeds], jumping through unread items, auto-discovering feeds, and too many more to continue listing. My favorite feature? Smart Feeds. Think Apple Mail ‘rules’ (filters). Specify exact words or phrases, specific feeds, or an assortment of other options for guaranteeing that your personal interests are continually pushed to the front. Feed reading has never been so simply. Price: $17.99 + Limited Demo.
Handle FTP needs with Transmit
After spending equal time with Fetch, Cyberduck, and Transmit, there is no hesitation electing Transmit as my FTP-client of choice. Supporting Droplets, Synchronization, Spotlight favorites, iDisk & WebDAV support, and sidebar previews for files, nothing else compares. Keep your local WordPress themes folders sync’d with your server install. For a full peek at Transmit’s offerings, check here. Price: $29.95 + Full Demo.
Quick image editing thanks to Image Trick
Don’t let Image Trick’s diminutive size and simplicity fool you. I leave this little app sitting in the dock for quick access by drag n’ dropping images directly on to the icon. Image Trick utilizes Tiger’s Core Image filters to transform and tweak screenshots, photographs, and misc images on your computer. Don’t wait around for Photoshop’s 15 second warm up when you can crop & edit your blog post images in the same amount of time. Price: Strong free version with Pro options for $9.95.
Poke at PHP, JS, XHTML, & CSS with TextMate
Syntax highlighting, project view, file tree view, live spell check, and tabs are just a few features that some may point out in similar applications. Fortunately, TextMate has a few tricks up its sleeve to differentiate it from the rest including an arsenal of automated snippets, code folding, and a slew of keyboard shortcuts often requiring a cheat sheet as reference. A personal favorite is the keyboard shortcut for code validation and live code previews. Compiled projects also save time when reopening TextMate after brief breaks. Price: $50 + 30 Day demo.
Voice Candy audible reminders and notes
It was only recently that I stumbled upon Potion Factory’s Voice Candy. Yet, I’ve managed to log an incredible number of audible notes and reminders thanks to the configurable keyboard shortcut. Mine is set to CMD + Enter which automatically opens and initiates Voice Candy. Gimmicky to some, the added voice over effect add a little bit of fun to your audio notes. Create dated reminders [which will even go so far as waking your computer from sleep], create iTunes playlists, or email reminders to yourself and others. Audio clips are saved as Quicktime .MOV files. Give Voice Candy a try as I’ve discovered that audio notes are easier to create and save when compared to Stickies. Price: $12.95 + 15-day full demo
Dictionary at your fingertips
Definitions and spelling can be so tricky at times. Thankfully, Apple’s integrated dictionary serves as both a defining reference and spelling check. Live search as you type functionality allows users to begin typing words as OSX begins to query possible matches. Alternatively, Quicksilver users can invoke text mode, enter a word, and perform a dictionary look up action [granted Dictionary + Growl support is enabled in the preferences]. Just try not to overload your blog posts with heavy words forcing readers to look for definitions. Price: Free.
Alternative communications
Despite being a written medium, blogging requires quite a bit of time in chat rooms, instant message sessions, and conference calls. Maybe it’s just me, but there is a whole lot of actual talking involved despite prior preconceptions concerning “blogging”. “Digg this! Did you read about… Let’s talk about our goals for the month. Yada yada yada.” I’m guilty as is any other blogger reading through this. How do I handle all this side chatter? Adium & Skype. No other way to go. Blogging is more than type, post, and comment. Blogging is about communicating with peers and readers. Adium handles the brunt of the instant messaging needs supporting the big four + more while Skype handles the VoIP and landline calls.
Aside from the actual publishing platform, what tools do you use in pursuit of blogging stardom? Drop your Windows & OSX tips below. Digg this.
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Paul Stamatiou
paulstamatiou.com
Awesome roundup Derek. A news aggregator like NewsFire is an absolute must I also use Flock and Transmit, but while I own both TextMate and SubEthaEdit I find myself using the latter more often. For those interested in Transmit, take a look at my review, as well as my definitive Flock review.
As for image programs, I’ve tried several smaller apps but I keep finding myself going back to CS2. BTW, I love the way you do your screenshots tilted. Regarding blogging, I’ve always used the WP admin itself. I just don’t trust those other apps and I like WP’s preview window.
Jul 8th, 2006 Quote
Justin Ruckman
centripetalnotion.com
NewsFire is definitely pretty — but I’ll stick with NNW. It’s all about the three-pane widescreen baby.
Thanks for letting me know about Image Trick, I’ve got to give that one a try.
Jul 8th, 2006 Quote
Justin Ruckman
centripetalnotion.com
Oh! I *have* tried Image Tricks before, but I don’t need the effects and you can’t set a fixed size or ratio for the crop. There’s also iZoom (http://izoom.us).
Jul 8th, 2006 Quote
Derek
5thirtyone.com
iZoom uses up 1.04GB of “virtual” memory on my system. Now why would it need so much? And what’s with that giant full screen splash page on startup?
Jul 9th, 2006 Quote
Regi
jinlabs.net
You keep writing these little list Derek and people will soon start asking you what you carry in your pockets on a normal basis. great list
Jul 9th, 2006 Quote
Dale Cruse
24stgeorge.com
I know TextMate has some heat behind it, but for XHTML/CSS coding, I’m really digging skEdit.
Jul 9th, 2006 Quote
Justin Ruckman
centripetalnotion.com
Dunno, that is pretty lame. Like Paul I stick with CS2 myself — half the time it’s already open anyway.
Jul 9th, 2006 Quote
weisheng
designasides.com
Derek, have you tried the Dashlicious widget for posting del.icio.us links? It supports Safari, Firefox, Camino and NNW, has a great autocomplete function for tags and also supports posting private links now.
I prefer Camino to Firefox and Flock, it’s much much faster. The major drawback is its lack of extensibility. I’ll be having a look at Image Trick, having to wait an eternity for Photoshop to load just to resize and saturate some images really gets on my nerves. Great review.
Jul 9th, 2006 Quote
Derek
5thirtyone.com
I’ve become so reliant on the Ultimate Tag Warrior that nothing else is an option.
I can do one of those lists as well, might not be as interesting though
I gave skEdit a whirl before moving to TextMate. While the live editing and integrated FTP client are great, I thought the application did a little too much (somewhat bloated). There are a few keyboard shortcuts that I could never live without [now] that TM offers.
I was using the widget as my main utility for adding links to del.icio.us but it’s a smidgen slower than Pukka. I don’t really spend too much time in the Dashboard anyway. I tried keeping the widget on the desktop at all times but the look just didn’t feel right. The $5 for Pukka [via MacZot] wasn’t too much of a hit anyway.
Jul 9th, 2006 Quote
Anand
dragon-labs.com
yeah, I really love skEdit..
Jul 9th, 2006 Quote
Henning
I’m wondering how you do the dictionary lookup in Quicksilver. I always wanted to do this, but never found a way. Or do you mean the dictionary plugin that gets the information from dictionary.com and NOT from the internal dictionary of the OS?
Would be nice if you could explain it. It’s always good to find something new in Quicksilver.
Jul 9th, 2006 Quote
Derek
5thirtyone.com
This tutorial might be a great reference to check out. Hope that helps out.
Jul 9th, 2006 Quote
Derek
5thirtyone.com
I neglected to include an additional option rather that using the Dictionary.app that comes bundled with OSX.
1. Activate Quicksilver
2. Hit ‘.’ (period) to invoke text only mode
3. Enter the word to define
4. Hit ‘Tab’ to move to action
5. Enter ‘def’ (define with dict.org)
Jul 10th, 2006 Quote
Brian Morykon
viewchange.com
Another trick for looking up a definition in any cocoa app is to hover over a word and hold down CTRL-Command-D. A window over the word pops up with the definition.
Jul 10th, 2006 Quote
lisa
unsympathetic.net
I’ve actually gotten UTW and Ecto to work with each other, you just need to get the latest version of UTW. Christine has added some slick options. Granted I’m on windows, but I do think it should work the same way regardless.
Now… if I could somehow clean up the code Ecto spits into UTW, it would be brilliant.
And as always, Derek, you make me weep for a new Mac. I always knew there was a good reason to switch over, and you just keep giving me more. Now I’ll have to remember this list the next time some one asks “why would you ever want to switch to a mac?”
Jul 10th, 2006 Quote
Derek
5thirtyone.com
I believe I may have already expiremented with the UTW “integration” with Ecto. The type of tags are somewhat different than what I use them. If I recall correctly, UTW tags inserted via Ecto were added to the bottom of posts as inline tags. There was no viable option for me to add tags as the meta cotent to posts (under titles).
Jul 10th, 2006 Quote
lisa
unsympathetic.net
That is sorta the problem. With the new set up, it does throw a list of tags at the bottom of the post. However, UTW set up right will take those tags and put them where they are supposed to go in the “tag box” and makes the list in the post not display by default. It would be better if you could send the tags through Ecto as keywords, but I suppose that would involve some UTW hackery that is far beond my level.
It’s working for me at the moment, and while I still go back and delete the body list of tags, it can wait until the end of the week, or whenever I really have to devote to blog management.
Jul 10th, 2006 Quote
Derek
5thirtyone.com
Lisa I’m going to have to give Ecto a try again. I may call on you for insight.
Jul 10th, 2006 Quote
lisa
unsympathetic.net
Not a problem. It did take me a bit to figure it out. Just make sure you get the latest UTW. She’s on 3.something now. It’s crazy all the things she’s added to it…
Jul 10th, 2006 Quote
luxuryluke
brandamage.com
This is an awesome list! Thank you!
Jul 10th, 2006 Quote
Chris
chris.swimbikerunblog.com
For quick image resizing/reformatting, I love PhotoDrop. Just set up a droplet and put it in your Finder sidebar, then drag-n-drop to resize and/or reformat an image.
Jul 11th, 2006 Quote
eric
badtofu.com
didn’t know if you saw this derek, quoted on TUAW
Jul 11th, 2006 Quote
bsn
brandspankingnew.net
Interarchy for FTP - still way better than Transmit
MarsEdit blog software - even the simplest desktop apps are easier to handle than web-based blog software
JEdit for coding
Jul 11th, 2006 Quote
kOoLiNuS
koolinus.wordpress.com
Uhm …. i think that there are two or three GPL/gratis alternatives to your list …. principally the FTP client, WengoPhone instead of Skype and eventually Smultron for “text” editing ….
Can someone point out anything else ?
Jul 13th, 2006 Quote
Derek
5thirtyone.com
I wasn’t necessarily shooting for GPL alternatives. I’m sure there are a few alternatives to the ones listed above. Smultron for TextMate, CyberDuck for Transmit, Gizmo for Skype, etc. You can go with alternatives, but some of the features that these apps listed above offer may not be found in other apps.
Jul 13th, 2006 Quote
Phil Bowell
phil.electricweekend.com
Since you use FireFox as your main browser I would be interested to know what extensions you use. I am feeling unsettled in Safari and have been looking into using FireFox, the trouble is I have no idea which extensions might be useful etc. I would be interested to know what extensions you use or why you prefere it over Safari.
thanks.
Aug 6th, 2006 Quote
Derek
5thirtyone.com
I have actually moved to Safari for my browsing needs. Although, I do use Firefox for web development as well as a few sites which create a little bit of trouble for Safari (redirect issues). As far as extensions are concerned, my Firefox install makes use of Adblock, Web Developer, Measureit, and Aardvark. Nothing else really as I find myself spending about 5% of my browsing time in Firefox.
There are too many extensions to try anyway… Have you tried weeding your way through the recommended extensions list on the extensions front page?
Aug 6th, 2006 Quote
Flo Wagner
flowagner.org
Derek, thanks for this Top10! I’ve been looking for an image editor for like ever… Croping images with Apple Preview is not that much fun…
Regarding TextMate: It is definitely the best text editor for Mac, the only reason I’m still struggling with TextWrangler is that it supports opening files from an FTP server. Or is there some plug-in for TextMate I haven’t found yet?
And another Firefox extension that might come in handy (at least for the web developers among us) is Firebug. Debugging CSS/Javascript/AJAX code with it is almost fun
Aug 8th, 2006 Quote
Derek
5thirtyone.com
No integrated FTP functionality Flo. Simply specify TextMate as your text editor within Transmit so that all files opened for editing are done so with TM.
Aug 8th, 2006 Quote
Lawsy
lawsy.net
I would love to be able to support software developers and actually buy software but I am a 16 year old student who is stuck with very little money, mostly everything I use to supplement my blogging is opensource or freeware.
I use Cyberduck for my FTP needs, it does the trick. I use the ugly textwrangler when I want to get knee deep code, but since I switched from my own homegrown content management system to Wordpress I haven’t really needed to bother with much coding. I use Vienna to read my feeds, it may not be as pretty as NNW but it is free. I do use QS, religiously! I also think Saft is essential if you are browsing in Safari, which I often find myself doing as Firefox is a touch too slow in Mac OSX.
I also have VirtueDesktops to seperate my thinking, I have one for coding and FTP-ing. One purely for writing with Ecto, which was a gift from my girlfriend for my last birthday. I have a third for Safari and the last open with Vienna and occasionally mail.
The tip for trying out Image Tricks is one I will definitely be following up considering I can’t afford Photoshop. Thanks for the great article!
Nov 13th, 2006 Quote
Derek
5thirtyone.com
Glad the information helped out Lawsy.
Nov 13th, 2006 Quote
kioshi
freewaremac.net
I like Vienna RSS because it opens a new tab with the complete article in those stupid ‘partial content’ RSS feeds.
For Images, Imagewell does the job for me. I do not use the Dashboard that much, and Imagewell allows resizing, borders, even watermarking.
For blogging, I like the Performancing extension for Firefox, and Ecto. FIreFTP is a nice extension for ‘Fox for easy FTP’ing without having to open a new program.
Best of all, they’re all free, save for ecto, but ecto’s worth it.
http://freewaremac.net
Nov 26th, 2006 Quote
Andy
bannerdirekt.de
I like it very much ….
Nov 30th, 2006 Quote
Robert
gsxr-fieber.de
Very helpful tips.
Thanks!
Dec 19th, 2006 Quote
Versicherungsvergleich
versicherungendirekt.de
This is a very helpfull list! Thanks a lot !
Jan 6th, 2007 Quote
Gutschein
gutscheinauskunft.de
Very good list
Feb 17th, 2007 Quote
Essen
genussweb.de
Thank you I appreciate it very much!
Mar 22nd, 2007 Quote
Schüssler
apotheke-medikamente.info/medikamente/schuessler-salze.php
Great collection of plugins. My mac will be loving it!
Mar 23rd, 2007 Quote
Benjamin Jackson
drinkbrainjuice.com
Nice collection. You might want to take a look at Blogo, a new desktop weblog editor for the Mac. Features include fullscreen editing, an automatic live preview and image cropping and placement without leaving the application.
You can download Blogo from the Brainjuice website. It costs $25, and has a 15-day unlimited trial.
Nov 29th, 2007 Quote