Glenn Wolsey, writer for Macguide Magazine and author of http://www.GlennWolsey.com expresses his views about the top applications for blogging on the Mac. – Thanks to Glenn for this guest post.
Blogging can be a hugely rewarding and satisfying hobby, or in some cases job. But it does have it’s tough times, especially when it comes to composing, publishing, and announcing your posts. Fortunately for those users on the Mac platform there are some great tools to streamline your blogging process – let’s take a look.
Step One. Collect News – NewsFire
NewsFire is one of the best looking application on the Mac in my opinion. My RSS reader of choice, NewsFire is one of David Wants many applications, and in my opinion, his best.
NewsFire’s layout is very simple and easy to use, which allows you to streamline your RSS reading process and flick through hundreds of feeds seamlessly.
Step Two. Compose – Ecto
Ecto is my most valuable blogging tool that I have, and it’s Darren Rowse’s too. Without this application blogging would take much longer, and be much harder. With all the small yet great features it will end up saving your hours of time, especially if you manage multiple blogs.
If you are not familiar with Ecto, it’s an application which allows you to compose blog posts locally, then save them as drafts to edit later. You can use Ecto while you offline so it’s a great way to store loads of material ready to post when your creative side doesn’t feel like coming outside.
Ecto also features some nice time saving features such as drag and drop image placement and uploading. While your editing your entry simply drag images from your machine into the text area, place them as you like, and when you hit publish the images will be uploaded to your server and placed just as you had them into your blog post.
For those lucky enough to be on an Intel Mac, there is a specific Intel build of Ecto you can download here.
Step Three. Resize Images – ImageShackle
When I’m blogging I like to include images in posts. They can be very handy to help explain steps I’m explaining to the reader, and they make the post much more appealing for the “scanner” type reader.
Image Shackle lets you resize an image quickly, and is the easiest way to make your photos the right size.
Step Four. Announce – Pukka and Pingoat
After you’ve written and published your blog post you need to get the word out. The first step is to go over to Pingoat.com and ping your blog, Pingoat will ping around 30 different sites from one universal location, saving you time from traveling to all the sites and pinging yourself.
Pukka is in my opinion the best tool to post to your del.icio.us account from OSX. Simply drag the URL of your post out of Safari (or your chosen web browser) onto the Pukka icon in the dock, add a title, description, and tags, and click done. Your link will be submitted to del.icio.us with a satisfying “ping” sound.
So there you have it, 5 Mac OSX application which will help you blog more quickly, more efficiently, and with more fun.
What blogging tools do you like to use? Let us know in the comments below.
About Darren Rowse
My name is Darren Rowse and I’m a full time Blogger making a living from blogs like 
Got a list for Windows users?
Ecto works with Windows too. I did not know that application. I just started blogging a month ago and I have always ideas in mind. And I was looking for an app where I can “store” articles before I publish them… Great app, thanks for sharing !!
Hi from Switzerland !
Fran6
I use Photo Drop (http://www.kudurshian.net/photodrop/) for image resizing. I have a few “droplets” that just proportionally resize an image to a standard width for the common widths I work with. I put those droplets in the Finder sidebar so all I need to do is drag/drop an image to the one I want and it is resized w/out any interaction other than clicking Continue. Very handy!
Sorry if this sounds like a foolish question, but why would you post to del.icio.us? Wouldn’t that be like creating a link to yourself?
Binary Dollar: Windows users need just one thing… A Mac. ;)
Nice list. Here’s mine:
Collect News: I use Google Reader (was using Bloglines) as well as some web-based services that don’t do RSS, plus Google Alerts, and direct press releases – so Newsfire wouldn’t help 100%.
Compose: I tend to just use either WordPress, MT, or Typepad’s own editor, sometimes just writing first in Textedit. Safari has automatic spell checking in forms which is so helpful.
Resize Images: Sometimes I need to do additional work so I use GraphicConverter (my favourite image tool ever) or if I really need to do serious editing/creation, Photoshop CS.
Announce: I tend to just let the blogging service do the pinging.
Liked this article? Digg it here: http://digg.com/apple/5_Essential_OSX_Blogging_Tools
What I really want to know is how or whether Ecto is a better tool for the job than, say, Word.
Hello Darren hello Glenn thanx for this interesting post, have written about it in German.
A short Information, the link for the Intel MAC OSX download is unreachable.
I have found this link
http://kula.jp/software/ecto/download/ecto2.dmg
Here’s my Top 10 OS X apps to supplement blogging. The list goes above your standard “blogging” only app with the intent to improve the overall workflow. I checked out that ImageShackle but recommend Image Tricks which does more than simple resizing.
Appreciate the Mac OS X recommendations Darren.
Google Reader is a suitable alternative to Newsfire.
ImageWell is also a good nifty tool for image manipulation including resize, crop, etc.
Nice article. Newsfire’s creator is named David Watanabe and not David Want though.
Not to be a jerk, but I’d say the most important tool for online publishing (assuming your target audience is an English-speaking country) is the ability to use the English language properly.
This post was borderline unreadable, and I’m shocked to have been the first person to mention it.
i second imagewell as quick image resizing, also nice to add shadows, and i use netnewswire as my rss feed reader.
usually i compose the posts with bbedit, it has shortcuts for everything and allows you to add, or change them.
i can add a link, or image, with one keystroke.
maybe it’s my error but i found i couln’t cope with ecto, which i paid for, when it comes to moving from html and rich text. it always seems to add a lot of tags, s and a lot of s…
love pukka but i’ve changed to ma.gnolia (feeds with screenshots that look really nice on blogs, and other advantages) and i have to use the provided bookmarklets until pukka can deal with ma.gnolia (please, please…)
I’ll throw some slightly different recommendations to everyone:
1. Newsreaders: Endo (by Kula as well) or NetNewsWire
2. ‘blog clients: Ecto (still my favorite, *much* better than using word, etc)
3. image resize: No strong preferences here, though I tend to use EZ-Crop
4. del.icio.us client: Webnotehappy — I used to be a pukka user, but having universal keyboard shortcuts, “private” del.icio.us posts, and smart bookmark folders make Webnotehappy a tough app to compete against.
Oh, and for everyone out there, Vox is a *really* nice blogging “experience” in general, with the only downside being a lack of an external xml-rpc interface. (well, and not being able to directly modify the CSS, though you can always make your own CSS and submit it to the entire Vox community).
I just use the image features built into Ecto when resizing or making a thumbnail. I couldn’t live without Ecto now that I have purchased a license.
I use Vienna as my news reading app of choice, it does for my needs. I guess that’s all, just Vienna and Ecto – and of course Safari like a true Mac user should equipped with saft for all those nice features.
I contacted the guy at Pingoat to see if he was up for the idea of offering multiple accounts.
While it’s not on his current to-do list, it would be a welcome addition for those with more than one ‘blog…
I used to use Newsfire/endo, and ecto. I now use Flock. RSS, blog posting, del.icio.us support, and image resizing all-in-one.
Some people have been complaining about the performance of Flock but it works great in my MacBook Pro.
Great list – I manage a few blogs and would love the spare cash to buy ecto!
If you have some php-foo, you can resize images on the fly using this script from Sneak.
I just use RapidWeaver and Vienna for all of the above (save the feedburning).
MarsEdit and NetNewsWire !
I hope to get a list for windows users…
Here’s my guide to the the fastest way to resize images with a Mac. You don’t need widgets, just Preview.
Quote Clockwork
Not to be a jerk, but I’d say the most important tool for online publishing (assuming your target audience is an English-speaking country) is the ability to use the English language properly.
This post was borderline unreadable, and I’m shocked to have been the first person to mention it.
The author, Glen Wolsey, is 14 years old.
I’m surprised Darren doesn’t edit guest posts for spelling and grammar.
Useful list nonetheless.
Great!
now, when you are done, reward yourself with a visit to Alexa Radar (no relationship to Alexa)
http://www.alexaradar.com/compare/copyblogger.com
Is that cool or what!
I’m a hapless windows blogger, so I use:
Great News (the best desktop rss reader)
http://curiostudio.com
Performancing (a wonderful mozilla / IE plugin)
http://performancing.com/
Performancing includes technorati tag tools, ping tools, trackback tools and del.icio.us tools !
Resizr: online image resizing
http://resizr.lord-lance.com/
I was using http://Pingomatic.com
I use a del.icio.us extension available from Mozilla as well.
For an all around re-invigorator and inspirational tool,
I visit Copyblogger!
Thanks
Mary
here’s your Alexa Radar Graph
http://www.alexaradar.com/compare/problogger.net
You can resize images in Ecto already (and it even uploads the correct resolution versions, I believe). Just double click on them, select “Embedded” and drag away..
Great!
Ecto cool!!
Why would you need something like PingGoat if you use ecto? Just add the ping URLs to ecto for delicious and any other pingable sites you use and those sites automatically get pinged upon publishing the entry.
Very informative article, thanks … cheers from MacWink
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
Instead of using these applications I use only one: FLOCK
This browser is integrated with del.icio.us, you can blog with it.
The only thing that I miss is the Ping feature, but ok. I can live without it.
I recently stumbled upon ProBlogger and have NOT been disappointed. You not only point bloggers of all levels in the right directions, but also bring new items to the forefront each and every time.
Much thanks to you for building such a useful community and sharing your experiences and expertise!
Windows? What’s that???
Awesome, if only all websites were made this way. Fast, simple and informative. Useful tools
and if you track your stats with Google Analytics, you can do it a little easier with a dashboard widget – Dashalytics, http://dashalytics.rovingrob.com
I Second: MarsEdit and NetNewsWire! Awesome tools