Windows Live Writer
Written by
David Dunn on January 7, 2008 – 5:43 pm - 1,711 views 
Ever since I started blogging on FerrariDave back in November 2007, I have used WordPress’ admin section to write my blog posts.
As most of you bloggers will be aware, it isn’t the most advanced tool in the world.
While looking around other blogs, I found that a lot more people were using Windows Live Writer to create their posts. This made me realise that there must be some reason why people are switching.
First and foremost, Windows Live Writer means that the blogger can create their posts anywhere, whether they have access to the internet or not. It also means that you don’t need to use bandwidth every time you want to create a post, loading up all the dashboards etc. in the admin section.
Once I started using Windows Live Writer (yes, I’m using it to create this post), I found that when you are writing a post, it shows it as though you were viewing it as a post on your blog.
This, to me, is a huge advantage as WordPress creates the posts in the default font and the CSS file depicts what the font should be once on your blog.
Ultimately, this means that you have to guess how big your paragraphs are and guessing isn’t always the best option!
Inserting pictures is also made easier in this as you can see exactly what it would look like on your page and how the text is wrapping round it. Whereas on WordPress, I found myself having to save and continue with the post, previewing it to see how the text and images are looking.
These are about the only features I have explored in Windows Live Writer but the rest looks very promising including Plug-ins.
If you would like to give Windows Live Writer a go yourself, click here and download it from Microsoft. I think it’s one hell of an improvement in comparison to the traditional WordPress methods.
If anyone has any cool tricks for me, I’d love to hear about them in the comments.
If you use anything better than Windows Live Writer I’d also love to hear from you as I’m always open to improvement!
| 2.5 |
Tags: blog, blogging, live, program, review, tool, windows, writer
Posted in blogging | 3 Comments »
Blogging Using Pen and Paper - Summary
Written byDavid Dunn on January 5, 2008 – 7:14 pm - 1,144 views Yesterday I came across a post about blogging on paper and I went on to do my own blog post using pen and paper. This post had mixed comments as to how viable blogging on paper would be.
ADVANTAGES
First of all, there are a couple of advantages to blogging using pen and paper although it is quite evident why WordPress didn’t think of this one before!
Catches people’s eye
A lot of the traffic brought to websites tend to only look for something on a page and don’t read everything to it’s fullest. For example, a fair bit of the traffic to FerrariDave is from Entrecard. A lot of those using Entrecard are just looking to drop their card and aren’t too interested in the blog they are dropping their card on.
Blogging a couple of times on paper may grab the attention of the average Entrecard user, I know the post that I made did as Tevin quite kindly pointed out that it had grabbed his attention while doing the rounds on Entrecard.
Another way in which blogging on paper could catch people’s eye is through a feed reader. Some people (including myself) have a lot of feeds on their feed reader and this results in a lot of blog posts waiting to be read. This causes me (and I’m sure many others) to skim through the posts only reading the ones that catch your eye. Blogging on paper would tend to catch my eye more than just plain text.
Implement diagrams
Diagrams could be implemented into paper blogging a lot more easily rather than having to use the computer to draw it for you. You can be as creative as you want to be with no limits at all.
Of course the computer will probably draw more consistent and neater diagrams than you can.
Fun
Blogging using paper can be quite fun. It’s definitely something different to do as opposed to your usual blogging and may be a nice rest from your standard methods of blogging.
DISADVANTAGES
Google indexing
Blogging in the usual method is one hell of a lot more effective when it comes to search engines indexing your posts.
Lack of link love
As ShadowKnight quite correctly pointed out, I couldn’t actually link to the post I got the idea from as it’s hard to write a link into a piece of paper 
Although you could refer to the links on the blog itself once you’ve finished your writing, it kind of defeats the original purpose and takes some of the fun out of it.
Bad handwriting
If you have bad handwriting, no one would be able to read your posts anyways which would rule blogging using pen and paper as completely useless!
Mistakes
You probably noticed that I made a couple of mistakes when I wrote my post by hand (you’ll probably find some in a lot of my posts but that’s not the point 
).
If you were to blog on paper, you would have to either start with a new page - not very environmentally friendly (save the trees and all that). You could get the Tipp-Ex out and write over the top of your mistakes. Or you could even use my method and just scribble over them and keep on writing.
As I can imagine most bloggers want their posts to be at their highest standard, the only option would be to start the writing all over again which would, to be honest, be a complete pain in the backside each and every time you made one little mistake!
SUMMARY
The disadvantages weigh out the advantages quite considerably. I even thought about doing this post using pen and paper but decided against it due to the practicality! Why not have a go yourself and see what sort of results you come up with using this method?
| 2.5 |
Tags: advantages, blogging, disadvantages, paper, pen
Posted in blogging | 2 Comments »
TopSpots Widget
Written byDavid Dunn on December 29, 2007 – 1:41 am - 190 views You may have noticed a new widget appear on FerrariDave. This widget is the TopSpots widget from ScratchBack.
The idea is quite simple but pretty effective. The intended purpose of the widget is to allow people to tip the blog it is posted on and in return for their kind gesture, they’ll appear in the TopSpots of the blog they tippped.
Pricing to buy a top spot varies from blog to blog, from a minimum of $1 per spot. I currently have the amount set to the minimum, $1.
You can also specify how long, once a person donates, that they will remain in your TopSpots. There is also an option whereby when someone tips you, their link moves everyone else’s link down a spot, subsequently this knocks people off once more people tip the blog - pretty cool feature I think!
If you, like me, think this is a pretty cool tool and would like to have your own widget, visit ScratchBack.
| 2.5 |
Tags: ad, blogging, scratchback, topspots, widget
Posted in General | No Comments »
