Ed Cyzewski's Blog, page 36

Asking Myself Tough Questions: My Post for Moving Beyond Mediocrity at the High Calling

Looking back, it’s not like I was drafting an outline as we sped toward the hospital that day. But as a writer, I would have thought that I could at least pull a long magazine article out of a trip to the emergency room and subsequent months of intensive medical testing...

My Next Book Release: Hockey Is for Real

I was five years old. There were bright lights, unfamiliar faces, and a loud booming voice.  People cheered and celebrated, clapping their hands for joy and sharing drinks.  Sticks slapped at the ice, a black disc zipped from one end of the ice to the other, and men smashed each other into the boards. When […]

We Know Where to Find Jesus, But What If We Don’t Want to Go There?

By the time John the Baptist reevaluated his entire life calling in the prison at Herod’s palace, Jesus was well on his way out into the wilderness. Nothing added up. If Jesus was the Messiah, why wasn’t he in control of Herod’s Palace? Why were the corrupt priests still ministering in the temple? Why were […]

5 Reasons American Christians Love to Get the Book of Revelation Wrong-A Guest Post for Zack Hunt

Zack Hunt is one of those bloggers who often says what I wish I could say. His American Jesus blog mixes theology and commentary with his sharp whit and radar for the absurd in American Christianity. I always enjoy dropping by his blog because I feel like I can let my sarcastic side off the […]

The Correct Theology Didn’t Help These Guys: My Guest Post for Micah J. Murray

I’m guest posting for my friend Micah J. Murray, a talented up-and-coming writer who has written some of the most powerful blog posts I’ve read over the past two years. After you read my post, be sure to subscribe to his blog. They witnessed miracles. They listened to hours and hours of perfect, undeniably correct […]

World Vision, Consumerism, and Replacing Children Like Cell Phones

Giving to charity can become yet another facet of American consumerism. As Americans consume more technology, food, clothing, and furniture, giving to charity can alleviate guilt over our affluence. We can make a donation, and it could save us from asking hard questions about our lifestyles. We can say, “At least I’ve done something.” I’ve […]

My Least Favorite Gospel Stories: When Jesus Alienates His Family

Jesus could have just walked away and settled in his cozy fishing village by the Sea of Galilee. Rather, Jesus spoke like a prophet, announcing that he would take his message to the Gentiles and that they would listen. For the Jewish people who identified themselves as God's chosen people, there was no insult more cutting than this.

There Is Only One Windows Live Writer Substitute for Bloggers on Mac

When I switched from a PC to a Mac, I rejoiced over the increased speed, the slick interface, and the fantastic programs that come right out of the box. However, there’s one program that I use almost every day that I couldn’t take with me to my Mac: Windows Live Writer.

Windows Live Writer is the ultimate in offline blogging editors. It provides the familiar interface of Word along with all of the WYSIWIG features you could need when writing for the web. It’s really easy to insert and edit images in blog posts, format text (including headings), and post content to multiple blogs. It’s not available for Mac unless you’re willing to run Windows, a process that can make a Mac run quite slow.

I wanted a clean break from Windows, and I didn’t want to spend any extra money on even the bare bones Windows 7 operating system.

I write several blog posts each day between my own blog and blog posts for my clients, and I’ve lost enough blog posts to online editors and/or spotty internet that I’ve learned to rely pretty heavily on the stability of an offline editor like Windows Live Writer. For my own blog I use a lot of its formatting options that I simply haven’t found in other offline editors.

Now that I’m a blogger who uses a Mac, there’s really only one viable blog editor that comes close to the features offered by Windows Live Writer: ScribeFire. It’s also the one Mac blog editor that is overlooked in many articles about the search for a WLW substitute.

ScribeFire as a Substitute for Windows Live Writer

ScribeFire is a browser plugin that I’ve used in Chrome, but it’s available in other browsers such as Firefox. It’s a quick install, and it loads without any trouble. Although technically “browser” blogging program, it offers all of the features that you would expect in an offline editor  and I can load it up when offline and save my work.

It’s easy to save  drafts, insert images, post to multiple blogs, and format documents in its text editor. While it doesn’t offer header formatting options, you can easily customize your keyboard to create a shortcut. I just click “COMMAND+3″ in order to make h3 headings, and could do the same for every other level of heading if I needed them.

You can remove formatting from text that is pasted in, double check formatting in an HTML editor, and then switch to the visual editor which offers all of the formatting options you’d find in a solid online editor like the one offered by WordPress.

You can’t create or edit pages in ScribeFire, but it’s simple enough to write up content and then paste it into a page template for a CMS like WordPress.

Lastly, and you wouldn’t think this should be such an issue, but you can actually SEE the text in ScribeFire since it’s easy to just zoom in a bit on the editor screen if you need larger text. I have excellent eye site, but all of the blog editors for Mac, which I will summarily dismiss below, had the significant drawback of tiny, tiny text. I searched and searched for a zoom or view option that I could change, but no dice. In fact, I was about to make do with Ecto, but I kept leaning forward and squinting to see the tiny text. All that to say, ScribeFire makes it possible to zoom in on your text as much as you like, and more customization is always better than less.

Now that I’ve sung the praises of ScribeFire for Mac bloggers, here are some other blog editor options I’ve checked out.

Online Blog Editors

Of course you could just write and edit your posts online in the editor provided by your website. I’m in the unique position that my Christian theology blog, the one I update several times a week, doesn’t have a functioning visual editor in WordPress. It’s a common problem that has many, many suggested solutions. However none of them have worked for me.

Even though my other blogs and client blogs have functioning editors, I still prefer writing the content offline and then pasting it into the online editors because I don’t want to risk losing my posts because of a cafe’s spotty wifi. I know some other bloggers have also had issues losing posts in their online editors, but I’m not certain how big of a problem this is, as the latest editor in WordPress is quite good, provided your internet connection is reliable.

Word as a Blog Editor

For many of my client projects, I’ve switched to blogging in Word and just pasting the text into the WordPress online editor. It recognizes the different heading formats (H1, H2, H3, etc.), bold/italic formatting, and hyperlinks. I’ve only had trouble with inserting images, so I just end up inserting them in WordPress through its much-improved media button.

 

Qumana, Ecto, and Mars Edit: The Terrible Mac Blog Editors

You really can group all of these together for the most part. They’re all impossibly tiny editors with clunky interfaces. The main difference is that you can add some custom HTML buttons (such as h3 tags) in Ecto (probably in MarsEdit I suspect) and MarsEdit and Ecto actually cost money. I even paid for Ecto because I forgot that ScribeFire was option.

The two days I spent exclusively using Ecto were dark indeed. Writing was more of a chore than a pleasure, and I promptly deleted the program when I saw that ScribeFire was an option. On a related note, if anyone wants to buy a $20 Ecto registration code from me, drop a comment below!

 

We Will Survive Without Windows Live Writer

This sounds kind of crazy, but I spent a couple of days mourning the loss of Windows Live Writer. I spent so much time on that program that it was hard to imagine life without it. I think most Mac bloggers can get by with Word as an offline editor and simply pasting the text into an online editor. However, if you’re like me, and you’ve grown used to WLW, save yourself some time and money by checking out ScribeFire.

Did I miss a great blog editor for Mac?

Did a new blog editor come out since I wrote this post?

Has Bill Gates taken time away from promoting knowledge and education in order to provide Mac users with the blog editor we deserve, adapting WLW for iOS???

Let me know which blog editor you use in the comments! 

 

Looking for  More Writing Tips?

Sign up for my monthly e-newsletter, and you’ll receive my guide Become a Better Faith Blogger for free.

An Interview with Jennifer Luitweiler about Seven Days in May

The internet is a place where lots of people speak their minds, but few do so with as much grace, passion, wisdom, and wit as Jennifer Luitweiler. I’m always grateful to read her writing because she isn’t afraid to tackle the tough topics that tug at our emotions and challenge our minds. Her novel, Seven […]

Spiritual Growth Lessons from… Caiaphas?

I’m guest posting for my friend Kris Camealy today about the least likely source for a spiritual growth lesson: Caiaphas, the high priest in the Gospels. Here’s a sample of where I’m going.   When I think of Caiaphas, I think of a scheming, murderous, angry priest dressed in black who became obsessed with murdering […]