Lazy Critic We'll get around to it

ScribeFire blogging away from blogging.

Every day that passes I am always passively looking for a new means to add something new, or connect to any one of the blogs I run. Mostly this one and 2 others. So the other day I am sitting on my phone thinking about the logic behind why I choose to get the WordPress App on my Sprint HTC Hero through the Android Market. Which was the ability to update these blogs from where ever whenever I feel the motivation, or the inspiration or whatever the case may be. That said while I was thinking I started wondering if there was any way I could update any of my blogs in a collective. Whether its a new post editing a post, or any general work I may want to do on any of the blogs outside of the modifications I am currently working on like custom themes, code, etc..

So I found a couple pieces of software add-on's of sorts for things like FireFox and Google Chrome. ScribeFire being one of them I thought was worth giving a shot to after reading more about it. Out of the lot of them I felt like I was justified in choosing ScribeFire. But I will be reviewing more just cause that's in the name of what this site does. Maybe Ill find one to be better than ScribeFire after trying a few of them. If that's the case Ill keep you all posted.

Main reason I choose ScribeFire was because of the abilities it offered. To list a few..

ScribeFire allows you to:
• Categorize and tag your blog posts
• Upload images
• Set timestamps
• Save works-in-progress as notes
• Post an entry as a draft
• Share your posts on social websites
• Upload files via FTP

I'm quoting someone else with that list, but I have found that that's not all its not limited to just that. It has way more options making it easy for you to post to your blog from your browser during the moment your inspired. It beats having that inspiration come over you then running off to your site to post about it and while your logging in, prepping to "Add New Post" a massing a large amount of open tabs or new browser windows (depends on your surfing habits I suppose tab or new window) and slowly having that inspiration fizzle out to nothing leaving a worthless draft you say you'll come back to later and never do, or leaving yourself with a lousy posting. To you couldn't just click a little button like with ScribeFire at the base of your browser and select your blog (if you have multiple blogs) and start posting away while the fire is still in you, while your still staring at the page, video, profile whatever it is that sparked the flame of your inspirational moment.

My only Cons of the moment (being as this is my first posting with it, giving it the true test run after digging through all the features and coming to the conclusion that this is as close to my editor without actually going to my editor as I might get) are:

• The initial congratulations, thanks for installing, this is how you get started page with ScribeFire.. Unlike most developers of add-on's for browsers or just really anything now a days ScribeFire seems to want to give you an idea of how to set up your newly installed ScribeFire add-on for your browser, and not just point your to a Thank you and their homepage, or some random advertisement. My issue with their landing page is its very vague. They hand you a handful of ways to open the app Tap your F8 key, or do this combination of keys or press this menu item or use this button. Then they go into a couple paragraphs what will happen with your first load up with little detail about what its going to ask you. Then points you to a "help" section.

• After having written this, going through and adding links. I am running through the HTML version of this article and I am finding that this app is adding unnecessary markup to the code behind what you see. Opening and closing paragraph tags for no reason. Or adding something like a random Emphasized text tag or the biggest pet peeve I am having is with this right now is the links. For example if I add a link as I am typing with the button to add a link with. Then continue typing from there or I make an edit and add more text there after whatever the case I have already found that this app Adds a space right before the < /a > tag so when you go to continue typing your typing with the previously just made link your still "creating the link so to speak" if to emphasis this lets say I make a link "Sample Link" and then I continue typing my result would be like "Sample Link and then I continue typing my result would be like" actually I am not finding as I make this example that the case seems to be with all tags, just doing the font tag above for the example I end up with the same result... Now the only reason I pick on this issue is because well in this day and age, where everyone calls themselves a webmaster because they have a blog and they learned how to add an image manually to a post with a real life HTML tag and they barely know even basic HTML (yes I know I have issues) what happens to them they aren't highly likely to be able to fix the issue, stop it, and so on cause they wont know its a simple fix (remove that last little space between the end tag) They may even end up spending hours "researching" a fix, ultimately negating the concept of this App to begin with..

Other than that, that's really the only things I can think of that irks me about the ScribeFire add-on for Firefox. Don't get me wrong with my rants. I like this app so far. If you know your basic HTML if and you want a quicker means of posting a new post on any of your blogs, check this out. Its a tiny bit buggy but what software isn't in this day and age, once this app grows and matures a bit I think this may end up the industry standard to blogging away from your blog. It has the potential thus far, just the developers of it need to work out some kinks.

For those stuck on Installing ScribeFire and using it there after during its "First Run" it prompts you to put your blog information it. On the second screen is where I am going to guess some of you might likely be stuck on more so if your new to blogging. Now I will only speak in the case of WordPress as I am not to familiar with the other blogware titles out there as you can tell. But that's mostly due to not liking them much, having given them a quick try not liking them dumping them and never looking back (they could have been improved on since though who knows)

There is more to this setting than just finding the file. This is something I think ScribeFire should mention on there page, and chances are there's a similar concept applied to other blogware titles as well. But as I said I am speaking only on behalf of WordPress installs right now. What you have to do to make this work is go into your blogs "Settings" tab on the left of your dashboard. Expand the tab so you can see all the options under it. Then click on "Writing" from there you are looking for the "Remote Publishing" part, scroll down a bit you will see it. Looks sorta like..

If "Enable the WordPress, Movable Type, MetaWeblog and Blogger XML-RPC publishing protocols." is not checked, then check it (by default WordPress keeps this setting off). But without it being on your not going to be able to access your blog through any third part app using the XML-RPC API's. Once you have checked the option to turn it on just scroll down a little bit more and click the "Update Settings" button. After that you should be all set.

By the way the xmlrpc.php file with WordPress at least is usually in the root folder of the blog software itself. So if you installed your blog in a folder "Blog" the url would then be http://yourdomain.com/Blog/xmlrpc.php