A bit of personal blog history: when I was able to get a 5MB free Windows hosting subdomain account over at digitalrice.com about 4 years ago, I installed Movable Type on it; I’m even sure WordPress was conceived yet then. One of the neatest things that got me hooked more into the properly-hosted weblogging world was that I didn’t need to always enter my site admin URL to post a blog entry via a web browser; all I needed was a desktop blogging client. Download, install, launch, type away, and publish, its quite literally as easy as sending an email.
BEST COMMON CLIENT FEATURE: Posting through multiple blogs. Just imagine the one-stop convenience of updating your personal blog, your submissions to your group blogs, and that secret Livejournal/Blogspot account you don’t tell anyone about!
Here’s a list of clients for Windows, recently tested on a WordPress blog (source: WordPress Codex – Weblog Client)
FREE. Supports every blog platform conceivable. Ok, that’s probably an overstatement, but its 33 as of last count (including variations of blog platforms). Most recommended among all the other clients.
FREE. Touted as the first posting editor designed specifically for writing and formatting product recommendations, the client offers the essential features, plus the promise of revenue by converting your chosen text to product affiliate links. If you’d rather not have that option, they have a Lite version without that capability.
$39.95/FREE 30 Day Trial. Basic client, with browser and newsreader integration. This appears to be derivative of the wbloggar interface/features.
FREE. Integrates with MS Word, and direct posting via web browsers. A less-slick interface compared to its competitors, though Advanced Edit mode provides about 3% more functionality than wbloggar.
$17.95/Two-week Trial.Once Mac-exclusive, just ported to Windows this year. Also known as Leo Laporte‘s preferred client, but I couldn’t find the Ecto-powered button anymore on his site. The app would initially present you with ability to edit most recent posts on launch, instead of the familiar new post welcome.
Not in the WP Codex:
FREE. Marketed as a Movable Type Client, but will fully work with a WordPress powered blog by defining the xmlrpc.php server location. Leaner than wbloggar, I’ll mark this as second-in-rank to wbloggar.
6 comments
Planner, a wiki/blog/personal information manager built into my programming environment. Uberfun. It’s what I use to publish my site. =)
Well there is also Drivel =)
Flock has great reviews as a blogging tool. I can’t get a beta invite though 🙁
I use Drivel. Just one complaint though. You can only choose one category.
I’ve used lifeblog on my nokia phone to post both onto flickr and to my blog through atom.