If you find yourself having difficulty blogging regularly, I’ve found that sometimes the key is to make the technical part of the act of blogging easier and more convenient. Integrating the ability to blog into applications or websites you normally use can not only make blogging easier, but encourage it.
flickr
My favorite photo sharing website makes it very easy to make a blog post using either one of your photos or someone else’s that is marked as reusable. At the bottom of the “Extending flickr” tab of the “Your Account” page there is a section to add details about your blog (or blogs). If you’ve never done this before, read the simple directions to set things up properly for your type of blog and you’re all set. Once you’ve added at least one blog, a new “Blog This” button will appear above the photos you look at on flickr. Clicking on this button lets you write a blog post about that photo and post it (and the photo) to your blog all from within flickr.com. Once your done, you’re right back to looking at photos on flickr.
Google Docs
I’ve been using Google Docs since it was called Writely and I love it. I store all kinds of information in Docs and having access to it from any computer is very convenient. Today, however, was the first time I noticed that the “Share” button also allows you to post a document as a blog post directly to your blog. There is a similar set up process like flickr and then your able to post. If you already use Google Docs, this is just another reason to keep using it. If not, using Google Docs in this way can allow for more structured storage of drafts (using folders), a more robust WYSIWYG layout interface for your blog posts, versioning and collaborative sharing/writing of your blog posts–to name a few reasons.
There are other great tools that let you interact with your blog such as Windows Live Writer and ScribeFire, which I’ll cover in a future post.
While I love Firefox, I’ve lately been using Safari (for PC) and finding it to be a guilty pleasure. For one, it sure seems to load pages much faster. It also displays text in a way that is very pleasing to the eye (ie. websites just look and read better). However, there is one simple difference that I’m really starting to take advantage of and it can really save time: default feed rendering. 
Default Feed Rendering, you say?
It likely won’t show up on anyone’s top 10 list of killer features for ANY browser. However, I’m finding the simple and useful way that Safari handles feeds to be very satisfying. I’m talking about how your browser displays an RSS or ATOM feed when you load it directly in your browser (as opposed to a seperate feed reader). An example of how this can save you time is by visiting the Smaller Indiana homepage. If you wanted to get a quick overview of the most recent activity on the site without spending a lot of time clicking around, just click the blue RSS button on the far-right side of the browser’s URL box. This will give you a dropdown list of all available feeds to view. If you click on “Forum - Smaller Indiana” you’ll see a nicely formated view of recent forum posts with some very nice filtering features.
As you can see in the above animated graphic, you’ll see a cleanly formated listing of recent posts. You’ll also get a very handy set of tools on the right to search and filter the feed dynamically. One of my favorite tools is the ability to reduce the amount of information displayed in the feed. For example, sliding the “Article Length” slider over to the left (as the animation demonstrates) will give you an email inbox-like view of the forum posts. This is an excellent and fast way to see what’s new on any website.
While feed readers are very effective at allowing you to subscribe and consume many different websites. This integrated feed display in Safari allows you to quickly and easily cut right to the latest content on any website or blog at supports feeds. Both Internet Explorer and FireFox also provide default views of feeds. However, neither are as robust as Safari (oddly, IE comes closest).
A flurry of activity has surrounded our tiny idea to hold a big conference for Indiana bloggers. With the support of title sponsor IU School of Informatics and local blog software company Compendium Blogware, we are excited to announce registration is now open for Blog Indiana 2008!
Blog Indiana 2008 will take place August 16th - 17th and feature topical sessions lead by some very talented local bloggers. So far, we’ve confirmed Chris Baggott, Douglas Karr, Bil Browning, Jim Shella, Jerame Davis, and Tom Britt (and we are hoping to announce several more in the coming weeks!).
Sessions will include topics such as blogging for beginners, using blogs in your business, monetizing your blog, political blogging and more advanced topics. There will also be panel discussions and group discussion topics voted on by attendees during the months leading up to the conference (look for this form coming soon!).
One of our goals with this conference was to bring bloggers together from across the state for an unforgettable experience with a low price tag. At $49 total for both days, I think we’ve done that.
Check out the official site: conference.blogindiana.com
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