Blogging is an art a very few people really master. Besides, finding the perfect blogging workflow is very difficult nowadays, as we’ve got hundreds of apps designed and created with bloggers in mind.
I collected the apps I use most everyday in this post, hoping to give you an helpful glimpse of my blogging workflow.
Enjoy! ;)
Browser: Firefox and Safari
This is the first app you’ll need, a good browser. In my workflow, I use both Firefox and Safari. Firefox is my “reading sessions” and “find stuff” browser, while I use Safari for my blog’s dashboard and work-related links (apps, developers, wordpress stuff).
Anyway, both the browsers share similar settings:
- Vertical tabs (Tree Style on FF and SafariStand on Safari) and keyboardr.com as homepage;
- Bookmarks toolbar with folders;
- Xmarks cross sync;
- Delicious bookmarks with Delicious official FF addon and Delicious Safari
You know how much I love twitter: it’s my favourite social network and first source of informations about the things I like. Here’s how I tweet from my Mac:
Just to check the design of my profile, nothing more.
And here is, the king of Twitter clients. Developed by Atebits, Tweetie has got all the features a blogger would need: saved searches, trends, mentions, threaded conversations, retweets and a lovely UI. The best one I ever tried! (and trust me, I tried many clients)
Whether you got to tweet your newest article or share an interesting page you’ve found, there’s no better solution in my opinion than using a browser plugin.
Twit That! (Firefox, free) and Thurly (Safari, shareware) do pretty much the same thing, but Thurly has a gorgeous interface and smooth animations.
I reviewed it here.
Menubar Apps
I wasn’t a big fan of menubar apps until a while ago, when I discovered these little utilitied which are really making my workflow better.
Notify: as the name suggests, it notifies you if new mails arrive in your Gmail inbox;
Clipmenu: one of the best clipboard managers available for Mac, it supports history and snippets. Read my review here.
Little Snitch Network Monitor: the menubar extension of Little Snitch, it helps you in monitoring your outgoing internet connections.
News / Reading
This is simple. Besides the huge amount of links I find on Twitter, I also use RSS feeds to stay updated with blogs I follow.
NetNewsWire: now syncs with Google Reader, which is just perfect to me.
Read it Later: both on Firefox and Safari, I use RiL to save pages for later. A must have if you usually have a lot of interesting stuff to read. Read my review here. (iPhone version)
Writing
Here comes the real “blogging” part. Writing is a blogger’s first need!
Notes: Notational Velocity
I discovered Notation 2 weeks ago thanks to my friends Smoking Apples and I can’t live without it anymore. Press enter to create a new note than type. Moreover, you don’t have to save, the app will do it for you.
Whoa, this is keyboard power!
Text Editor: By now, I’m still stuck WordPress editor, but I’m trying this app, Blogo, which seems good so far. I’ll let you know.
IM
Tweetie, Skype and iChat
Should I say more? :)
Mail.app
For my IMAP account, Mail.app is just perfect. Not only it’s a native Mac app, it supports plugins as well.
I installed two plugins so far: GrowlMail (growl notifications on new mails) and Letterbox. This one is very cool, it changes Mail.app to a three-column view. In this way, I can read my messages without opening a new window.
An excellent time saver!
Trash — [email protected]
Mailplane for Gmail accounts:
I have a bunch of Gmail accounts and - as I love Gmail web interface - I decided to buy Mailplane. Mailplane is a great app which flawlessy brings the Gmail experience to your Mac desktop. I wrote a review back in May.
Other apps
Here’s a bunch of other apps I daily use.
Dropzone: an applications which performs a lot of actions with drag & drop.
FileShuttle: easy and blazing fast file sharing with your web server. Really, you can share a pic in 2 secs.
LittleSnapper: to collect, tag and export my screenshots to Flickr and emberapp.
Stacks with list view: yeah, you can achieve the list view following this tutorial.
Spotify: I love listening to music while working so..what’s better than Spotify?
So, these are the apps I use during my blogging workflow…
..What’s yours? :)
