2 Cents Worth » Desktop Blog Editor This post from David Warlick less than a week ago was lamenting the lack of a reasonably good WYSIWYG desktop blogging application. I just downloaded the new beta release of Flock, a browser that focuses on supporting the social dimension of the web. From a recent Flock Blog post:

For this release, and for at least the next year or so, we are primarily focused on supporting the social dimension of the web, and on bringing information closer to the user. Right now this includes a heavy emphasis on the photo experience (from upload through discovery to notification), RSS support, dramatic improvements to the search box (including a new take on favorites), and blogging.

But, it doesn’t quite have all of Warlick’s desired features. It does spell check. It has browser access, blog this features, and is wordpress compliant. (In fact, I’ve written this post with it only minutes after installing, which including setting up my wordpress, flickr, and del.icio.us accounts.)

It doesn’t seem to have “Drag & Drop images with alignment options,” though Flock has lots of amazing photo-blogigng features. And there seems to be no right-click speech feature. I haven’t discovered a tag generator yet, and sadly, it does not allow you to type the ¢ symbol with ctrl+s.

From my perspective, it’s missing categories, which means I won’t actually blog with it after this post. But it’s a step in the right direction.

EXCITING UPDATE: Before actually posting this, I hit publish and was greeted with a dialog box for selecting the category and inserting tags! Now Dave’s really got to see it. So the only thing it’s missing is speech, which I can live without, and pictures, which may very well be here somewhere… in fact, I just dragged in the picture below to see what happens, and it looks like it worked. I can drag it left or right, but it seems I need to click over to the source tab to change the alignment. So, there’s no right click for speech. How’d they do, Dave?

ANOTHER UPDATE: After posting it, I discovered that dragging also imported the link associated with this image. Very cool. Oh, and editing this post? I just clicked File -> Open Blog Post… and selected it from the Flock Blog Posts folder in my home directory. Slick. It easily replaces the old post by simply selecting it from a drop down menu after clicking publish. I like it. I’m gonna try using it for a bit. If it survives next week at NECC, then we’ve got something here.

Too bad the RSS reader doesn’t feature a three-paned interface. Well, more on this I’m sure.

Incidentally, as I write this, tomorrow is my last day in the office at the OCDE… and yesterday my new business cards arrived. I only need my new Treo to show up before heading off to NECC next week to start the next phase in my career. (My MacBook and U2 iPod came last week… it’s weird having to buy all new personal electronics, since nothing I was using was actually mine personally and I had to turn it in when I left OCDE.)

The other good news is, there will be more blogging here… building up to the conference, at the conference (of course), and after as I settle into my new routine.

Thanks for reading.

technorati tags:flockbeta, davidwarlick