Resources

If you are blogger and since now it’s like trend – everybody is blogging, you should know, writing through WordPress Rich Text Editor isn’t that fastest and easiest way. Most importantly you must think about ways how to automate and fasten your work process. Choosing desktop blogging client is one of the most important aspects in my opinion – forget about standard WordPress editor and start using something a lot more faster and handier.

This article is created to explain everything about desktop blogging editors, main features, why and how you should use one. I will also share my own experiences, I’ve been blogging daily and I’ve tested a lot of tools, automating programs and blogging clients and I think I can objectively evaluate features.

I’ve been blogging for 1.5 years now and when I switched to desktop blogging editor, I never went back. There are several great, free editors, Firefox plugins allowing you to write articles more easier. When I started I used WordPress admin panel, I wrote everything in plain code writing all tags and urls myself – it wasn’t fast so I needed to figure something out.

Then I found Windows Live Writer and it seemed to be solution, but I got upload problems. There was several times when I uploaded images through Live Writer, but in the middle (let’s say 54/100 images) something went wrong with image, I needed to fix error, upload images from beginning and my server from those requests several times crashed. Also back then I didn’t know how to set different settings, so images wouldn’t have that drop shadow, resize image settings (it created one unnecessary thumb image for me). If you haven’t got huge posts with a lot of images Windows Live Writer is perfect solution, but I needed something different.

I figured out I need to upload images to server manually to reduce it’s overload. I used find/replace features to change image local address to direct online link. If you want to know how I do that, this blog post could help you – The Best And Fastest Way To Create Blog Post. I wrote there my experiences and my approach to write and manually create article. In that way I get very clean code using Blogdesk.

With Windows XP Blogdesk was perfect solution, but somehow with Windows Vista and Windows 7 it doesn’t work very good. I got mystic saving problems myself and I don’t really know what to suggest for my new guest authors. And yes,main reason I decided to write this article doing serious research in available desktop blogging editors is because I wanted to find new editor which could suit for me as well!

Let’s give it a try – shall we?

So.. What the heck is desktop blogging editors? Why You should use one?

As I mentioned above, when I started to blog I wrote my posts in WordPress Rich Text Editor, where you can get code/design view, upload images – at first it seems like a good way to go, but image uploading you need to do manually one by one and it takes a lot of time. And what you will do if you internet browser crashes in the middle of article and you forgot to save it? How you will write your post if you have no Internet connection?

Okay, then you could write your posts in word processors like Microsoft Word, Textpad and then just paste finished text into WordPress post section. But again we have problems with formatting and image uploading. However this simple approach will work just fine for short textual posts with few images and almost no formatting, but I am talking more about serious blogging and approach.

Desktop blogging tools and editors are independent texting WYSIWYG software you can connect with you blog and essentially it is very simple text/code editor created specifically for easier and automated blogging. Now you can format, write text, add images, effects in design view and if you need to edit some code manually or check how it looks – just switch to code view! And the best thing is, you don’t need Internet connection to write your posts, only when you want to publish it. Your posts are always in safety in blogging editor, accessable in any time!

Everybody loves lists, so I created one with main benefits why you should use desktop blogging editor:

1. Write Articles Offline – For example if you own laptop and travel, you don’t always have Internet connection. No problem! Write your post in blogging editor and you can publish it once you’ll get Internet connection just by hitting publish button. No more copy/paste and images will be uploaded automatically as well.
2. Spell Checking – This is basic, but good blogging editor has this feature and after writing your post, just run spell checking and rapidly correct all mistakes you’ve accidentaly made.
3. Multiple blogs – If you write for your own blog and you are guest writer on another, it is really painful to publish it and switch to another blog. With blogging client, you can change blog to publish with few clicks and without any worries.
4. Quick and easy editing – Switch from design to code section to easily change some code, fix small errors.
5. Automated Image Uploading – Usually blogging clients are connected directly with your blog and when you hit publish button, all images are uploaded from your computer to local server automatically. If you haven’t got many pictures, it’s great solution.
6. Easy Post Management – Rapidly fast browse through your previous drafts, published articles, edit them, save – in WordPress panel it would be many times slower process.
7. Browser Crash – Sometimes browser just crash and you loose some time and work, with blogging client it is almost impossible. Usually clients have enabled autosave each 3-4minutes, in that way preventing any work loss.
8. Feature Integration – Many clients support Flickr, Delicious, Youtube for automated image linking, video adding and more features.

Free Desktop Blogging Editors For Windows

From free desktop blogging editors I would recommend Windows Live writer, Blogdesk or w.bloggar. Every client offers different features, you should check out them all and then pick your favorite one, which suits you the best.

Windows Live Writer

Writer makes it easy to share your photos and videos on almost any blog service—Windows Live, WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, and many more.

It has many features, I will mention most important ones:

• Crop and tilt photos
• Insert multiple photos
• Additional spell checking languages
• Insert and publish video to YouTube
• Word count
• Twitter, Digg and Flickr Plug-ins
• Type-down filtering in the Open dialog

Check out Windows Live Writer Tweaks, Tips and Updates article from Lifehacker for deeper research.

Blogdesk

Blogging should be simple, but it gets complicated and time-consuming if you are serious about it. BlogDesk makes it easy to write, speeds up lavish processes and assists the author with smart features.

Feature list:

• WYSIWYG editor
• ImageWizard to easy insert images, create thumbnails
• Reduced view – switch to cleaner view with less distractions
• BlogWizards – easily configure blog
• Spell checker
• Tags-Generator
• Frequently Used Phrases – time-saver for often used phrases

Post2Blog

Post2Blog 3 is a FREEWARE handy blog editor with live spell-checking support for pro-bloggers.

Feature list:

• WYSIWYG editor with complete hot-keys support;
• Built-in “Live” spellchecking;
• Images are uploaded automatically;
• Compose new posts in MS Word and post them to your blog using Post2Blog toolbar for MS Word;
• Add Technorati, Del.icio.us, Buzzwords, 43 Things tags to your posts;
• Automatically send trackbacks, ping web-services to notify about updates in your blogs;
• Use built-in smiles for use in your blog;

Thingamablog

Thingamablog is a cross-platform, standalone blogging application that makes authoring and publishing your weblogs almost effortless. Unlike most blogging solutions, Thingamablog does NOT require a third-party blogging host, a cgi/php enabled web host, or a MySQL database. In fact, all you need to setup, and manage, a blog with Thingamablog is FTP, SFTP, or network access to a web server.

Feature list:

• Maintain multiple blogs
• Read news with an integrated feed reader
• Publish remotely to your blog via email
• Set up flexible archiving options
• Define your own custom template tags
• Set up flexible archiving options

w.bloggar

The w.bloggar is an application that acts as an interface between the user and one or more blog(s); in other words, it is a Post and Template editor, with several features and resources that the browser based blog editors do not offer.

Feature list:

• Import Text files
• Colorized HTML code
• Multiple accounts and blogs
• Spell Checking
• Multiple accounts and blogs
• Toolbar Icons Skin
• File and Image Upload
• Supports Windows XP

Zoundry Raven

The Zoundry Blog Writer™ is a rich WYSIWYG blogging editor that’s as easy to use as a word processor. With just a few clicks of a mouse instead of complex HTML coding, you can do things like drag and drop images, create block quotes, and format links to open in a new window.

Feature list:

• Tabbed true WYSIWYG Editing
• Improved content management
• Manage multiple media storage services
• Manage multiple blogs offline
• Raven2Go: Portable Application support
• WordPress 2.2+ Page & Tag support

Read more about Zoundry features here.

Qumana (PC&Mac)

You don’t need to know a thing about HTML code to make perfect posts. Write your posts at your own pace without having to be online.

Qumana is an easy-to-use desktop blog editor, enabling you to write, edit and post to one or more blogs. You can use Qumana even when you are offline. Save your blog posts to your hard drive and upload whenever you like. Great for bloggers on the move.

Qumana features:

• WYSIWYG editor, as easy as email
• Clean interface with easy-to-understand buttons
• Spell check with ‘as you type’ option
• Technorati tagging
• Source view option to edit HTML
• Save posts as drafts, or edit old posts, from the Blog Manager
• Easy image uploads and image alignment
• DropPad – gather links, text, and pictures by dragging them to a desktop pad
• Offline editing
• Multi-window editing
• Seamless posting and cross-posting
• Trackback & pinging

Commercial Desktop Blogging Editors For Windows

Blogjet

(Top 1 Commercial Pick)

A popular Windows blog client for your WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, Drupal, etc. blogs. Get convenience and speed of a native application, and the ability to write posts offline. BlogJet comes with English (US) and English (UK) dictionaries.

If you cannot decide, check out their huge feature list and video demo here. All recommendations and demos made this blogging client my top 1 choice. It’s not free, but at least I get many features, good support and regular updates. Such blog client is one of the most important tools in article creation, so I think 39.95$ is very good investment at least for me.

Several features:

• WYSIWYG Editor
• Post Management and Searching
• Word Counter and Blog Statistics
• 20 High-Quality Smileys
• Spell Checker
• Flickr and YouTube Support
• Auto Replace
• Modern Interface

Price: $39.95

RocketPost

RocketPost is smart blog software for power bloggers. It’s the only one with WYSIWYG editing, full local editing and full blog import. And it works just like email, so you already know how to use it.

Speed up your blogging with one-click Technorati, Flickr and Del.icio.us tags, built-in photo editing, instant photo albums, automatic linking to related posts, quote tracking, quick linking, drop caps, pull quotes and a running word count.

Not free software, but filled with many features, you might use daily to automate your article writing process greatly. Certainly a good pick as well.

Several features (read more):

• WYSIWYG editing
• Full local editing – See and edit all your posts in one place without having to download them every time
• Full blog import – Download all your existing posts and get started in less than 5 minutes
• Picture editing – Crop, resize and compress pictures right within your post
• Check spelling while you type
• Multiple-word AutoCorrect

Price: 29$

Other Solutions

ScribeFire Blog Editor For Firefox

ScribeFire is a full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog.

What’s your favorite desktop blogging client? And why?

I know that you love Adobe products and I’m sure that you love even more the things that you are able to create using the Adobe products. That’s why, I’ve collected some easy to understand and very useful Adobe Illustrator video tutorials created by top Illustrator designers from all around the web. Most people consider that Photoshop is everything and they don’t actually need another product for their design projects. I strongly recommend you to take a look at this great Adobe Illustrator tutorials and you will understand why I say that you also need to use AI for more professional and artistic creations.

1. The Illustrator CS3 Interface

Learn about the User Interface and where you can find the tools you need.

2. Everything about Masking in Illustrator

One very important thing in Adobe Illustrator: – The Masking properties.

3. How to use the pen tool in Illustrator CS2

Use the pen tool to make things more interesting

4. CS 4 Video Training

A complete CS4 Video for Beginners

5. A Comprehensive Guide to the Pathfinder Panel

Learn how to use the Pathfinder in Illustrator.

6. Opacity Mask Tutorial

Hiding a part of your illustration can make more important another part of it.

7. Create an Ipod

We all love Apple products and this tutorial help you to customize the famous ipod in no time.

8. Metal Lightning Tutorial

Metal inspires professionals and this tutorial is 100% pro and free.

9. Make a 3D Logo in Illustrator

3D Logos are much more interesting than simple plain ones…so check this great tutorial to see how you can create one.

10. Adding Texture in Illustrator

Any type of texture for any type of Illustration.

11. Creating an Eye-Ball

Eyes are very important for any human character, and that’s why this is a very important tutorial.

12. Create a raw logo design

Professional Logo design for your company.

13. Create a neon glow in CS 3

This is a pro glowing effect.

14. Live Color

Choose most interesting and inspiring colors for your creations.

15. Drawing a gell progressbar

A progressbar is very important for Flash animations and applications.

16. Draw Gear

Drawing a gear is just the title, but this tutorial will help you to create many types of illustrations.

17. Create a Helix in Ai

A helix can be useful in many ways and that’s why you should take a look at this tutorial.

18. How to design a professional logo using Adobe Illustrator

Create a custom logo for your company.

19. Draw a Valentine’s Day e-card

I know that it isn’t february yet, but you definitely should know how to draw a valentine.

20. Shiny Text

Shiny text was always interesting and with this tutorial you will be able to create it too.

21. About Transformation Tools

Restizing, croping and wrapping can improve your works and make them more attractive.

22. Tribal Sun

Famous and cool sign created in illustrator.

23. The Gradient Tool

24. Blob Brush: Shape Objects

A cool new feature for Illustrator.

25. Artboards in CS4

Artboards feature for CS4.

26. Blending Gradients

“Play” with gradients to create interesting designs.

27. Create a fusion between Adobe Illustrate and Photoshop

Use Photoshop and Illustrator components to build better and powerful designs.

28. Create a metal like button

A very nice looking metal button.

29. Cool Award Badge

Vey useful illustration for any type of activity which includes competition or quality review.

30. Wood Effect with gradients

Bring the nature into your creations.

31. Background Effects Illustrator Way

Even if you are a beginner with this tutorial you will be able to create pro background effects.

32. Create Ribbons

Cool and instant ribbons.

33. Spacing Boxes in Illustrator

This will make your job a whole lot easier.

34. 3D Effects Graph

Create a cool stats graph in 3D.

35. Wraping in Illustrator

Modelate your images and illustrations in no time.

36. Using The Paint Brush Tool

The most essential drawing tool available in Illustrator and Photoshop.

37. Draw Fluffy Clouds

Funny and flower-power clouds.

38. How to draw Batman’s logo

One of the coolest Cartoon hero sign can now be easily reproduced in Illustrator

39. Intricate Patterns

Create cool backgrounds for your design projects.

40. Using Live Paint

Bring life into your Illustrator creations.

41. Line Draw for Cartoons

Make your cartoon creations more interesting for everyone.

There are a lot of factors that play a role in determining the success of a freelance web designer. Obviously, design ability and technical skills are needed, but other factors like customer service, marketing, networking, and work ethic will have a significant influence. In this article we’ll take a look at customer service as it applies to freelance designers.

Providing high-quality customer service can at times be frustrating for freelancers, but taking good care of your clients is critical for client retention and for encouraging word-of-mouth referrals. Here we will look at 10 aspects that should be considered by freelancers who aspire to provide a high level of customer service.

1. Being Reachable

When clients have a question or a problem, they want to know that there is someone they can contact to get help. Of course, freelancers don’t have a team of customer service people ready to handle calls and emails around the clock, but in general it’s necessary to be accessible to clients. Clients should know the best ways to contact you (office phone, cell phone, email, through a customer service portal, IM, Twitter, etc.) and when they can expect to get a response if they are not able to speak with you immediately. Most clients understand that freelancers will not be available 24 hours a day, but they should know that you are interested in helping them and the best way to go about it.

2. Timely Response

Since it’s very common to deal with customer service via email and voice mail, the client should be able to know that you will get back to them as quickly as possible. The amount of time will vary, but clients should not feel like their messages are falling through the cracks and only answered whenever you have the spare time. Clients will appreciate customer service that involves a prompt response, which shows that service is a priority to you.

3. Organization

Organization is important in order to be able to provide quality customer service with timely responses. Working on multiple projects at any given time, plus some questions/issues from other clients needing maintenance, means that without organization it will be difficult to stay on top of things. Some freelancers use a CRM (see 12 CRM Options for Freelancers), while others institute their own system for organization. Organization also has a major impact on the ability to meet deadlines, which is a critical aspect of keeping your clients satisfied with your work.

4. Patience with Explanations

Clients like to work with designers who are willing and able to meet them at their level, where the designer will explain things in a way that makes sense to the client. There will be plenty of situations where you will need to explain your reasoning to the client, whether it be in response to a question or suggestion from them, or whether it is something that you feel needs to be pointed out. Taking the time to explain things without technical jargon will help to educate your clients and should help to make your job easier going forward.

5. A System for Quotes/Estimates

Some designers use packages with set prices for specific types of projects, but many designers will provide a quote specifically based on the needs of each client. Even for those designers that offer prices by packages, there will be situations where a client’s needs do not quite fit into one of the existing packages and a quote will be needed anyway. Pricing design services is a hot topic that gets a lot of attention, but the quote/estimate process doesn’t get as much attention.

The quote involves more than just being able to price your services. It should also help you to evaluate exactly what the clients needs and what you can offer, the specific details of what is included in the price and what is not, any deadlines and/or project milestones that are involved, and any other relevant details. Having a system will help you to get information from the client that will help you to make better estimates, provide a timely response, and to cover all bases so that both the designer and client understand the specifics of what is being offered.

6. Effective In-Take Process

One of the most critical aspects to a successful design project is getting to know and understand the client’s specific needs, their business, their customers, and what is needed from the website. In order to get this right, it is necessary to dedicate the needed time upfront before the design work begins. Many designers have standard approach to client in-take that helps them to make sure all the right questions are asked.

Putting more effort in to the early stages of the designer/client relationship will help to improve the customer service down the road. A project that involves a solid in-take process will result in a more effective and efficient use of your time, and fewer issues that will need to be resolved at later stages of the process, which will make your customer service much easier.

7. Clear Contracts and Terms

Contracts not only serve to protect everyone involved from a legal perspective, but having contracts and clear terms with clients will help to reduce the potential for miscommunication and misunderstanding about pricing, payment terms, what is included in the price, and the responsibilities of the designer and the client. A lack of clarity in any of these areas can lead to problems and lots of customer service work.

8. A System for Working with Feedback

Every client project will involve some sort of feedback, and many will require revisions from the designer. In some cases, the feedback may be coming from a few different sources, and it could involve a number of different people. This contributes to making it even more important to have a system to deal with feedback and to incorporate it into the project.

There are a number of different resources out there, such as Proof HQ, that are available to make the process more streamlined and effective.

9. Concern for the Client’s Best Interest

In order to provide the highest level of customer service possible, it is necessary to have the client’s best interest in mind. There will be situations where you could recommend something to a client that would involve more money for you, but it may not be in the best interest of the client. While putting the client’s interests in priority may cause you to miss out on some income opportunities in the short-term, it’s a necessary part of providing good customer service. Clients will recognize when you are truly looking out for them and it will lead to increased trust in you, a greater chance of getting repeat business, and more referrals from current and former clients.

10. Respect for Your Time

Just like you need to respect your clients, you also need to respect your own work and time. Simply catering to unreasonable requests or doing endless revisions for clients that keep changing their mind is not required to provide good customer service. The ideal designer/client relationship involves mutual respect and a concern for being fair on both sides. There will be times when providing some type of service to your customer is outside the scope of the contract. In these situations the best customer service will involve a willingness to help the client get the service that they want, but at an additional fee.

Provide the best customer service that you can, but also have a respect for your time that prevents you from getting walked on. A healthy designer/client relationship will produce the best results for the client, improve the chances of a long-term working relationship, and promote a genuine interest in working together for success.

What’s Your Experience?

From your experience, what do you feel are the most essential aspects to customer service for freelancers?

Free Vectors — Social Networking Icons (10 Colors/2 Styles)

Included are 21 social networking icons, in 2 different styles, with 10 color variations total. So in short, it’s a lot of icons! One of the styles is more glossy/gradient-y, and one of the styles is flat. Also, the download includes both CS & CS3 files.

Read More

Streaks of Light: 40 High Resolution Photoshop Brushes

Today, I am releasing one of my favorite sets of brushes to date; a set of 40 high resolution Photoshop brushes for creating streaks of light. It seems like each set of light effect brushes I make get better and better. This set is really amazing and I hope that you enjoy them!

Read More

Free Texture Tuesday: Bokeh

A set of 5 bright and colorful high resolution bokeh textures.

Read More

Abstract 3D Renders Pack – 33 Free Images

This abstract render pack comes filled with 33 images of 3D abstract renders. All the images are in PNG format with transparent backgrounds. For the adventurers out there, we have also included two of the 3ds Max files that this pack was created with!

Read More

108 Mono Icons: Huge Set of Minimal Icons

There are 108 simple icons included in this set. The icons are avaliable in 32×32 px .png (transparent background) format.

Read More

330 Free Letter Pressed Icons

A collection of over a 100 letter pressed icons, in various letter pressed styles exclusive to Creative Nerds readers. The icons include three PSD files which are full of icons which you can drag and drop into your designs.

Read More

5 Free Tape Brushes

Tape is often used to hold things together or fix broken items. That being said, I don’t think these brushes will fix a bad design, but they will surely add a nice touch to hand drawn styles and anything else you find them useful for. Each brush measures around 2500 pixels.

Read More

HTML5 Visual Cheat Sheet (Reloaded)

This cheat sheet is essentially a simple visual grid that contains a list of all HTML tags and of their related attributes supported by HTML 5. The simple visual style I used to design this sheet allows you to find at a glance everything you are looking for.

Read More

Design Cartons Free Icon Set For Designers

Here are 5 high quality icons of boxes/cartons that you can use to announce the launch of a new application or on your portfolio websites. There is plenty of space to add your own flavor to the graphics like your name, important dates, blog names, app names etc.

Read More

Tipz — Free WordPress Theme

A free WordPress theme from Alex at Crazy Leaf Design featuring widget ready areas, 3 columns, 2 sidebars (right and left), featured post section with featured image custom field, integrated logo changer (text or image).

Read More

Free Vector Icons: Panda Social Network Icons

A free package containing 12 sweet panda animals, 128×128 pixels each, that have social network marks on their stomach. You’ll get 12 .png files and 1 vector (.ai) file in case you need to rescale them (in Adobe Illustrator format).

Read More

Free Sketching & Wireframing Kit

Sketching & Wireframing kit is a free set of elements for sketching and wireframing. It consist of form elements, icons, indicators, feedback messages, tooltips, navigation elements, image placeholders, embedded videos, sliders and common ad banners.

Read More

18 Stained Brown Paper Textures

A large set of high resolution stained brown paper textures.

Read More

11 Free Scaffolding Grunge Vectors & How-To

This set of 11 Free Scaffolding Grunge Vectors was specifically created with large print designs in mind, but they can be used in web projects too. It’s a common technique to slightly destroy large type in ads and other print campaigns.