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Back end tools

This version was saved 16 years, 6 months ago View current version     Page history
Saved by barb d
on September 27, 2007 at 8:59:24 pm
 

Behind the scenes:

Back end tools to help speed up and streamline your blogging.

 

Markdown

Markdown is a text-to-html conversion tool that works similarly to TextExpander and Texter (and can be used in conjunction with these tools). It allows you to write more naturally and later convert your text to properly-formatted HTML.

 

Type your posts faster with shortcuts

  • TextExpander and Texter - easy text expansion for common blogging markup, like href's and blockquotes (Self-promotion alert: we developed Texter in-house at Lifehacker)
  • AutoCopy for Firefox (never Ctrl+C again!)
  • CoLT Firefox extension (copy entire formatted links with text AND HTML)

 

Automate repetitive work as much as possible

  • Templatize your posts and make generating them easy, like Lifehacker's link roundup posts get created by our "roundup maker" (here's one for use in conjunction with CoLT, here's a screengrab of the roundup maker in use)
  • Automated droplets perform repetitive actions: like Transmit auto FTP or ImageReady image processing (resize, crop and sharpen droplets.)

 

Browser-based image tools

  • Resizr -- lets you quickly resize and rotate JPG images from a file or a URL
  • Picnik -- much more full-featured web-based photo editor. Can resize and rotate, crop, add effects, and more.

 

Skitch

  • Super easy application for quickly manipulating screenshots and found images an publishing them elsewhere without resorting to using multiple applications
  • Skitch is Mac only and only available in closed beta for the time being
  • Made by the same folks who made Comic Life which we'll talk about in the next section

 

Blogging from Firefox with Scribefire

 

Blogging desktop client: Ecto

  • Ecto is a full-featured blogging desktop client for Mac and Windows. It makes posting to multiple blogs incredibly easy, among other great functions.
  • compatible with Wordpress, Movable Type, Typepad, Blogger, Drupal and more
  • great way to compose blog posts while offline for easy upload later
  • here's the Ecto documentation.

 

Multiple clipboard tools

  • These applications allow you to store multiple clippings at once, saving loads of time switching back and forth between applications when cutting and pasting
  • On the Mac I recommend CopyPaste-X. The full version is only $30 and a free lite version is also available that is fairly robust in its own right.
  • On Windows there are a number of options -- ClipCache Pro, ClipMate Clipboard Extender and AccelClip are three well-reviewed options to try.

 

 

Get Your FTP On

 

 

further topics:

 

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