BlogDesk - free software for Blog writing and publishing

Sometimes, blog post preparation for publishing takes more time than post generation. It is not suppose to be like that. You should delegate as much responsibilities for the post publishing to your secretary (if you have one), or software.

BlogDesk is an offline software client that assists you in comfortable writing and easy publishing new posts to your blog.

Software Features:
* The main feature - it is totally free to use.

* Software is optimized for the following blogging platforms: WordPress, MovableType, Drupal, Serendipity, and ExpressionEngine.

* Insert images directly with WYSIWYG editor, edit them with built-in ImageWizard, and even create linked thumbnails.

* Easily insert and edit links. If you link to local files (such as MP3 or PDF), BlogDesk will automatically upload them to your blog file storage.

* For multi-language blogging, you got 14 Dictionaries to conduct spell checking.

* Interesting feature of Frequently Used Phrases saves time on typing of often used phrases, sentences, acronyms or complex formulations.

* Define and insert tags instead of retyping them with Tags-Generator.

* Publish you post simultaneously to multiple blogs with one click.

* Keep your ideas and notes for the future posts in the convenience of Notebook, where you are able to create multiple entries under multiple categories.

Download the software from authors’s Web Site: http://www.blogdesk.org/en/index.htm
P.S. The only thing, I do not like in this software - is that it does not support Blogger.

Create your own Internet Radio Station with MediaMaster

MediaMaster is offering you unlimited network web space, where you can store all you audio tracks and access them from any computer connected to Internet or from a streaming player.

Once your tracks are uploaded, you can create and manage playlists, rate individual songs, and share your music with others with embeddable widgets for blogs, Web sites, and social networking profiles.

You can even create your own streaming network radio station on the basis of your collection, and allow visitors of your personal blog or your profile on social networking sites to listen it. You have a complete control over the musical tracks that you would like to share with your virtual friends.

You should not be worried about copyright issues as neither the widget or radio subscriptions actually give people copies of your music, it's all streamed. And, there's no way for them to actually download the music.

MediaMaster

If the proposal sounds interesting, sign in: http://www.mediamaster.com/

For those who prefer a visual presentation, I am attaching a small video clip:

MediaMaster

It should be cool to give your blog visitors one more reason to visit your site!

Baywords: censorship-free blogging community from Pirate Bay!

If you know, what torrent means, most likely, you are familiar with Pirate Bay, one of the biggest BitTorrent trackers, the online file sharing community, distributes torrents that not always point to licensed copies of copyrighted material. In some countries, offering such torrents might be illegal as copyright violations, but in Sweden, where company operates, the torrent trackers are not a subject of legal prosecution.

Pirate Bay recently came to the community focus in relation with the music industry lobby group - The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) - going to court to force Danish ISP Tele2 blocking access to the enemy website accusing it of aiding and abetting copyright infringement. In return, Pirate Bay is seeking damages from IFPI for blocking access to its website; even thou the block generating a very limited negative effect on the company popularity and operations.

Devoted to the free information flow on Internet, The Pirate Bay has established an uncensored image-hosting site call BayIMG and is planning to open an uncensored video-hosting community. While the image-hosting is censorship free, host kindly requests not to put porn images on it, using available alternative services instead.

As logical extension of its policy, Pirate Bay has launched a blogging service where bloggers won’t have to fear censorship, Baywords (http://baywords.com/), based on the Wordpress blogging platform.

The Pirate Bay team explains:

“We’re proud to present a new service - baywords.com. Because of the need of freedom of speech and secure hosting facility of the words being said we could not agree to how people behave towards bloggers. Many blogs are being shut down for uncomfortable thoughts and ideas. We will not do that. Our goal is to protect freedom of speech and your thoughts. As long as you don’t break any Swedish laws in your blog, we will defend it”.

For people who are considering moving their Wordpress or Blogger account over to Baywords, importing is pretty straightforward and compatible with all the popular blog platforms.

Additional Reading:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/16/piratebay_sues_music_industry/

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9920714-7.html?tag=nefd.top

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/04/16/pirate-bay-opens-uncensored-blogging-service

http://torrentfreak.com/baywords-pirate-bay-blog-080416/

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/16/the-pirate-bay-launches-uncensored-blogging-service/

WordPress Blog Optimization with All-in-One SEO Pack Plugin

One of the most popular WordPress plugin will assist the blog owner to achieve high levels of Automatic Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This plugin is streamlined for the best practices for Wordpress SEO. While it gives you many options ready for tweaking, blogging specialists recommend for starter using the default settings.

Among the plugin features:

• Automatically optimizes your titles for search engines
• Generates META tags automatically
• Avoids the typical duplicate content found on Wordpress blogs
• For Wordpress 2.3 you don’t even have to look at the options, it works out-of-the-box. Just install.
• You can override any title and set any META description and any META keywords you want.
• You can fine-tune everything
• Backward-Compatibility with many other plugins, like Auto Meta, Ultimate Tag Warrior and others.

Get more information and download:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

http://wp.uberdose.com/2007/03/24/all-in-one-seo-pack/

A nice video presentation for the plugin:

WordPress Blog Optimization with All-in-One SEO Pa

Blog to Death! Is Blogging a Health Hazard?

Blogs are a curious phenomenon. Like modern poetry, they have more writers than readers…those who have lost their health in their determination to sate their readers’ interest are, after their fashion, martyrs to a worthy cause.

Telegraph

Three well-known tech bloggers have had heart attacks since December, and a story in the New York Times suggests that the high stress of blogging may be a cause. Many obsessive bloggers complain of weight fluctuation, insomnia and exhaustion. "There is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic," said the newspaper. "But friends and family of the deceased ... say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style."

Even amateur and occasional bloggers know what I mean. The urgency to express an original thought, to think it over, and to post it first, before everyone else, is a permanent driver. There is and permanent strain to find interesting topics of discussion and appealing ideas that will resonate with readers. Most important, it is the constant pressure to drive page views that is burdensome.

It is impossible, of course, to know whether blogging played a role in the heart attacks of bloggers Russell Shaw, of ZDNet, Marc Orchant of blognation, and Om Malik. “The longstanding observation that rates of coronary heart disease vary markedly among occupations-more than can be accounted for by conventional risk factors for coronary heart disease-has generated a quest for specific components of work that might be of aetiological importance,” as a review of the literature on psychosocial factors and cardiovascular disease put it in the British Medical Journal a few years back.

So, can blogging be included in the high-risk occupations list? I doubt so. Quoting Larry Dignan, who also has been interviewed for the Times story, but did not support the cases generalization outlook, so his opinion was not counted: “Yes, blogging is stressful. Yes, it can be insane. But is it any worse than being a corporate lawyer? How many of those folks dropped in the last six months? How about mortgage brokers? Hedge fund traders? FBI agents? Any job where you gnash your teeth together? We write for a living, yap all day and don’t have to wear suits. You could do worse than blogging”.

So, it is opinion of the professional blogger, whose financial state depends on the blog popularity. For most of you, it is just mostly fun, and slightly income. Do not get obsessed by blogging, do not let it to hook you up. There is life in the Real World as well. Look around! Your friends and families need you even more than your readers! Do not Blog to Death!

Sources and additional reading:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/technology/06sweat.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/04/blogging_as_fas.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/04/07/dl0703.xml

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/04/07/can-blogging-kill-you-we-dont-think-so/

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8389

Be carefull: Blogging might be dangerous!

Blogging is Dangerous

Twenty-two-year-old Lisa called in sick one Friday afternoon. But she wasn’t really sick. She was planning to start the weekend early by going to the beach with her friends. Days later, she posted pictures of the outing on her blog. Someone in her office found the link. Soon, she was called to her boss’ office. She didn’t lose her job, but she got into a lot of trouble.
Eighteen-year-old Anne enjoys an independent life. Both parents are in the US. She blogged freely about her misadventures—drunken nights out, failed tests, her penchant for bad boys. She thought her blog was being read only by her friends.
But a concerned relative sent the link to her parents who immediately jumped to action, calling Anne up and threatening to fly her to the US where she could be put under their watch. Anne is still in the country but has deleted her blog.
The two girls have experienced blog backfire. Things they posted online ended up working against them.
Make sure it doesn’t happen to you, too. Here are some things to think about when you blog.
1. You don’t know who is reading your page.
Unless your entries are locked and you have total control over who has access to them, you’re never sure who is reading your entries. Your parents, your teachers—they’re all just a google search away from unlocking your deepest thoughts.
2. What you post can make or break your career.
While some people have gotten book deals after building a huge blog readership, most bloggers need to realize that employers have started using Google searches as a tool to scan job applicants.
3. Will your post hurt anyone?
It is easy to vent online your anger with a friend or a family member. But let the anger simmer before hitting the “publish” button. Sleep on it, think it over because once it’s online, it will not be easy to get rid of—not with the cache features of online searches.
4. Can your entries be lifted and used against you?
Your blog entries may be lifted anytime by anyone who knows how to highlight and press Ctrl and C. Your photos may be stolen as easily and defaced, like some have been on gossip blogs. It may be smart to add javascript that prevents readers from right-clicking on your page. It’s not total protection, but it may save you from the less-techie lurkers.
5. Will your entries attract the wrong kind of people?
Most blog readers are kind. They leave comments, they send you e-mails and sometimes, you even find people you can be friends with. But some of the more popular bloggers have had problems with blog stalkers. High internet traffic is a good thing, but not when it leads to scary encounters.
Source:
http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/you/blogaddicts/view/20080401-127751/Yes-blogs-can-ruin-your-life

Blogging is Dangerous