Mobilemind

Despite the title, I must go on with this to share my experience with blogging tools. Qumana versus w.bloggar. Bottom line: w.bloggar wins as a client-side online/offline tool for making blog entries. I'd like to know if anyone knows of something better, and if anyone has had success running w.bloggar off as USB stick as a portable application. Now for the details. I need an online/offine blogging tool, ideally supporting Windows and Palm, and the blogging software/services from Blogger and Movable Type. When only dealing with the Movable Type application, I really like Sharp MT from RandyRants.com (plus his blog is much more than mildly amusing). Pocket SharpMT is is also available for PocketPC and I used these tools quite happily for my old Macromedia blog hosted on Movable Type. Unfortunately, I now have need to post on several blogs including other blogging hosts/services, and SharpMT doesn't support Blogger. I REALLY like w.bloggar, but there are a few nits (no technorati tags, no automated pings, no support for advertising links, podcast support needs updates). The w.bloggar set-up is quick and relatively intuitive. It has a good editor with tools for inserting/formatting common HTML tags, and the ability to display a preview OR view the raw HTML. It also supports multiple blogs using multiple different services, includes spell check, and the ability to retrieve/edit old posts as well as save drafts locally, publish, or publish and post entries. It is also installs as less than <4MB, where as Qumana is closer to 9MB. I thought I would like Qumana, but I personally found it annoying during a brief trial because:

• It adds a little promotional blurb for Qumana to each entry by default
• No ability to add "title" attribute to href links (and I strive for W3C XHTML 1.0 validation, which enforces this)
• No ability to edit inserted HTML tag for links
• Adds an auto-run and persistent system tray icon
• Preview is with IE
• Very rudimentary "Insert HTML" capability, and no ability to edit that inserted HTML other than delete

Know of something better than w.bloggar? If it's not Qumana, then please let me know. There, the blogging about blogging is out of my system. For now.