The problem with this meme lark is that it gets time-consuming if you do too many. However, David Tebbutt has ‘tagged’ me to continue a meme started by Drew to name your five favourite/most useful blogging tools. Mine are:
1) Typepad – despite the outages it is still the best platform to introduce people and if used with your own mapped domain is ‘business grade’ for SMEs/SMBs. Unless you are a geek or have an IT department to support you then WordPress.org and Movable Type are just too hard. Most SMEs/SMBs aren’t geeks, don’t have an IT department and don’t have time to mess around. Time is more precious than 0.0005% annual server downtime!
2) Statcounter – easy to use, cheap and looks smarter than Sitemeter. For evaluation it is essential, even though I don’t think measuring a blog’s success has anything to do with visits, popularity etc.
3) Zoundry – I used to prefer Qumana but it suddenly developed problems and wouldn’t start. Uninstalling, cleaning my system, reinstalling – nothing worked and no reply to my email asking for advice. Now I’ve got used to Zoundry and like it.
4) FeedDemon – so I can use Newsgator Mobile I sync it with , but rarely actually use it online as it just doesn’t “feel right”. Only problem is the synchronisation doesn’t work very well and I still end up reading stuff twice. I’m probably about to ditch it in favour of NewBreak as my mobile RSS reader.
5) CrispyNews – I’ve only recently discovered this but have a couple of experiments going and some more interesting ideas to come as soon as I have time.
I deliberately haven’t included any of the blog search tools I use as none of them are that much better than the others, which means you have to use them all.
My five tags are Tom Murphy, Stephen Davies, Simon Collister, Todd Defren and Adrian McMenamin (which is one I bet the other four and most readers don’t know about – but there is a PR connection).
Synchronization between FeedDemon and NewsGator Online should be working fine. I'd recommend that you contact NewsGator technical support – support@newsgator.com – and let us see if there's something we can do to resolve the problem.
Jack Brewster
Technical Support
NewsGator Technologies
Sorry for the multiple posts, but it just occurred to me that you might be interested in our new Mobile client for Windows Mobile which is currently in beta. You can get the details here:
http://www.newsgator.com/ngolmobilebeta.aspx
Jack Brewster
Technical Support
NewsGator Technologies
Hi there Stuart, was wondering if you or the many (wonderful 🙂 ) people who comment/post here know of any tools to include a calendar to a blog that can updated like a traditional events page on websites. I've got a few events/calendar pages on traditional web pages (www.nigag.org and http://www.niccy.org) but can't seem to find one that I can easily incorporate on to my blogs (currently using blogger.com's platform, but considering moving to Typepad…)
Hi there Stuart
Wanted to firstly say a big thanks to you for your great seminar at the Carriageworks a bit of a while ago. Apologies for the delay in saying what a great seminar it was. You've managed to give me the kick up the bottom to create my own blog: http://adoptednortherner.blogspot.com although I am just trialing it as suggested.
Secondly, I'm glad I wasn't the only one who felt that Julia Hobsbawm's talk was mildly irritating, to say the least navel gazing about the Westminster set.. Having moved up here some years ago it never fails to amaze me how London centric journalists et al are. It's like they forget there's a whole realm of activity outside the M25.
Lastly, before I get onto a soapbox, thanks for doing the meme, this one is particularly useful for novices like me! Thanks again Stuart (and your colleague Simon) for invaluable pearls of wisdom.
Still a happy Qumana user here, Stuart. Java version problem? Java isn't a very intelligent installer. Never had technical problems with WordPress, either (apart from the ones I created by being "clever").
Don't really buy Crispy News unless you have the opportunity to control it a bit more. Have seen a couple of groups spammed to f***.
Cheers
Stuart
Another interesting post. After 7 months as a blogger, I've got a lot to learn, so your comments and links are really helpful. One of the great things about blogging is keeping an open mind about new tools and giving them a go. I've started using Google Reader (in beta only I think at present) which I like.
Rob
I realise I've taken my time to do this, and it's not quite what you asked for – but please have a look at this:
http://newgolddream.dyndns.info/blog/?p=52
Hi there Stuart
Wanted to firstly say a big thanks to you for your great seminar at the Carriageworks a bit of a while ago. Apologies for the delay in saying what a great seminar it was. You've managed to give me the kick up the bottom to create my own blog: http://adoptednortherner.blogspot.com although I am just trialing it as suggested.
Secondly, I'm glad I wasn't the only one who felt that Julia Hobsbawm's talk was mildly irritating, to say the least navel gazing about the Westminster set.. Having moved up here some years ago it never fails to amaze me how London centric journalists et al are. It's like they forget there's a whole realm of activity outside the M25.
Lastly, before I get onto a soapbox, thanks for doing the meme, this one is particularly useful for novices like me! Thanks again Stuart (and your colleague Simon) for invaluable pearls of wisdom.