Blogging is definitely something that’s popular these days, and why not? There are millions of different types of blogs. I have friends using blogging to share family updates, while others, like myself, use blogging as a career. If you’re a blogger, or thought about it, one resource I would *highly* suggest you check out is Problogger.net. Darren covers all the things you may want to know about blogging, and he uses WordPress self-hosted.
Yesterday, Darren posted an article looking at how he might use the iPhone for blogging. With WordPress now offering a native client (and yes, I threw a big WTF, since the Symbian userbase is MUCH larger, but that’s not the point of this post), Darren believes that the iPhone is a great potential blogging solution.
However, I couldn’t help but notice Darren’s ‘wishlist’ for things that would make it more useful:
1. Support for external keyboard
2. Video capture
3. Copy and paste
4. Battery life
Hopefully I’m not the only one who sees that S60 covers this list entirely. So, you want to use S60 to blog, then? What tools might you need? To use WordPress, there are 3 tools that you’ll need to get together, most of which are free:
1. Jay Fenton’s Scribe. We’ve covered this before, but I’ve been using it on my various handsets lately, and it just works great. Scribe allows you to create a new post right from your phone, complete with helpful insertion tools for various formatting. You can also manage your existing drafts, and easily publish them or keep them as drafts. Note that you’ll need Python installed to use Scribe.
2. Wphone WordPress plugin – Wphone doesn’t mobilize your whole blog, just the WordPress Dashboard. This makes it easy for you to login on your phone and moderate comments and tinker with, well, anything on your site – without hassling with the full-on desktop page on your tiny screen. You can get this here.
3. External Keyboard – This one is obviously optional, I’ve written complete posts on my N95 before without issue. However, you do have 2 great options for a Bluetooth keyboard, which will allow you more convenience when writing extensive articles. The Nokia SU-8W, while rather pricey, is natively supported and offers duplicates of your typical S60 shortcut buttons – making it perfect, almost. The actual keys on the SU-8W are squished rather tightly, so there’s a bit of a learning curve before you can touch-type on this one.
The iGo Stowaway Bluetooth Keyboard, which I have, is much cheaper, but requires you to use this driver application to connect. You can create your own shortcuts manually, and the real benefit of the iGo is that it is roughly the same size as a laptop keyboard, so you’ll be able to easily pick it up and go.
With these tools, anyone can successfully manage a WordPress self-hosted blog easily using only their S60-powered handset. Of course there are other blogging tools for other platforms, and some that make things with WordPress even eaiser. What blogging tools do you like to use with your phone?
[Photo courtesy of AllAboutSymbian.com]
