Mac Hacks (11 page)
. Blog with Your Mac
Blogging
is simply a task like any other that’s performed with
tools, and the Mac offers some of the best tools around. This hack helps
you set up a blog and recommends some tips and tricks for making blogging
effortless.
Blogging is great. You find something you know, write about it, and
with any luck, get to meet and learn from other people all over the world
who are into the same things you are. Social media is similar, but with
blogging you can own the experience—it’s your site, your presentation,
your rules. Not everyone will be the next Dooce, Penny Arcade, or Daring
Fireball. But with any luck it’ll be fun, and with a little more luck and
some hard work, it could turn into a real thing—perhaps one that even
makes (a little) money.
Before you start turning down sponsorship opportunities, though, you
have to take the first step, which is to
start a
blog
. But how do you do that? What do you write about? How long
or short should your posts be? What service should you use? What should
your first post be about? I’m glad you asked.
Before
you start focusing on the trees, the best thing to do
before you start a blog is to step back and think about the forest.
Why
do you want to start a blog, and what do you
want to write about? Food? Technology? Politics? You might need to sit
down to hear this, but there are probably one or two...thousand blogs
out there already that have those topics covered. Dig a little
deeper—what
about
food, technology, or politics
will get your inner writer out of bed in the morning?
Think about a couple topics you care about and what makes your
connection to—and experience with—them unique. Are you a high school
cook who’s neck deep in the health and culture fight over the food we
feed our kids? Are you an IT admin who has watched your bosses beat down
doors to alter policies and allow Apple products into the company? Are
you in the middle of a career in politics and can’t stand the way
American media outlets bungle coverage of current events?
Now
we’re getting somewhere!
Spend some time thinking about how you, your ideas, and your
experiences can make your blog more useful than a garden variety
Wikipedia article so it stands out from the
crowd.
Now
that you have an idea of what you want to say, it’s time
to start gathering tools. Of course, the first thing you’ll need is the
actual blog itself, and there are way too many options to cover in this
hack, so I’m just going to cover a couple of possibilities.
Of
the myriad options available, Tumblr and WordPress are my
favorites, so I’ll focus on those. Here’s my elevator pitch so you can
choose which one to try (or you can do both; they’re free to sign up for
and use in a basic form): I love Tumblr because it strips away all the
fat, it’s just flexible enough in the right ways, and it’s surprisingly
stylish. WordPress is great because it’s incredibly powerful and has a
bit of that “everything to everyone” aspect like Microsoft Office and
Adobe Photoshop, but without quite as much pain and nights lying awake
crying.
If you choose Tumblr, here are the basic steps:
Go
to
the Tumblr home
page
and click Sign Up.Enter your email, create a password, and pick a username (you
can change it later).Respond to the various prompts, type in the captcha, and pick
a few topics you like to help find some popular users to
follow.When you get to the Dashboard, sit back and enjoy a sense of
accomplishment.
Now it’s WordPress’s turn:
Go
to
the WordPress
home page
and click Get Started.Enter your email address, password, username, and a blog
address (like
superblog.wordpress.com
), and
then click Create Blog.Check your email and click the Activate Blog button in the
verification email WordPress sent so you can get into your new
blog.Once you click that verification link, sit back and enjoy a
sense of
accomplishment.
Note that neither of these processes required you to come up with
a title for your new blog. Both sites kinda handle that for you as you
get started, and you can then change it later once you find your voice.
Smart, ay?
OK,
you have a blog. Now what? Gosh, you’re just asking all
the right questions. But this is the part where I need to ask you a few
questions, because there are a lot of factors here that depend on you
and your circumstances.
Like many things in life, you get out of blogging what you put in.
Even if you decided on the nichiest niche topics in Step 1, there’s
undoubtedly an audience waiting for you. But how much time,
realistically, can you afford to put into your blog? Does your day job
or the classes you’re taking afford some flexibility to fire off a
couple posts every day, or can you only squeeze in a little time once in
a blue moon after the kids are in bed? Do you want to write pithy posts
that are easy to create like BuzzFeed and Daring Fireball’s Linked List,
or do you not get out of bed for anything less than 1,000 hand-crafted,
slaved-over words?
What you write, how you write, and how much you write is entirely
up to you. If your audience likes it, they’ll turn into repeat customers
and, perhaps with a little prodding (remember: a
little
), invite their friends to swing by.
But to give people a reason to swing by in the first place, a good
idea for your first post is to state your name and what you hope to
accomplish. There is certainly a place for posts that are 1,000+ words,
but keep this one short and sweet—no more than 2–4 paragraphs. Toss in a
sentence or three about your experience with or sheer interest in the
topics you want to write about to help people learn about you and your
angle. “I love technology” doesn’t really turn heads these days;
millions of people love technology. “I work in a hospital and I’m
insanely interested in the different ways mobile devices are changing
the lives of handicapped people” is getting
somewhere.
One
of the most important ways to remove friction from any
task, especially blogging, is to have the right tools. The full range of
blogging tools is beyond the scope of this hack, but I can at least
point you in the right direction.
Both
Tumblr and WordPress let you create new posts via their
websites, but they also offer
bookmarklets
that
make blogging even easier. Bookmarklets are similar to the other links
you place in your browser’s bookmarks bar for quick access, but
instead of taking you to a website, a bookmarklet is a tool that lets
you
do
something. In the case of Tumblr and
WordPress, their bookmarklets open a new window containing a post
editor—it’s perfect for that moment of inspiration or for writing
about something you found on the Web.
Note: Make sure your browser’s bookmarks bar is displayed
before you install a bookmarklet. If you don’t see a bookmarks bar
below your browser’s address bar, check the View menu for an option
like “Show bookmarks bar.”
To
get Tumblr’s bookmarklet:
At
Tumblr
, click the
settings icon (it looks like a gear).At the
bottom
of the settings page
(
not
on the left side), click Apps. (The link
in the left toolbar is for something else.)Drag the big “Share on Tumblr” button to your browser’s
bookmarks bar. (If you don’t see a bookmarks bar below the address
bar, check your browser’s View menu for an option like “Show
bookmarks bar.”)
Voilà—you’re ready for some on-the-go blogging. Now, when you
find an article, a Flickr photo, a YouTube video, or virtually
anything you want to share or write about, just click the “Share on
Tumblr” button in your bookmarks bar, and a small Tumblr post window
will open to let you get down to business. Since Tumblr lets you
create different types of posts based on the content you want to
highlight—a photo or gallery post, a quote post, a link post, and so
on—the posting interface might change slightly to offer you (and
eventually your readers) the best experience. If you select some text
on the page before clicking the “Share on Tumblr” button, it will be
included in the post as a quote with a proper source. When you’re
finished adding your thoughts to the post, click the “Create post”
button and you’re done. Pretty easy, huh?
To
get WordPress’s bookmarklet:
At
WordPress
,
click the My Blog tab.Under the name of your blog, click the Dashboard
link.On the left side of your dashboard, click Tools.
Drag the Press This button to your bookmarks bar. A new
Press This button appears on your bookmarks bar, with the text of
the button’s name selected so you can change it to something more
meaningful (
WordPress
, perhaps).
Now you’re all set up to blog with WordPress as you surf the
Web. If you find a page you’d like to blog about or you just have some
thoughts to get out of your head, click the bookmarklet to open a new
window with most of WordPress’s bare necessities, including a place to
enter your post’s title and to assign it categories and tags.
Now you’re ready to blog on a moment’s notice, or just jot down
some ideas and save a draft until you can flesh it out later. But if
you want to
really
step up your game, it’s time
to check out
MarsEdit.
Now,
blogging in a browser is fun and all, but you’re a Mac
user, so you deserve a Mac experience. To get it, I recommend MarsEdit
(
Figure 3-2
), a
reputable, well-designed, and feature-f Mac blogging client that
supports Tumblr and WordPress, as well as a variety of other blogging
sites. It’s probably the best money you can spend towards blogging.
You
can download a
free trial
, and if
you like it, it’ll set you back $40 to buy it.
powerful features.
MarsEdit brings some great stuff to blogging on the Mac, from
deeper support for OS X features like the Services menu, a learning
dictionary, and keyboard shortcuts that let you write faster, to
Flickr integration and the simple luxury of saving drafts of your
posts locally and working offline. While I could probably write a
whole chapter in this book on stuff you can do with MarsEdit, I’ll
just get you started.
Turns out, MarsEdit has its own bookmarklet that works quite a
bit like the Tumblr and WordPress bookmarklets you just learned about.
Launch MarsEdit, and then click MarsEdit→Install Browser Bookmarklet.
MarsEdit launches your default browser, where you simply drag the
“Send to MarsEdit” link to your bookmarks bar. You now have quick,
one-click access to writing about the current web page in a
full-featured, Mac-native blogging client. Even better, if you select
any text on the page, it’ll be included as a quote, complete with a
properly cited source, in the MarsEdit post window that opens.
As
I mentioned earlier, one of MarsEdit’s many handy
tricks is its ability to make your Flickr account a source for adding
photos to your posts. To do that, launch MarsEdit, click the Media
button in the toolbar, and then the Flickr tab. On that tab, you can
endow MarsEdit with your Flickr account’s superpowers to make it dead
simple to add your photos to your blog posts. Whenever you need one,
just click the Media button in a new post window, go to your Flickr
account, and drag the photo over. It’s a great way to make use of your
photographic prowess on your
blog.
OS X
offers a great way to get your photos and videos from
iPhoto or Aperture, and even music from iTunes, into your blog posts no
matter what browser, service, or app you’re using. It’s actually a
pretty simple, understated convenience of OS X’s Finder.
If you’re writing a post in Tumblr or WordPress and click whatever
button lets you add a photo, video, or audio track to your post, look
carefully at the “choose a file” dialog box that opens in your browser.
In the left sidebar, scroll down to the very bottom where you should see
a Media section with three subsections: Music, Photos, Movies. Click
those subsections and you’ll see entries in the main area of the dialog
box that give you access to your iPhoto, Aperture, and iTunes libraries,
complete with a small search box (
Figure 3-3
).
machine so you can include it in a blog post.
You can browse through your iPhoto events and albums, Aperture
projects, and iTunes playlists to find the media you want to upload.
(Just be sure that you’re uploading media you created yourself or for
which you obtained express permission from the creator.) If you’ve added
your Flickr or Facebook accounts to iPhoto or Aperture, you can even
access those collections from this dialog box.
However and whatever you decide to blog, the important thing is to
find a workflow and service that fits you. When you remove friction from
the process, the only things left to worry about are your words,
pictures, and so on—which is exactly how it should be.
—
David Chartier