manticore.ca

So far the majority of my blog entries have been done with the wordpress iPhone app. Since they are simple text entries with no multi-media content as of yet, the app is perfect for my needs.

The ability to create blog posts from where ever I am has allowed me to reclaim time and post in the nook and crannies of my day, and home time is for what I want to do.

The App supports multiple blogs and allows you to upload pictures, which is extremly handy when doing iPhone app reviews. Simply hold down the power button, hit the d pad and watch the screen blink. Add the picture via the photo library or shoot a live shot.

Most peope that I have talked to, do not advocate posting a live entry, prefering instead to write the content and then save to local file, and format their blog at home or work in a more conventional way, me I hit publish and go.

As I wrote in a post several months ago, the app now supports landscape mode for text entry, comments can be viewed and marked as spam or approved as needed. Regarding comments, my site is set up to moderate comments, the blizzard of spam that comes through, notably the kind that have ??????? In the body of the comment makes this nessecary if you do not have the askimet widget activated (strong suggestion, for those that don’t)

I may go to an unmoderated format soon, as the spam has litterally dried up, but it’s not a major issue at the monent.

If the wordpress app has any flaws, it’s saving a post as private. This happened to me several days ago and other than blaming myself, I don’t know what went wrong, or more litterally where the post went.

I have 2.7.1 rev, with admin privilges and it’s gone. Anyone wishing to post as private, I would heavily suggest that you save it to draft and then classifiy it on the fullsite rather than upload it through the app.

The app is useful and has been updated several times, plus it’s free. If your just a casual blogger or wish to create content for future blogs the app can be very useful.

On the downsides, it can throw you some curveballs regarding the private posting.

8/10

If you have a wordpress blog and an iPhone or wish to make your blog entries relevant to the mobile communities, the ansewer is a widget thats available on the wordpress site.

Go into your widgets section of the admin section and an option should be there to search for more, type iPhone into the search box and it should produce the widget, I can’t think of the name off hand, but will edit the post later tonight.

There is an automated process that allows the casual wordpress blogger to upload widgets and all thats required from the user, is to activate the widget. Activation is simply by clicking on the activate hyperlink and your golden.

The results of this activation will change the look of your site, at least as tested on the iPhone, but for text only blogs, it distills the useful from the wasted space of a full fledged website.

For multi-media blog sites I would advise that you do not use this widget, without experimentation on your site, the deactivation process is just as easy, however it’s not a solution that fits all sites

Thought I would throw a quick post up after the new updated wordpress app came out. Other than landscape mode, which I am typing in as we speak, I have not plumbed the depths of the new software.

I am thrilled, landscape is so much more comfortable to type than the portrait mode. At the moment I am engrossed in the AIG debacle on twitter and am soon going to have to tear myself away, 5 am rears it’s ugly head soon enough and I am not one to be able to wait till the last moment before leaving for work, afternoon shift cannot come fast enough.

On to new business.

The blog is going to have a new category in the next couple of days. I just picked up a 300 milimeter lens and I want to start photo blogging.