ecto for Windows Still Blows
December 1, 2005 | 6 Comments
Alex, the lead developer for ecto for Windows, has commented a few times on my ecto for Windows Blows post. I figured they’ve been through a few versions and it was time for me to give them another shot. Alex seems to be putting a lot of care into the product, and as a developer myself, I know how frustrating it can be to get either useful feedback or overly generalized complaints (a la something “blows”). I hadn’t looked at it since August, so why not.
I downloaded it again. Which itself was somewhat difficult. Have you Google searched “ecto windows” lately? The first promising link is misleading as it leads to an old version (1.0.3) which in itself has a link to a broken download. Anyway, I found my way to the homepage and grabbed 1.8.7
On first glance, I’m not satisfied with the spell check, I’d prefer if it checked constantly, sorta Word style. Also, a quick trial on the new keyword feature didn’t actually work, but that is likely because of Wordpress not explicitly supporting it, not necessarily their fault. Another annoyance at this point is that the ping action threw me a non-descript error about “Internal Server Error” no clue why, or how to fix… One last comment, a lot of my posts have relative links to images in the posts. Anyway these could be rewritten to take account of my blogs hostname so they don’t all show broken? On that note, why do none of these previews use my site’s template somehow? Maybe that’s configurable and I just didn’t look deep enough.
Oh crap, I just noticed a final straw to break the camel’s back. My posts in the system that are drafts are showing up in ecto as “Published”. That won’t fly.
I guess I still can’t commit to using ecto for windows (in fact I’m not using it on the mac anymore either) The built in Wordpress interface is simple, and for now that continues to win. Truthfully many of the problems I’m experiencing may be attributed more to Wordpress or the underlying APIs, but either way I still can’t use the product. Nor will I be recommending it on campus as we roll out potentially 30,000 blogs…
Tags: api, apis, blog, blogging, blogs, desktop blogging, ecto, google, movabletype api, review, software review, windows, wordpress
ecto for Windows Blows
August 10, 2005 | 16 Comments
I’ve been using ecto on my Mac at home and at the office. Recently I got Ken setup with a WordPress site, and put ecto on his desktop for managing his content. I assumed it would be as simple as on the Mac and he’d really like it. A few days later he told me ecto was worthless and he didn’t like it. I thought he just didn’t get it.
I was wrong.
While out in Salt Lake I figured I’d use ecto on my PC laptop. The windows version of ecto is complete garbage. It crashes if you look at it funny, there is no technorati tag support, and the WYSIWYG editor is weak at best. ecto on the mac is not perfect, but the PC version is worthless.
My search begins for a Windows alternative.
Read some reviews from CMS Wire. Sadly they give ecto a 9/10 which is concerning for the others who all scored less…
Other PC desktop blogging options I’m going to try:
BlogJet
Thingamablog
WB Editor
w.bloggar
Update:
BlogJet, $39.95, doesn’t ping any services. Verdict: junky.
Thingamablog, crashes on open. Couldn’t even evaluate. Verdict: complete trash.
WB Editor: $19.99, doesn’t auto ping external sevices (technorati, etc.). Verdict: no good.
w.bloggar: Can’t edit previous posts. best potential. Verdict: sad.
There has to be something out there… Still searching…
Tags: blog, blogging, desktop blogging, ecto, mac, mac software, pc, software