December 21st, 2005
Weblogging Directly from FireFox - Performancing for FireFox
A couple of my colleagues at work have been weblogging about a new FireFox extension made available by the folks behind Performancing and which they seem to have been enjoying ever since it came out. I actually found out about it through Steve Rubel over at Micro Persuasion and after the good reviews mentioned over there I decided to take it for a spin, even though FireFox is not my default web browser. And my first initial reaction is nothing less than disappointment. Why ? Well, because of a number of different reasons:
I know that this extension has been created only for FireFox but to say that and prevent other web browsers to display it is just going a bit too far I would think. Oh, I tried as well in IE and it doesn’t seem to be loading either ! “Helping bloggers succeed”? Hummm, I doubt it. At least, not this way.
However, Performancing for FireFox does not even have an MetaWeblog API that you would be able to use. So if you do not have a weblog hosted with Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, LiveJournal, WordPress Custom or Moveable Type Custom, you are out of luck again, because it will not work. At least, I haven’t found a way to make it work. Anybody knows how to fix this ?
I am saying “seems” because I have yet got to test it out posting a weblog entry using that FireFox extension. Something that I will probably be doing in the next weblog entry, but so far I haven’t been that impressed overall. It is certainly a very very good attempt, pretty much like what Flock is trying to achieve, but as far as I can see and although it may work for some weblogging engines it is not as powerful as many other options available out there.
We will have to wait and see how it further develops but for the time being I will give it a try and post something here in elsua and see how it will go. One other concern I will have just as a I venture into creating that weblog post is if it would be validating like the way it is supposed to. Something to look forward to, I would think. So let’s see how it goes.
Technorati Tags : Performancing, WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, Roller, Qumana, Flock, FireFox
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December 22nd, 2005 at 8:34 am
You write very well!
I did the same thing as you in trying to setup my WP blog, and received a funny error message.
This is my first exposure to Roller. How does Flock treat it?
I see your Flock post from October 21, 2005. I would love to hear your insights on Flock. We will have our next significant release mid-January.
All the best,
Lloyd
December 22nd, 2005 at 1:29 pm
Hello Lloyd and welcome to elsua! Thanks very much for the kind comments and for dropping by. I have been reading off your weblog your experience with Performancing and Flock and it surely looks very interesting.
Regarding your comments about Roller and Flock I must say that things could be a bit better. In general it is very easy to set it up with the MetaWeblog option, and it does grab the different weblog posts, however, when trying to post something into my weblog I am finding out that it apparently chops of the title of the post and it will not show it on the weblog itself, so people find it difficult to relate to. I have been looking into this for some time now and I cannot find a way to get it fixed, which is the reason why I haven’t weblogged yet in much more detail till now.
I am still trying to see if I can fix it somehow. I will eventually share a couple of weblog posts over the next couple of days on both Flock and Performancing for both of my weblogs, the Intranet and Internet ones, since they are both using different weblogging engines and then you will be able to read what my experience has been.
Finally, I am really looking forward to that significant release in mid-January as I believe that you folks are doing some really good work into bringing together a much more significant Web 2.0 effort integrated in the web browser than anyone else. Thus I can’t wait to get my hands on the new release. For the time being, stay tuned to those upcoming weblog posts and let’s see how far we can go.
Again, I appreciate the feedback comments !
December 22nd, 2005 at 10:13 pm
[…] After I created yesterday’s weblog post on Weblogging Directly from FireFox - Performancing for FireFox I thought it would be a good time now to take the next step and take this FireFox extension for a spin. So I have decided to create this particular weblog post using that extension and let you all know what my experience has been so far. I know that quite a few people have been weblogging about this already, but I think I am going to take a new approach to it all. So instead of just reading a review of what I think on the extension I am just going to create a weblog post where I would be detailing five features I really like from Performancing for FireFox next to another five features where I think there is some more room for improvement. Hopefully, that way I will be able to add some more into the conversation and see how people would be able to get a good idea on this extension and find out if it would help them ease the way they share information and collaborate with one another. […]
December 22nd, 2005 at 11:57 pm
Hi Luis,
Have you tried a developer continuous build recently? Blogging has improved a lot since the last stable release.
http://tinderbox.flock.com
Possibly the Flock community can assist you with the getting this working.
http://wiki.flock.com/index.php?title=FAQ#Where_the_community_hangs_out
Staying tuned,
Lloyd
December 23rd, 2005 at 12:12 am
Excellent stuff, Lloyd ! Thanks very much for sharing those links and for dropping by. I was not aware of the first link for the recent builds and I have downloaded already 0.4.11. I will be playing around with it for a little while and then I will let you know what my weblogging experience has been so far. I am really excited about trying it out specially since you have mentioned there have been many improvements with the weblogging component. I will let you know about my experiences in an upcoming weblog post. Thanks again for the feedback comments !
December 23rd, 2005 at 2:53 pm
I too prefer Opera to all the other browsers out there. Sadly, we are seeing more and more add-ins being created exclusively for Firefox. Seems every other day there is another tool or utility.
I believe Opera held on too tight to the code options so people couldn’t readily go out and configure new plugins early on. Now, there is an uphill battle in getting these working.
December 23rd, 2005 at 7:48 pm
Hello Brad and welcome to elsua ! Yes, indeed, I have noticed that, too. I guess that is what it takes to be a pretty popular web browser as opposed to some others not so popular. However, I am wondering how much longer we will have to put up with this given the recent rumours of Opera being bought by whatever other major companies, although none of those rumours seem to have anything in concrete. Maybe it will happen in the end, who knows. But even if it hasn’t, given the fact that the browser is freeware at the moment, it may start opening things up in the end. We shall see.
I am sure that after the browser has been made available now for free that we will start seeing more developments in due course, probably during the course of 2006. I do hope, too, though that it may not be too late. Let’s hope it isn’t, because it would be too bad to have to move to other more innovative web browsers than just Opera, because so far, in my opinion, it has been leading the way and, hopefully, it will continue to be like that for many more months to come.
December 23rd, 2005 at 9:18 pm
[…] In another weblog post Lloyd Budd asked me to created an updated weblog post since last time I talked a bit about the topic of Flock and I thought that this time around it would be a good time to share some thoughts on the latest build I have been trying the last couple of days. […]
January 20th, 2006 at 8:51 pm
[…] Today was the day where I was back at work trying to weblog in my Intranet weblog and to take things for a spin I decided to see how the Performancing for FireFox extension from FireFox would work. If you would remember, not long ago, I created a couple of weblog posts on my overall experience about Performancing for FireFox and back then I mentioned how I saw some initial issues when trying to get this extension to work with one other Open Source weblogging engine, which is Roller Weblogger. And the same thing happened with Flock’s weblogging component. […]
March 10th, 2006 at 12:59 am
Thanks for the information. My husband was looking for this.
March 10th, 2006 at 1:44 am
Thanks, Gayle, for dropping by and for sharing this feedback. I am glad to hear you have found this weblog post useful. I am sure that if you folks have given it a try you will enjoy it just as much as using any other weblogging tool, if not more. Glad to be able to help ! Appreciated the feedback.
March 10th, 2006 at 3:08 am
I am glad I came across your post. Thanks!
March 29th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Hi and thanks so much for linking to my blog on ‘How to Blog’!!
My site has moved, so I am writing to ask if you could please update your link to reflect the new permanent URL?
Whereas ‘How to Blog’ used to be located at http://blogging.typepad.com, it has moved permanently to:
http://www.emilyrobbins.com/how-to-blog/
Can you please change your link to How to Blog to reflect its current URL (http://www.emilyrobbins.com/how-to-blog/)
Thanks so much in advance!!
Best regards,
Emily from How to Blog
How to Blog: Blogging tips, tricks, templates, tutorials, and more!
http://www.emilyrobbins.com/how-to-blog
March 29th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Hi Emily! Thanks very much for dropping by and for the feedback comments. I have now taken a look into my blogroll from this weblog template and also from my BlogLines account, which is currently feeding the blogroll, and I have successfully updated the new URL address of your weblog. I guess that it should be all right by now, since I have checked all of the updates and they have all gone through. Do have a look and let me know if you would need anything else and thanks again for the heads up on the new weblog address from your own weblog. Keep up the great work ! Thanks!