E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez

New Qumana Beta Release – It Surely Is Easier then Ever

Folks who may have been reading from  elsua for some time now would probably remember how fond I have been all along about one of my favourite offline weblogging tools available out there: Qumana. I have weblogged a few times already about it under the name of QumanaXP, specially since they have been working on their latest beta. So earlier on this morning I was actually quite excited to read over at Qumana "How To" Blog a weblog post by Arieanna where she has just announced the latest beta client available for Qumana: New Qumana Beta Release: Easier than Ever.

Fantastic piece of news, folks ! I tell you. This is one of those offline weblogging releases that will certainly help people come a lot closer to weblogging than ever before. It will no doubt help them improve their own weblogging experience quite a bit not only because of its incredible ease of use but also because some of the really nifty features that have been put together on this latest release and which you can read some more about over at Qumana Is Font Crazy and Qumana’s New and Hot Image Interface.

I love it! One of the recent features I have implemented over here, and that I mentioned some time ago, is now easier than ever ! That is  just a terrific piece of news because I have been looking for a nicer way to implement this and I was never sure how to get the most out of it and it looks like now, with Qumana, I would be able to get it going, just the way I want it. Lovely.

Overall, I am quite pleased with this last beta release and I am sure that we would get to see some more in future versions. The folks over at Qumana do certainly know how to keep innovating in such a precious space as offline weblogging tools, because I am not sure if you have noticed it or not but going through the initial set up and the Blog Manager is just such a treat that I am really glad they have made the latest client available because as I have gone to maintain a couple of other weblogs setting them up through Qumana has been really easy. Too easy. So what is your excuse ? Why not give it a try and start experiencing the way weblogging was always meant to be. Go ahead, download the client, and get busy with it!

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Oh, and in case you are wondering about this, Qumana is not the only offline weblogging tool that I am using and that I have enjoyed quite a bit so far. In the past you have probably read how I have been using w.bloggar, Performancing for FireFox and Flock’s weblogging component. You may be thinking that these may well be far too many offline weblogging tools and you probably are right. However, I always like to work on different drafts for different posts from several weblogs that I maintain, so for each weblog I have developed a technique to use a particular offline weblogging tool. So I can keep things separate but at the same time with a flow that works for me. And now it is about to get even better with this latest release of Qumana. Easier than ever. Good stuff!

Tags: Metablogging, Qumana, Performancing, w.bloggar, Flock

QumanaXP – My New Default Weblogging Tool

You would remember how in the past I have been weblogging a number of different times about what my experience with QumanaXP has been all along ever since it went into a public beta. Initially there were some issues that were addressed and fixed in the second beta release, but not all of them. In fact, there was a single one that prevented me from moving away from everything else and then get to use QumanaXP extensively, which was the inability to talk to my Intranet Roller Weblogger weblog. Well, folks, that is about to change.

I am not sure what has happened or who may have been doing some fixing up at what end, but the thing is that earlier on this afternoon I went and gave a good try to QumanaXP and see if I could configure it with my Roller weblog and not only have I been able to configure it successfully I am even capable of selecting multiple categories to post to and when doing a test weblog entry it all went really well and it posted it successfully the way I wanted using the MetaWeblog API.

Only thing that didn’t seem to be working was the couple of trackbacks I set up to see if those would work. And, like w.bloggar, it seems to have some kind of hiccup with that weblogging feature because it didn’t seem to be working. But that is fine with me, because, pretty much like I got used to doing that with w.bloggar, I can certainly continue doing it with QumanaXP. The good news is that it all seems to be working just fine and I quite delighted to indicate that from now on my default weblogging tool for all of my different weblogs is QumanaXP.

Certainly, a lot more user friendly than w.bloggar. Performancing for FireFox does not seem to be working for Flock 0.5.12, now my default web browser, and Flock’s weblogging component is something that I will still use every now and then, specially for that lovely integration with Flickr. But for the time being, I am quite content with QumanaXP and will probably stick with it for a little while now, since all of my weblogs are working quite all right with it. It is good to finally have one weblogging tool out there that doesn’t feel to me like I need to focus on the technical aspects of the weblogging environment but more just focus on the content itself. Quite an achievement !

Tags: Metablogging, QumanaXP, w.bloggar, Performancing, Flock, Roller

Powered by Qumana

QumanaXP – Fixing Up Some Issues but Not There Just Yet

If you would remember, in the past I have been weblogging a couple of times about the beta release from Qumana that would allow you to post content in multiple weblogs in a seamless and very user friendly manner. Indeed, QumanaXP has done some really great work so far by releasing a new beta client, version 2, that has improved a few things even better, including one of the error messages I was getting when trying to publish my Internet weblog.

Arieanna provides all the different details over at QumanaXP’s official weblog and you can read some more about it over there. However, there is still one issue that is currently bugging me quite a bit regarding the usage of this particular weblogging tool. And that is the fact that it is almost impossible to set it up to talk to Roller Weblogger, like I have mentioned elsewhere. Even more, with this second beta release, I just cannot even pass through the initial setup windows as can be seen on the following screen shot (URL address has been removed to show the picture with just the error message). And that is just so frustrating !

I have been using this beta release from QumanaXP ever since it was made publicly available and so far, as I have mentioned already a couple of times, I do love the experience. However, it would be even much nicer if I could also get it working for my Intranet weblog, which uses Roller. But it looks like that would have to wait for another release because so far it seems we have gone a bit backwards on this one. I have been in contact with the development folks to try to figure out what is going on but so far I am still stuck with it.

Let’s see what will be happening over the next few weeks because I would hate having to move away from such a fine release of this weblogging tool that makes knowledge sharing and collaborating a true delight. I am sure that those who may have tried out the tool already would agree with that. Thus I am keeping my fingers crossed that one of these days I would be able to configure QumanaXP successfully to make it work for all of my weblogs.

Tags: Metablogging, QumanaXP, Roller Weblogger, Roller