Sent from my iPad

Ever since I got my iPad, much to my initial surprise, it's pretty much been my main home computer. It's really convenient for most of what I need a computer to do at home, like browsing the internet, reading news, watching videos, playing games, etc. One glaring exception has been blogging, until now.

There are lots of reasons why blogging was a big hassle on iPad. Blogger doesn't really work on a mobile device, I didn't want to change the way I uploaded and linked to pictures, I didn't know how I'd get the pictures on the iPad in the first place, I edit my pictures before uploading, etc. Yesterday I finally got around to researching this again and was pleasantly surprised to find a solution.

I will still use the desktop to get the pictures off the camera and put them on an external hard drive. (I could technically do this on the iPad, but it's not known for its files management prowess.) I use an app called FileBrowser* to get the pictures off the network-connected external hard drive. Then I open the picture in Photogene**, which is a really awesome full-featured photo editor that can one-touch upload to the same Picasa web album Blogger uses. From there I use Blogsy*** to write the post, which allows me to just drag pictures from the Picasa album (and videos from youtube) into my post and publish directly to Blogger. Now I'm ready to blog!

That is, of course, if I can get my iPad away from the kids...

 

*There are probably better apps out there for this, but I already paid for this one and it works pretty well.
**I am really impressed by this app so far, it does nearly everything I do in Photoshop to get pics ready for blogging and I'm no slouch with Photoshop.
***With a few improvements, this could be a really good app.

Phlog

I've been toying with the idea of switching web hosts and retooling my website to better serve its current function (mostly nothing).  My old blog template was designed to match the now defunct design where I used to have more content so as a first step I upgraded my blogger template to one of their styles and as a bonus I can now use their feature that allows me to add all sorts of fancy widgets.  So for those of you who actually visit the blog itself, it's now a different color.

I also have a little widget that shows posts from a new blog I started called skvely foto.  This is where I'm going to post pictures I've taken that I think have some photographic value.  I have lots of photos that I like already, so I set it up to post 2 a week for a while (in roughly chronological order) until those are used up, then I'll post more as I happen to make them.  Feel free to enjoy or ignore this, depending on your inclination.

Clarification

I just realized that my last post probably was probably too subtle, so for those of you wondering, check out the date on the ticket (and the link).

And so this post isn't completely wasted, here's a joke I thought up a few days ago:

What do you call a fat doctor who specializes in male parts?

A meteorologist.

Site Feed

In poking around the settings for my blog, I realized that I had the site feed turned off. I turned it on, but I don't think it will republish anything until I write another post. Hopefully this should do it, and anyone who so desires can add me to their feed reader of choice. You can find the link at the bottom of the page.

Prodigal Blogger

I recently read through the majority of my old posts and I realized that I was quite the prolific blogger. Even before it was cool, I regularly updated my blog and with some pretty decent content. Then Amber came along and ruined everything, of course. It was fun, though, to go back and read about what I was doing and it gave me the conviction to consider having enough conviction to start blogging again regularly. I'm a horrible journal writer and I fear my blog may be the only way I can atone and leave something for posterity. I'm still not sure if I've convinced myself or not, but the idea is appealing. So consider this my self-motivational attempt to get back into a blogging mindset. Stay tuned for more details.

New Look

You astute observers may have noticed that the blog looks a little different. I've been meaning to totally redesign my website with a new look and dynamic pages and with my new-found free time I finally got around to doing it! I even figured out how to change the template of this blogger.com blog to match my design. The 'pictures' and 'photoshop' pages are generated dynamically and I made myself a nice (password protected) web interface to add/edit/delete items. I think it's cool, anyway... Let me know if something doesn't work and what you think!

Call me Blogger

Since I never write emails, I figured this might be a good way to keep interested parties informed of what I'm doing! We'll see if I can keep it up or not...