Trying a new blogging process - Google Docs
Hopefully, I have addressed that problem. At the suggestion of Dan Vega, I am going to try using Google Docs to write my entries first. Until a few nights ago, I had never used Google Docs, but I am now impressed. It's very easy to use, and I love the auto-save functionality. BlogCFC has always had this problem for me - losing what I write. I often go back, write and re-write what I have written, and I have always seemed to lose the entry before I publish it. This happens a lot less since I upgraded my BlogCFC a few months ago (although I am a little out of date now), but it still happens if the browser craps out. I blame that on my ability to tax a browser/computer over the application itself. Anyway, hopefully, I'll start blogging more with this new process.
Does anyone else run into this problem? How do YOU solve it?
http://www.brianmeloche.com/blog/trackback.cfm?630FDCD3-3048-2E57-0AFD40F18C6D2346



1) I lay out the idea for my post by creating a bunch of section headings (if the section is complicated I may jot some notes into the section). This works like a quick and dirty outline and gives the finished product an article-like appearance IMO
2) Fill in each section
3) Re-read several times and make revisions (at this stage you can add others as readers if you want some third party review)
Looking forward to your upcoming posts :)
Also, this may seem old-school (leave it to me, the geezer), but another tip is to edit the entries in an editor. Besides saving them to a local directory (or leveraging any auto-save mechanism it may have), it also has the benefit of letting you use the editor's features to add HTML features (bold, bullets, etc.) without you having to enter the HTML yourself (again, perhaps a later version of BlogCFC has a new WYSIWYG editor, but the version I run does not). Does Google Docs let you get the HTML underlying a doc you create? Just never thought about it before.
Finally, I suppose a benefit of using GD (versus an editor and local files) is that you can edit the doc on a machine other than your own. I don't have that requirement, but certainly if one does, then it's yet another notch in GD's belt.
I, myself, use: Ecto: http://ecto.kung-foo.tv/, but there are other's out there. Windows Live Writer and Qumana to name a couple..
http://get.live.com/betas/writer_betas
Granted it is windows but it works well.
@Dan: I'll give that some thought. I have gotten into the habit of making notes and reminders to myself, so that might also work for me.
@Charlie: Yes, I realized that you can do that, but even that has not worked out for me. For one reason or another, I never save in time... or my browser hangs, or my computer hangs (e.g. my laptop at work has a weird problem where it shuts down on an incorrect password in RDC), but I like the constant saving of Google Docs, and it's a nice little editor.
@Critter: No, I didn't realize BlogCFC had XML/RPC support. Hmm. I used to use w.bloggar a few years ago when my WVMUG blog was on Nucleus CMS. These days, I am Mac G4 at home (no Intel) and XP SP2 at home, so I need something that I can use in both environments. Google Docs seems to be a good choice for now, but I'll consider other possibilities as they present themselves.
Generally with the Podcasts on CFFrameworks.com, the post is written collaboratively on Google Docs - and then copied and pasted to BlogCFC when everyone is happy withi it...
We often have a problem with random CSS being inserted (almost like MS Word HTML) - which tends to break things...