Brian Meloche's Blog I'll blog about ColdFusion, weight loss, podcasting and life with too many pets! :-)

I have been using Google Docs for blogging for about 5/6 months and it works great. I obviously only use it for lengthy, in-depth posts but it allows me to easily work on it over time and generally results in better posts. Here is my Google Doc workflow (it is nothing mind-blowing but you may find it useful):

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 :)

Brian, a couple thoughts. First, do you realize that BlogCFC has an option to set an entry as not released, in which case you can "save" it. I'm still running 5.005, so it's functionality that's been there a while. Perhaps more recent versions let you stay on the page to continue editing (for now, it goes back to the entry list and you have to re-select it to continue editing.)

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.

Windows Live Writer
http://get.live.com/betas/writer_betas

Granted it is windows but it works well.

@Brian R: My problem is that I get interrupted a lot in mid-post, so even a SHORT entry is susceptible to being lost. I also like writing and editing, and editing, and editing some more, before I post.

@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.

I have tried using GMail, too, but GMail is now being blocked at the office, so that won't work, at least in the short term. I don't think it's actually GMail, but Google Ads that are blocked.

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.