One might call this a test. Well, one might not. But I will.
I hate test posts. Hate writing 'em and hate reading 'em. So I'll try to make this a little more than, "Is This Thing On?"
I've been testy myself lately, so what better time to try something new. Yesterday I tried w.bloggar, which memer likes very much. I didn't post with it. To me, the options offered, the default font, the preview, and just the "feel" of the writing window didn't turn me on. It felt a lot like Blogger, which isn't a bad thing, because you all know I'm three-years'-worth accustomed to writing in Blogger. But at that point I was like, if I want to have to open a program and write in something like Blogger, but without really seeing what I'm doing too very accurately, I might as well write in Blogger, even despite it's wavering reliability. That thing that woos you to a new tool was missing for me with w.bloggar.
Writers are funny this way. Keyboards and the programs we compose in are very important to the evolving process of crafting word-thoughts.
So Jon Husband leaves me a comment about this Qumana thing, which I don't know from Adam, (HEY AKMA! HEY MARGARET! HEY PIPPA!), and I decide to try it. That's where I am now. I am wooed. I like it. I like the writing pad--it resembles MS Word, and let's face it, I've got a lifetime of familiarity writing in the MSWord environment.
Plus the little tool thingy that hangs out on the desktop has these cute little arrows that let you bop it around the desktop. Paint me quirky, but I like that kind of thing. The Qumana desktop bopper thing is bigger than a shortcut icon: It will remind me to blog. I will probably get mad at it at some point. But for now I like it. (It could be a little prettier--maybe customizable with your favorite celebrity or type of lunchmeat.)
This whole thing--which I was absolutely uninformed about until yesterday--has me thinking. Will tools like Blogger become backend engines, while smart people with the nimbleness that Blogger used to have -- because they were small and stayed up late -- begin to develop a whole plethora of cool front-end interfaces to inspire and facilitate the job of, well, writing?
As I write inside this window with an MS Word type feel -- and Jon may mean this when he says that Qumana will have other templates you can load in -- I imagine maybe tomorrow, when I'm writing about the horror that is public education, I'll want a more severe workspace to inform and encourage my anger. There might be something to this. Like the mood ring of Blog Authoring tools. You know what I'm saying?
One thing that's weird -- I'd recommend fixing it -- is that when you're composing in Qumana, and you open a browser to go fetch a link you don't remember by heart (say AKMA's flickr photostream), the Qumana window doesn't register down on the little IE Start toolbar at the bottom of the screen. In other words, once the browser (or any) windows open on top of Qumana, you have to minimize them all to get back to where you were writing. Gotta change that.
All in all, I like Qumana. I'm using it. Blogger, you may now chug along at your own speed. Thanks for hipping me to this, Jon!
One other Update--the Title didn't end up in the title field--I had to go into Blogger and move it up into Blogger's Title: field.
