Blogsy

I was in California for the weekend, and had left my laptop home, opting to take the lightweight iPad instead. Sure, I could have spend all the time visiting, but while everyone else was watching a movie on TV, I thought I'd make a quick blog post. I'd started working on the text the night before, and it was challenging. There's an old saying that goes something like, "Sorry the letter is so long--I didn't have time to make it shorter." This piece was like that. It took a while to get it just so.

But the text wasn't the only challenge. I wanted to use images--five, in fact. This was when I began regretting not bringing the laptop. For a device that is so easy to use, embedding images into a blog on an iPad is ridiculously hard. You'd think you could simply tap on an image in the photo stream and "git 'er done," but, alas, that would be too easy. After what seemed like two hours, I finally had all five images where I wanted them--then one vanished. It was there one minute--then somehow did a Houdini on me. "There has to be a better way," I mutter as I pulled up Google and did a search.

Minutes later I learned about Blogsy. The reviews were good--they claimed the app made working with images as easy as, well, as easy as touching and dragging. At this point, the $4.99 price tag didn't phase me. Don't get me wrong, there are times I won't spend a dime on an app. But since I'd already invested so much time into this one post, and realizing that if the app could save me time in the future, five bucks was a bargain.

So I downloaded Blogsy, and went to work. The main "how to" screen didn't mean a lot to me--I had to dive in and get my hands wet to really learn the program.

It was actually rather intutive. Once I set up my account, all my Blogger accounts came up.

From there I only had to chose which blog I was posting too, and I was in business. And I learned that even that isn't totally neccessary, because when it's time to post it you're given a chance to choose where to post it to. One nice feature is that once you have all your blogs listed, you can go to any posts or drafts you may have already started in any of your blogs, pull it up in Blogsy, and continue working on them.

The main feaure of course is the ability to manage images easily. This is what I got it for. Once my photo stream showed up, it was literally as easy as touch and drag. Keep your finger on the image, and once the picture shows up "behind" it, you can center it or drag it to either side.

The second feature I like is, because of how Blogsy is set up, it also becomes a blog management tool. As I have already pointed out, you can write, edit and post to any of your accounts from here. Not something I was looking for, but since I'm already here for the image feature, why not. It has the standard fomatting options--actually, it has a few I've never used before--like text color options and background colors.

If you like writing code, you can even change the screen and use the HTML feature. Not something I can see myself doing, but the option is there.

Perhaps the feature that really seals the deal for me though, are the help videos. Instead of doing a Google search, or going to YouTube to find how-to videos, just tap the settings button to the lower right.

Then tap on the How-To Videos line, and choose the topic you need help with. How easy is that?

The only snag for me came when it was time to publish my post. I tapped the button in the upper left and got this screen:

I didn't have a Flickr or Picasa account set up, and I didn't know I needed one. But without such an account, I couldn't get past this point. Once I understood this, I set up an account on Picasa, and then I sailed right through the rest of the prosess.

I was surprised, thought, at how long it took to publish the piece. When you publish a post with images, the images have to be uploaded to photo-sharing website--which takes longer than I would have thought. But then, I was uploading five images, so maybe the time wasn't that bad. It just seems much longer than it takes when I post from a computer. Still, the job got done. My blog post was online, and that's all that really matters.

All in all, I'm glad I purchased Blogsy. It's made by the guys at Fomola:

and I'll definitely keep an eye on other products they develop.