Bleezer

Joshua, a Bleezer user, let me know that Bleezer seems to be having problems with the New Blogger. Fortunately I have located and fixed the problem (I think) and should have an update posted in a day or two.

Posted by larry at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Several people have asked if it is possible to upload images to Blogger using Bleezer. Unfortunately Blogger currently does not support image uploading from a client application like Bleezer. It can only be done via Blogger on the web.

Blogger is a great tool for beginning bloggers, and it is free. However I've recommended to these people that they consider using Wordpress. Wordpress is also free, but it is much more flexible, and it does allow you to upload images from applications like Bleezer.

Posted by larry at 02:07 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

It seems that I made a poor decision when I assumed that a userid ending with "@gmail.com" indicated that you were using the new Blogger, as several kind users pointed out. I've now added a new choice to the blogging tools list.

If you are still using the old Blogger, then you should select "Old Blogger". If you are using the new Blogger, then you should select "Blogger".

Many thanks are due to people like Jeff Groberman and Phil Gray, who endure this kind of pain and help work through the problems to make software better for everyone else.

So grab the new version (0.9.8.1) and check it out. As always, your comments are always welcome.

Posted by larry at 08:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The newest version of Bleezer is 0.9.8, and it supports the new Blogger, formerly known as Blogger Beta.

Configuring it is simple. If your userid ends with "@gmail.com" then it assumes that you have converted your blogs to the new Blogger. Otherwise it assumes that you are using the old Blogger.

Posted by larry at 04:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I like Google. I really do. And I am a frequent user of all of their software. But sometimes they frustrate even me.

Lately the source of that frustration has been their switch to a new version of Blogger, with a wholesale API change as well. It also seems to have broken some of the old Blogger support as well, and I've been seeing issues for months.

As the author of Bleezer, an offline blog authoring tool, that has caused me personal grief, not to mention the problems experienced by my users. And the users of other blogging tools that also ceased to work correctly.

Now there is a Blogger API help group, and the Blogger folks are trying to be helpful, but some things just do not work as advertised from what I am experiencing.

So if you are experiencingproblems with Blogger and Bleezer, rest assured that I am working on them as quickly as I can.

Posted by larry at 01:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Now that Google has switched the new Blogger from beta to live, there are a lot of things that just don't work properly. Rest assured I'm working to fix them as fast as I can.

Of course that work is impeded by the fact that some Blogger API functions simply do not work as documented, and it appears that nobody at Google actually cares as evidenced by the complete lack of response to issues posted in the Blogger support groups.

Posted by larry at 09:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Here are a couple of screen shots to show you what Bleezer looks like. Here is a sample post:

And this shot shows how to retrieve an existing post:

Posted by larry at 09:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

If you're downloading Bleezer now, you're going to get Version 0.9.7. Don't let the subtle version change mislead you - there are a lot of changes, which I'll document in the next day or so.

It's taken a few months to get here, but I've been using it for a couple of months myself. It provides for WYSIWYG editing. If you include an image from your local disk it will automatically be uploaded to your blog host. There is better support for categories, including multiple selection.

There are a lot of changes. There are probably a couple of outstanding issues as well, which you should feel free to report via email to bleezer@larryborsato.com. And there are more things planned.

Enjoy!

Posted by larry at 02:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

With Mark Evans once again graciously including Bleezer in his Blog Publishing Tool Round-Up, and pointing out its no frills nature, it's about time that I get a new version together. Indeed, I've been working on this version for about six months now, but after all, it is a one person venture. I'm not a big company like Qumana - even if theye have two people they have me beat, and they do have a nice product.

I use Bleezer for everything I post, and I've added a lot of stuff that I wanted myself. So I'm my own customer, and I'm never really happy with the product, which is why it has taken so long. There is a lot of new stuff, the most obvious of which is a completely new layout and WYSIWYG editing, courtesy of an open source editor called Kafenio, which I'm not completely happy with yet.

There is also support for categories (which is giving me a little user interface trouble right now), direct image uploading to your blog when you insert an image, direct link posting to del.icio.us, and stuff like that. I'll get a complete list together in the next couple of days.

And even with a bunch of new stuff there is still a ton of new things that I still want to add, some of which may show up partly done here and there. Sorry for the wait.

Posted by larry at 06:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

In the past few days I've complained about a couple of problems I've had with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. To be fair, Netbeans isn't perfect either, and has its share of problems.

The most frustrating problem I've had with Netbeans is when it doesn't do something that it claims it does.

The next release of Bleezer has been slowed down because Netbeans claims that it will create a dist/lib directory containing the required .jar files, and then include them in the manifest file. In actual fact it does not appear to do this. If anyone knows what I am doing wrong, their help would be most appreciated.

Hey, I just wanted to paint an accurate picture. Every product has its problems, not just Microsoft products. Truth be told, they actually work pretty well most of the time.

Posted by larry at 08:36 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)