I am looking for a blog editor for Mac.

There are free options available – Thingamablog, Qumana, Flock, ScribeFire and Bleezer. But they all suck. And they are all ugly.

So I moved on to MarsEdit, and I actually liked it. All the necessary functionalities are provided:

• Author multiple blogs
• Integration with text editor – killer feature
• Save as local draft
• Specify tags, slug and categories

And I loved the Mac behavior where you can have multiple window open, means that I can edit multiple entries and switch them around with Cmd+~.

MarsEdit doesn’t have a WYSIWYG editor, but it does have a preview window. Just a plain HTML preview though, unlike in Windows Live Writer where you can see how you entry would look like with the current theme.

But I guess it’s okay, theme preview is a nice thing to have, but not crucially necessary.

I might just buy this app, if not for this one beef that I had with MarsEdit. Poor support for image editing.

I miss it so much how Windows Live Writer can do simple image editing like resizing, cropping, or adding drop shadow. WLW can even automatically upload two version of the image – thumbnail and the bigger one when you click on it.

And worse in MarsEdit, when you insert image it will be automatically uploaded. So every time there’s some mistake or minor change, you have to re-upload the image. That’s not the usual forgiven nature of Mac (WLW provides such function btw).

To summarize it, MarsEdit has everything that WLW has, except for simple image editing. And it costs $30 more.

P/S: I have just tried using both MarsEdit and WLW to edit this entry back-to-back. Bad idea. Don’t do that.

I have just attended Facebook Developer Garage that was held this morning at MIMOS, Cyberjaya.

I felt a little misled by the ‘developer’ word though, since I expect a lot of technical stuffs to come from the speakers. But they were none. All of them are marketing dudes. But I didn’t really mind since I came as a volunteer anyway, not as a participant.

Honestly, almost everything they talked about is something that you already know – how Facebook can help your business, our Facebook fan page have 1k fans, Farmville made a whackload amount of money, yadda yadda.

Until Uzaidi came into the stage and enlighten the audience with his bits of marketing experience. And I have to say, his talk was really exciting.

Uzaidi’s presentation is titled ‘4 Tips On Successful Facebook Campaign’. And here will dump all that I have jotted down, with a mix of my own words, hoping that you will it useful too.

4 Tips On Successful Facebook Campaign

1. You must be a media

People in Facebook land are naturally, self-obsessed. I am having fish for lunch, I am scratching my armpit, I am so lonely and heartbroken. Me, me, me.

You got to stop the attitude, you got to change your mind set. Be the media.

It is also interesting to see how the brands use their Facebook page to interact with the masses. They don’t necessarily have to post something that have to do with the brand itself – take this Pizza Hut post for example.

Another interesting brand to look at is Best Buy. People keep posting their questions and experiences to the wall – be it good or bad, Best Buy don’t moderate it. And the brand seems to be doing a good job replying to each one of them.

2. Don’t sell

This might sound like a weird advice, but I think Uzaidi was referring to the spammy-type individual who keep posting affiliate links to their status updates. In worse cases, they post it as comments in other’s status updates.

Facebook is not about sales, but it is more about lead finders.

And if you want to do business, don’t do it on your own profile. Create a fan page for that.

2. Start your own communities

You don’t have to stop at one. Create few kampungs, one for each small niche.

Start viral conversation. “If I tell my facebook friends about your brand, it’s not because I like your brand, but rather because I like my friends”

The new web theory is – if more people talk about you in the web, the more relevant you are in the current Internet world. Uzaidi also believes that contents can be consumed anywhere, not necessarily just on the company’s website.

Users should not have to leave Facebook if they don’t want to. So don’t be self-centered, or no people would want to talk about you, and you will become irrelevant.

End

So, that’s about it. Sorry if my writing seems disconnected, since they were taken from bullet-list notes that I managed to jot down during the talk. Hopefully in the future I will try to elaborate more on each points.

Basically, Notational Velocity (Mac only) stores note. But it does much more, it is my personal knowledge base.

Using Notational Velocity – As Simple as 1, 2, 3

To get started on using Notational Velocity, you only need to know three stuffs – storing notes, storing descriptions, and searching for notes.

1. Store notes.

2. Insert additional description (optional).

3. Search notes.

That is as easy as it gets. Almost no learning curve at all.

Why do you need Notational Velocity

I work with a lot of codes and commands, especially SQL queries. And once I have figured out a query, chances are I will need to use it again. Ground rule: The same code should never be figured out twice. That’s why I need a place for easy store-and-retrieve, so I won’t be wasting time doing repetitive stuffs

I’ve tried Wiki – too complex, with the syntax and all. I’ve tried the incredibly-easy-to-use WordPress – too much distractions that gets in the way of writing (title, tags, categories, etc). Then I’ve tried the single-text-file approach – and stayed a little longer. But as the file grew bigger, it became harder to search for the desired content.

Now that I have found Notational Velocity, I fell in love straight away with its awesomeness. It’s like having a single text file with spotlight search function. And nothing gets in the way between you and the content you want to store/retrieve.

The address bar is the search bar

You create notes and search for it on the same area. Often happens when I want to create new notes, it is already on NV so I just copy and use it straight away. Yes, how forgetful we are – all the more reason to use NV then.

And more awesome behavior to brag about

Able to export notes as text files, mouseless interaction, etc. And more important than all, Notational Velocity is free. The icon is fugly though.

The thought of trying David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” method never crossed my mind before, just for the reason that I didn’t want to be bothered to learn new (and possibly complex) stuffs. And I didn’t want to join any cults.

But I am using the company’s MacBook right now – that makes me a cult member already, right. So what the heck. If GTD could save my life, I’ll do it even if it means I have to succumbs to the dark side of being an Apple fanboy.

GTD can be applied using traditional equipments such as papers and physical folders. But I think using a software that is specifically tailored for GTD really helps beginners to get started and understand its workflow.

Reading 5 Mac Apps to Boost Your Productivity, I decided to go with OmniFocus. The article said that OmniFocus is heavily built around David Allen’s GTD method. Keep in mind that this application is not free (it’s a Mac app, what do you expect).

OmniFocus includes a PDF file that is really handy for OmniFocus and GTD beginners alike. I recommend you to read the first two chapters of David Allen’s book, then you can easily relate to what the PDF says.

To get started, you can capture stuffs by pressing Control+Option+Space. It will go into the inbox until you specify a project or context for it.

There are two ways to view your stuffs – by projects or contexts.

Project view is fine, but I am a bit bothered by the Miscellaneous box. Since all project-less stuff (i.e single action task) will go to the Miscellaneous box, it will become too populated and eventually discourages you too look at it. And it doesn’t really make sense when tasks of different purposes are grouped together in Miscellaneous.

While defining project is straightforward, defining context does takes some time to learn. Remember – break big problems into smaller ones. So if you find your ‘home’ list growing uncomfortably long, break it down to smaller, more accurate context such as ‘two-minutes’ or ‘leisure’.

I haven’t tried creating any folder to group anything, so I wonder how can it be of any use.

One simple yet useful feature I found absent from OmniFocus is the ability to drag and drop stuffs into the sidebar. OmniFocus also had this weird behavior where suddenly a task is ‘focused’, then all the other will be hidden, and I don’t know what the heck should I do to get it to function normally again.

It’s been a great 10 days I have spent trying OmniFocus, and I must say it is a good application. Now I am going to try Things, and see how this other one compare.

You can download free trial of OmniFocus from OmniGroup or purchase it for $79.95