(Warning: This post is all about a computer!)
When Rosie’s brother came to dinner he commented that we had surprisingly little computer equipment cluttering up our flat. Fortunately the day before I had just ordered us a Shuttle SS59G system with 2.5GHz Intel celery CPU [1] to act as a small server for our flat [2]. (And hence given the alias flat.toobusyto.org.uk!)
Given the popularity of Mac laptops, it’s not surprising there are a plethora of applications for writing blog posts offline.
mtsend.py: Definitely the ultimate geeky cross-platform solution: use your favourite editor, and then run a Python-script from the terminal to upload your post. It’s also free (unlike the others featured here) but it does have a number of disadvantages, principally the need to remember a particular format for posts, and the lack of preview functionality.
MarsEdit: I used this on my previous train trip to the North and found it to be excellent. It features a simple and uncluttered interface, and it was very easy to configure its Preview mode to use the Too Busy To template.
Ecto: My free trial of MarsEdit having expired, I thought I would try out Ecto before parting with any cash for MarsEdit. I have yet to reconnect to the Internet to actually post anything with it, but after using it to write just a single post I find it to be the complete opposite of MarsEdit: the interface is overflowing with buttons, controls and options I have no use for, and the rendering of the Too Busy To template in the preview window is not brilliant.
Current listening: Undone (The Sweater Song) from the album “Weezer (Blue Album)” by Weezer.
I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to take up skiing! We’ve just got back from a fabulous week of skiing in the Bulgarian resort of Pamporovo. It was a lovely resort for our group of beginners—still a little “up-and-coming” in many ways, but at least it had some charm which I hear is lacking in many ski resorts. The Hotel Zora was also excellent: only 3-stars in terms of facilities (it had no swimming pool or jacuzzi) but the rooms were pleasant, clean and modern, and the food wasn’t bad either. The nightlife was a little disappointing: we had a lot of fun as there were some nice bars with cheap drinks and dance floors, but sadly they were often just a little empty.
There was something very familiar about this advertisment in last Saturday’s Times magazine—I am pretty sure the background is St. John’s Street, Coleford.
