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Tools of the Trade
Keeping a food website alive is a bigger undertaking than it first appeared to me. It’s also easier than I really imagined it to be, in a lot of respects.
It’s all in the wrist. And the tools.
As you can see (from my footer, at least) I use WordPress for my site. It’s not just for breakfast, er, blogging anymore. Besides its attractive price (free), it continues to evolve and grow through the efforts of a large community of interested folks.You can build a big site or a small one, or just a one-page blog if you want.
WordPress has a lot of functionality in plugin widgets, which makes customization a snap. No HTML or PHP skills required!
One plugin I’m experimenting with goes along with a novel community effort: Twitter. In the next few days I’ll be able to put snippets of news most anywhere on my site, any time I want. Watch for this feature coming soon!
For pictures I’m clearly in overkill mode. I’m using Photoshop 10 as part of the new Adobe Creative Suite 3 (CS3). I’m not yet good at it, but I’m working on my skills almost daily. Daunting as this features-loaded pic editor can be, I’m slowly mastering it. For most folks, other options would be better, I’m sure.
Finally, you need some sort of editor to put your posts together. I’ve tried Windows Live Writer and others, and I found Zoundry to be best-suited for me. I’m now on to their Raven beta, and I really like it! You can edit WordPress pages as well as blog posts. Adding content to your post is a snap. The only “glitch” I’ve experienced, compared to Zoundry, is trying to use my home network for the pictures. For some reason, Raven doesn’t like it when I refer to another local computer (like \\othermachine\\pic.gif) for pictures I’ve prepared on my graphics machine. The older Zoundry doesn’t mind that. I’m sure they’ll get it fixed. (I have my fingers crossed, of course.)
Today I’m making some Icebox Pickles and relaxing as it rains for the first time in months here. They’re tasty and easy, just like me…
Enjoy the Heat!
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4 Responses to “Tools of the Trade”
June 24th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Yo Zoundry,
Thanks for stopping by and giving us the straight scoop! I assume the UNC error is that network referencing I spoke of.
I will say, I’ve tried over a dozen editors since I took up WordPress 15 months ago, and nothing comes close to the positive user experience I’ve had with Zoundry and Raven.
I look forward to the full release!
CD
June 23rd, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Hi - thanks for trying out Raven. The UNC path issue have been resolved - official release ETA mid July. Early access releases are always available via our forum pages (current preview version is build 333).
Thanks again.
June 22nd, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Tom,
Great to get this info to the readers! (Both of them.) I am committed to overkill in everything, and especially in photo editing. My wife has over 800 GBytes of pics, so I’ve got lots of practice material. However, not 1 in a 100 website managers needs a weapon the size of Photoshop.
Thanks for helping out…
CD
June 22nd, 2008 at 8:42 am
A good (and free) photo editor bloggers is Photofiltre, which is also available in a paid version ($25). Does everything your average person needs - and does it quickly - yet doesn’t weigh you down with too many unneeded doo-dads.
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