iBlog: Get Your Blogging Under Control

If you’re looking for some blogging software to manage your workload, your options just expanded. Lifli Software has announced that iBlog is now at version 2.0, rolling out a ton of features with this beta release.

iBlog works with iDisk, to provide a seamless way of creating your blog without being a PHP or MySQL guru. If you have a run-of-the-mill FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, AFP or local server, you’re still good to go.

The first thing that you notice is iBlog’s user interface. It is really simple and also has a slight hint of “deliciousness”. Categories are neatly managed on the left side, together with the calendar. The rest of the window is taken up by the article list and a workspace to keep tabs on your masterpiece.

Like most blogging platforms, the themes are highly customizable. iBlog uses industry-standard CSS, so any web-designer worth his/her weight in salt can build some kick-ass designs. You cannot edit the default theme (for safety reasons); create a new theme to get started.

As with all blogging software, you can enable/disable commenting, ping different services, manage tags and even configure Google Adsense for your blog. The sidebars are fully customizable; there are a limited number of items you can include, but I suspect more scripts will be added later.

Face it, blogging is not simply about words. Since images are worth a thousand words, iBlog is also built to handle rich media. All your photos, music and video are likely stored in several iLife applications, so iBlog is smart enough to find the right media and grab it. Of course, the good old drag-and-drop still works for media from other sources.

If all those features do not convince you, then perhaps this will. iBlog supports podcasting. It will create generate the right code to correctly embed a podcast into an RSS feed, the application will also submit it to the iTunes podcast directory. Can you say one-click-podcasting?

Besides the above, there are also several tidbits worth mentioning. Backup is built into the app, so you’ll never loose all your hard work because of another server crash. iBlog is a multi-threaded application (you can still use it while uploading files to a remote server), so Intel users should see slight benefits.

Despite not requiring any setup on the server-side, iBlog does have a slight learning curve when it comes to creating a new blog. It’s worth checking out if you’re technically competent and know your way around; for newbies, you’re better off with something from Wordpress or Blogger. Download the iBlog beta now.

share permalink ping Leave a Comment