I’ve been writing for Gear Diary for a long time now. In fact, one of my very first, BIG reviews was on a “new” (in 2006)computer I had just purchased – my 15″ MacBook Pro. It was pretty cool; but I had sworn off becoming a switcher for a couple of reasons.  One, was the introduction of Windows Live Writer, and its ability to post to WordPress blogs like Gear Diary, and to Windows Live Spaces where I have my blog, Pocket PC Guru.

Honestly, while blogging directly in either WordPress or Live Spaces is cool, sometimes the tools just aren’t enough; and then there’s the whole computing in the cloud thing that just doesn’t sit well with me (those that compute in the cloud can lose data to the cloud.  Just ask Judie; but then duck and cover, as the rant about a site crash is both raw and legendary for EVERYONE here at GD…) So, enter Windows Live Writer. It blogs to both WLS and WordPress, allowing me to use WYSIWYG tools for all of my posts on both sites. Very nice.  Oh, and yeah… it saves data locally, so you’re not banking on the cloud (though, you have to insure that you back up your local data, too).

But what to do on the Mac side..? I’ve found a couple of cool apps that just might help. Let’s take a quick look…

Windows Live Writer only works on Windows Machines. If you want to blog from any other OS, and want to post to WLS, then finding a blogging client could be a problem. It was a huge issues for me, and one of the things that was keeping me from totally switching to MacOS. I didn’t want to support more than one client for posting things to either blog. My problem was finding something for MacOS that would post to MSN/Windows Live Spaces.

I had searched the Internet, but really hadn’t found anything, so I was sticking with either Windows Vista (blech!) or Windows 7 (very cool, actually). However, truth be told, the only reasons why I was staying on Windows, on any PC I own is because of Exchange integration (I have an Exchange account that I’ve been using for about 7 years or so). I think Entourage sucks, and Mac Mail/iCal just doesn’t quite cut it when it comes to syncing with Exchange. Yes, it will do it, but its clunky, and has given me nothing but grief, so, Boot Camp and some version of Windows and Office 2003/2007 have lived on my Macs for the last 3 plus years.

Snow Leopard – Now this is where things get interesting…

Exchange support is built into the OS, so Mac Mail and iCal should sync with Exchange without ANY problems. (I also use Tasks, and Notes occasionally, so I am hoping that Snow Leopard also includes Tasks and Notes apps, but I’m not holding my breath.) With native support for my Exchange account, and Office 2008 the only thing REALLY holding me back from fully embracing MacOS on my MacBook was a blogging client that worked with both WordPress (Gear Diary) and Windows Live Space (Pocket PC Guru).

I decided to really roll up my sleeves and hit Google hard for some kind of blogging client link that worked in MacOS that supported both blogging platforms.  At first, I didn’t have much luck; but then I got lucky with the search:

blogger wordpress client mac

I found a cool article on the ultimate desktop blogging clients.  This was IT!  The blog entry lists 20 different blogging clients that work on Windows, Mac and Linux, supporting not only (in some cases) WordPress AND MSN/Windows Live Spaces, but Blogger, Movable Type, Drupal, and Live Journal, to name just a few.

I found a couple blog clients that just might work with Gear Diary and Pocket PC Guru.  Let’s take a very quick look at both…

Qumana Blog Manager

Qumana is a decent Mac blog client that works with both of my blogging services. However there are a couple of issues.

• Video – Inserting video is not supported in Qumana without Qumana Video Insert; and I am having trouble finding and installing it, even on the Qumana site.
• Drafts are saved locally and not on the server
• Breaks are not supported.  You can’t insert a break, and posts with breaks in them do not download content beyond the break.
• The blog manager downloads all recent posts regardless of who authored them
• Images must be uploaded to the server before they can be inserted into a blog post
• Tag support doesn’t exactly work with WordPress the way you think it might. The tags you enter don’t get placed in the Post Tags field, and you have to enter them into that field manually.

Platform: Windows, Mac
Price: Free Trial
Blogs Supported: Angelfire, Blogger/Blogspot, BlogHarbor, Blogware, Bryght, DiaryLand, Drupal, LiveJournal, MovableType, MSN Spaces, Tripod, TypePad, Roller, SquareSpace, WordPress.com, WordPress.org
Website | Download

MarsEdit

Like Qumana, MarsEdit has a blog window and an editing window.  It also supports breaks, as well as a number of other formats besides the standard justification, bullets, numbers and block quotes that Qumana also supports. However, like Qumana, MarsEdit downloads each and every post from the blog, regardless of the author.

Platform: Mac
Price: Can be purchased here for $29.95 after trial ends
Supports: WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Movable Type, LiveJournal, Drupal, and Vox and more.
Website | Download

Support for Windows Live Spaces
For those users, like me, that use Windows Live Spaces, finding a bloggin client for the Mac side of the world isn’t always easy.  While Windows Live Writer is an awesome tool, it only exists for the Windows side of the world, and doesn’t install as a native OSX application.

As noted above, both MarsEdit and Qumana will work with Windows Live Spaces; but you have to follow a specific set of instructions.  The basics can be found here, for Qumana. Follow them exactly, and you’ll be in business.

For MarsEdit, you need to pay particular attention to steps 4 and 5.  That’s the key to it all.  The user name and password aren’t your Windows Live ID and  password. Once you get past that, you’re in business.

So where does this leave me?  Good question. I’ve been trying to live on the Mac side of the world almost exclusively. If I can make one of these blog clients work for me, I’m one step closer to making the permanent switch.