Cobwebs Of The Mind: Basics of Blogging - Part 15A

In my last post, comparing Qumana and Performancing, each for their own use, I came back to find an interesting note from Tris Hussey who is involved with the development of Qumana. It was placed and published as a comment to Part 15 of this series. Interestingly enough for me, I did not mention Qumana's big plus which they tout - the "DropPad". To be honest, I rarely use it. The problem with techies of course is that we have to type, look at source code, make sure it is 100% and are very much "into" our own way of doing things. What the DropPad essentially does, is it acts as my own personal BLOG clipboard. I can go on my happy way through the net or my own computer, and pick up text or pictures (has to be direct not links) and drag them to the orange DropPad (a box you can set on your screen with the Qumana Q in it.) However, this only works when you gathered information for a new post. It does not insert anything to a post you are already working on. While this is GREAT for many people, my writing works differently. I first write, then decide what graphics I will include.

BUT if you are posting an article straight from a Word Document, this is a GODSEND. Just drag it to the DropPad with graphics, doubleclick on the DropPad and voila a new post opens with the article and graphics in it.

So Qumana gets points for their DropPad. I would love to see it work with a Post I am already editing though. And I hope they are working on this. Then the DropPad will be seriously useful for an old techie like me.

If you read the last article I mentioned that Performancing does not have a spell checker. I think I did not emphasize the need for a spell checker in blogging software enough. I published the last post using Performancing, noticed a ton of spelling errors, synchronized the post in Qumana, edited it in Qumana and spell-checked it then republished it with Qumana. Together they are an unbeatable team. It only remains to be seen, if Qumana as a stand-alone gets most of the othere "needs" into their editor, and if Performancing does it for the Firefox users as well.

Qumana did some work in Beta 3.0 V.4 in their editing department. Now it has a choice of fonts and sizes without resorting to source code. Unfortunately, it begins with a "default font" and if you want to change fonts you pick from a drop-down list. What the default font is - is anyone's guess. However there is NO place to set your default font or font size. So if I want to publish default "Arial" font I first must make sure that I Select All then change all to Arial. What's up with that folks? Give us a place in "Preferences" to set the default font and size. If you introduce such a greatly needed enhancement, finish it up.

Until Qumana gives me the ability to save my color schemes in the advert section, I will not write about it or try it. For someone like me with a black background on the blog, the "default" color scheme is useless, and I will not go through fixing the color scheme for every advert I place. Give us a pallete where I can save the color scheme to my computer! Just like the Google Adsense Pallete.

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