Let the Linking Begin! (former title Adventures in Blogging)

I may as well just come out of the closet. (Better sit down.) Yes. I confess. I am a....a.......MAC user! (The crowd backs away slowly.)

And the truth is, I love Macs. For the most part they just work when you turn them on. You generally don't have to worry about the latest virus going around. You plug stuff in and the machine knows what it's doing. They're intuitive.

Yes, they're even sexy.

However, I'm sure you know the world always conspires to exact its price if you dare to be different.

It's true that you can't waltz into Best Buy and buy the latest PC game off the shelf. Although we would argue that really top developers, like the guys that made MYST, recognize the superiority of the Mac platform.

I expect things to get better with OSX because it's UNIX based. (Well, whatever that means to a non-techie like me. Sounded good though, huh? Had you going for a second?)

Another great thing that has come out recently is Safari for the Mac. It's a new web broswer. It's fast. It has a google search box right in the window. I like the way you manage your links, (pull downs from the page window). It also has a box in preferences that you just click to eliminate pop-ups, and an option to only accept cookies for sites that you go to. I've really been enjoying using it.

So, how does this relate to blogging?

I thought everything was going to be cool with Typepad because I had read about a new employee at Six Apart that was a Mac user. Sounded like Macs had been considered when they were working on this new thing that would allow me, who is totally HTML ignorant, to join the blogging revolution!

OK. I signed up Saturday night, 48 hours ago. All things considered, I have to tell you I am truly impressed with Typepad. I never would have been able to get a site to this point without paying someone to do it for me, (or possibly working on the hubby to figure it out.)

But, I could not find anywhere to insert a link under the text. To make a long story short, Typepad does have this feature, as you can see from the link to the Apple/Safari site above.

However, the feature does not show up in Typepad on a Mac using either Safari OR Internet Explorer as your browser.

I could understand if it didn't work with Safari. It's a pretty new app. But IE? C'mon!

There were two possible fixes. Download a new browser, Mozilla, (which I'm now writing this in), or another application on the web, Kung-log. After looking at both options, linking was easier, (for me at least...a total newbie to HTML), in Mozilla.

So now I have THREE, count them THREE, browsers on my system. Sigh.

But, blogging rocks, and in spite of this one issue Typepad rocks too. Excuse me now if I go a little linky-linky.

DC

(Ed. Note: Sept. 10: Post title was Adventures in Blogging. Changed to Let the Linking Begin. Changed display format.)

Comments

[anters]

DC,

I'm a reluctant PC user. Love Macs, just didn't want to deal with the headaches and $$ to be able to share files with the unenlightened herd that is led by Gates. :)

Anyway, my intern told me about Mozilla Firebird and I downloaded it about 4 weeks ago and I absolutely love it. I was using Netscape 4.7, that is to say I'll use anything except IE. For that matter, I try to minimize using all Microsoft "products". There some additional options you can download to make MF really snazzy and cool to use.

The poem, - loved it.

[DC]

Anters! We also try to avoid lining the pockets of Mr. Gates. But, I find Word and Excel to be neccessities to communicate with customers. These two and Adobe Acrobat account for 95% of the files we exchange.

I have heard good things about Mozilla, (from Richard I believe). Do they have the anti-pop-up option, or the accept cookies only from sites you navigate to? We just downloaded Mozilla late last night so I haven't had a chance to look at it.

DC

[lane]

Hi DC - i'm also a Mac user and have been since my high school days, which was in the early 80's (it sounds so long ago). I never even knew about the little buttons in typepad until i used one of the windows boxes in my studio at work. it was a little surprising!

I am sticking with Safari and continue to type in the links and images myself, although you can get the image code when you upload a file in typepad. I consider it being that much closer to my posts. :-)

[DC]

Hi Lane,

Thanks for stopping by! As you can see, I'm a total newbie at this, but typepad does make it easy.

We were married in the early 80's on the precondition that my hubby was buying a Mac. (Our version of the prenuptual, I guess.)

Did you know that it's Expectant Father's Day? So, Happy Expectant Father's Day! (See, they do tell you some good stuff on Fox.....lol.)

DC

[anters]

DC, here's the site for Mozilla Firebird extensions

http://www.texturizer.net/firebird/extensions.html

I've added adblock, linkit, quicknote, and things they left out. I just saw that they have blogthis. Not sure what it does yet. Please note that this is for Mozilla Firebird, which is the best browser I've come across so far. I didn't like Netscape 6.0 and more recent versions. Don't like IE. I haven't tried Opera, but I'm told you have to pay?

If you want to download Mozilla Firebird, here's the site

http://texturizer.net/firebird/download.html

Choose "Installer for Windows"

Regarding Word and Excel, I'll need to talk to my niece when she gets back from one of those French-speaking nations (Cananda or France). She didn't say where she was going, but I know it was one of those 2. Anyway, back from my tangent, she uses some program at U of C for both apps, - I believe it was for both apps. I'll talk to her again. My only hesitation is that I actually got decent with VBA in Excel and I have a pretty decent personal finance file. I hate to have to learn a new language so I could recreate the file in another application. Although I was told that Lotus-123 kicks butt over Excel, I didn't spend enough time with Lotus to draw a conclusion.

Keep on blogging DC.

[lane]

Don't choose "Installer for Windows" but then you already know that.

I didn't know it was Expectant Father's Day. Maybe i should watch Fox, after all. :-)

I'll have to see how many cards and gifts i have waiting for me when i get home.