Blogging Tools

Image via CrunchBase

I’ve come to use a few tools when it comes to the task of blogging. It’s not usually hard to find information online when it comes to most anything but one thing that happens is loss of focus when dealing with the topic you might be free-writing or incubating. 

There are a plethora of tool available as add-ons for firefox that enable many features. The problem is just that, there are countless add-ons. Finding one that adds just the right type of functionality  to improve productivity or increase information or aesthetics without overwhelming features or crowding is crucial for me.

With that in mind Zemanta, is such a tool that helps to add a bit of colour to any blog. It scours sources of images which are usually available freely without licensing issues to insert into your blog. This is done on the fly and presents images in relation to the content being typed. Another feature is text links which you can select as well as tags based on content. Usually the links are a bit too much, highlighting almost every other word which Zemanta deems pertinent. Otherwise it offers a very simple system to link to other sources that might be of interest.

It is available for blogs as well as email and I’ve only used it on Firefox but it’s available on other browsers as well.

disclaimer: previously posted on my other blog.

Exam 2

So far I've finished two exams out of four. Today was supposed to be a really wonderful day of hanging out in the library, getting on top of things - looking for post graduate degrees and applying, making new cv's studying for the final two. But instead, I went to DCU to find out about postgraduates knowing full well I wouldn't be interested in anything outside the city center in a big state run institution that would charge through the nose. Right now i'm run down, entirely unmotivated, distraught for no apparent reason and without using a library computer.

Image via Wikipedia

Now don't get me wrong, i love working on a large flatscreen with a powerful new machine. It is however not the most ergonomically designed work desk i'm sitting on and I cannot personalise it with all my software tools. Zemanta being the notable primary.

Zemanta basically gives suggestions for content and imagery that it believes is relevant to what you are typing in almost real-time. So far I haven't had the opportunity to customize it too well but it does lend a fair share of imagery that although not too relevant does come in handy.
Well that's enough of that I need to get productive. Ciao