1. There are a number of solutions for you to engage in the blogosphere using only your S60 smartphones.
2. You can use the built-in Web, Opera Mini, TeleWaving, CellSpin, ShoZu, Opera Mobile and so on.
3. However, as always, there are limitations and you have to deal with them. Especially considering the facts that mobile devices are limited in screensize, processing power, etc.
4. For casual blogging on the move, I have used WordMobi for a couple of months and I must say it’s the best for managing my WordPress powered blogs http://www.i-symbian.com and http://www.symbianku.com.
5. But I want more, I want to do serius blogging, using my Symbian smartphone when I’m out and about, without reaching my Ubuntu box.
6. I need to be able to do the following :
- Writing blog posts
- Managing comments, and replying them
- FTPing screenshots and other necessary stuff
- Editing some photos, simple editing like cropping and resizing
- Offline editing where I can quickly jot my thoughts for later uploading
- Whenever, wherever…
7. Turns out the journey was not as good as I expected because there are many things not available for S60 3rd Edition FP1 (Nokia E63) that I use… (at least from my usage pattern point of view).
8. The most frustrating, in my opinion, is the missing decent native photo editor for S60 3rd Edition FP1. Tried Resco Viewer, it cant rescale image to bigger size, only can rescale smaller.
9. WTF? No image editor for my E63? Hmm… For S60 3rd Edition FP2, it’s built-in.
10. So, in the last couple of days, I embark on a journey to find complete tools to satisfy my mobile blogging needs.
11. I tested a couple of solutions, installing and removing applications from my Red E63.
12. And today, I want to share with you my findings, in which I am very satisfied with the results.
13. Here’s the stuff that I load onto my E63 to push my mobile blogging experience to the max! :
Python Stuff (free)
Python runtime 1.45 is needed to run WordMobi and Image Designer. And once they are properly configured, they worked smoothly.
- Python Runtime 1.45 – Google is your best friend 
- Python Scriptshell – Google is your best friend
- Python MegaPyModulePack.v2.01.sis (unsigned) – Google is your best friend
- WordMobi 0.81 for Python 1.45
- Image Designer 1.38 beta 3 for Python 1.45 (unsigned)
Native applications
- Best ScreenSnap (free)
- Sic! FTP Client (free)
- DEdit (free)
- Opera Mobile 10 Beta 1 (free)
14. There’s currently no simpler way to do my mobile blogging without these tools. They are the backbones to my blogging needs.
15. The combination of these tools made my mobile blogging easier, but not without problems. Particularly finding the right Python plugins thingy. I wished there’s an easier solution but I couldnt find any.
16. Both WordMobi and Image Designer are great and powerful tools. If you have what it takes, you can do many things in Image Designer from resizing to cropping to applying filter and batch image processing, it’s almost a desktop-like image editing tool.
17. This post, for example, was drafted using DEdit, I took screenshots using Best ScreenSnap, then I edit one of the images to be made as the header for my post (resizing to 630 x 300 in Image Designer), after satisfied with the results, I uploaded all the images to my server using Sic! FTP and, WordMobi wraps everything together.
18. Before I publish the post, I need to use Opera Mobile 10 Beta 1 to add a custom field inside WordPress, this custom field will display the header of my posts.
19. I know… sounds complicated… But hey!!! It’s power blogging, not casual one ya know!
20. Here’s a challenge to Symbian developers out there. Please develop a decent image editor, a powerful blogging client, and do that in style will ya!
- Asri al-Baker
Posted by Wordmobi
