Hillary Johnson picked up on yesterday's post here on RSS, and really expanded on my commentary in her post on her Kerabu blog (also cross-posted on the Engagement Alliance blog ... wonder how she did that ;-) ).  The basis of my post was that readers and users don't really care about the underlying technology as long as it's easy and it works.  Hillary turned the tables on me and pointed out that while Qumana has been derided by some for it's simplicity--that it's dumbed-down--that's what she likes most about it.  Yes!  She hit the nail on the head!  Here is some of her commentary:

I find Qumana to be extremely smart where it counts--which is in streamlining the small, repetitive motions involved in posting to my blogs. When I click the link button in the WYSIWYG editor bar, the field auto-fills with the last thing I cut and pasted. This may not sound like much, but when you are writing a post with a half-dozen links, cutting the number of clicks per link in half and reducing the mouse-mileage by half as well is absolutely brilliant. Qumana creates exactly this kind of gestural economy throughout. In Typepad, the category default is set to a single category; selecting multiple categories is a chore. In Qumana, you check the categories you want, with no control key to hold down, and no false distinction between single and multiple categories. SixApart should have corrected this annoying hurdle long ago. Guess they're just not "dumb" enough.

   It takes a pretty dumb bunny to think that complicated = sophisticated. There are three reasons to write your blog posts in html: it's faster; you can do more stuff; you think it makes you one of the cool kids.  I've had about enough of this geek chic mentality--it fosters bad design. Good design is sleek, user-transparent, dumb as dumb can be.

Well if dumb is cool, and dumb works ... you know, I'm okay with that.  See, when it comes right down to it, while I know how to code, while I don't mind tweaking things, I'm way too busy to fuss with tools that make things too hard.  I'm all about fast and easy.  Simply complex, complexly simple.  That's what we're going for with Qumana.  Looks like we're on the right track.

Tags: Qumana, blog editors

John Jantsch has some insightful commentary on RSS today.  It's a truism that within a group, new words, concepts, and practices emerge and these become to the keys to entry into the group.  RSS this is one of those things for many Internet users.  Does my mom care about RSS?  No, she just wants an easy way to keep up on my blog (I don't think she reads it often ... that's okay because she's busy teaching Sex Ed in the public schools).  I really like these two paragraphs in this post and I think it says it all:

You don't do this by trying to convince someone that they "should" know that this is the defacto standard for an RSS feed. Maybe someday, but I doubt it, will mean something to everyone, but right now it says to some, "I'm a blog snob and this is the only way you can subscribe to my blog so, if you don't know what this is then, go away."

That's like saying to a reader of an ad, we have this long distance number and if you call sometime between 2 and 4 on Tuesday, we'll take your order - would you ever do that? Lower the tech barrier to entry - give them an email contact, web site, toll free number and fax option to place their order!

We have the same philosophy at Qumana for blog editors.  It needs to be dead easy.  You should  just see it and get it.  We're working hard towards that goal, and if you have any suggestions on how we can do it better ... please let us know.

And yes John ... we offer more than one way to get our posts ... including e-mail.

Tags: RSS, John Jantsch, blogging, Qumana

With the new Qumana v3 out we've seen a few folks having this problem again with MT blogs so a little blast from the past ...

Recently we've been receiving some questions about having problems getting Qumana to work with MoveableType (MT) 3.2 installs.  We didn't think it was us and we were right.  MT has implemented some additional security measures for remote posting.  Here's the answer straight from the Six Apart Knowledgebase:

http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/kb/external/invalid_login_w.html

To provide enhanced security when using third party clients, Movable Type now provides for a separate API password (rather than forcing you to use your normal author login password). Here's how to set up this new password:

• Log into Movable Type.
• Click on your username in the top navigational menu to go to your profile.
• Scroll down to the bottom where you see API Password.
• Input a password of your choice and save. For security reasons, it should be different from your normal author password.
• Use the new password in your client software.

Hope this helps everyone.

Technorati Tags : Qumana, MT, MoveableType

An updated Qumana 3.0 beta is now available for download. Thanks to all the hundreds of people for downloading the new beta, for sending in emails, and writing some great reviews. We look forward to hearing more about what you think about Qumana!

Updates to version 3.0.0-b2 include:

• MSN Spaces autoconfigures correctly (note: MSN Spaces has a bug, see here for more details)
• Drupal autoconfigures correctly
• Blogger titles now work
• Wordpress issue of XML-RPC errors is resolved

Download the new beta.

We're still in beta, so keep that feedback coming. We want to know what you think - what do you like, what do you want to see, what don't you like?

Contest Reminder:

Don't forget to take part in the contest. Who doesn't want a free vacation to Mexico or Whistler? It's oh so easy to enter!!

Tags: qumana, offline editor

Some Qumana 3.0 users have been having problems when posting to Wordpress blogs. After clicking on "Publish Post" a dialog with a message about an XML-RPC error is displayed. The post is published but no categories are set.

We've identified what the problem is and have implemented a fix. We'll be releasing a new version of Qumana 3.0 that will solve this problem soon.

Today at Northern Voice we're announcing the launch of Qumana 3.0.

It’s the announcement we’ve been waiting months to make – Qumana has developed a *NEW* Qumana 3.0 Beta for Mac and PC. That’s right, Qumana now supports Mac.

Instead of building a separate Mac Qumana, we took this as an opportunity to start fresh and make some improvements to how Qumana works. So, we would like to introduce you to a brand new Qumana - one that takes the essence of our current Qumana and makes them better - for both Mac and PC users.

If you want to get started right away, hop on over to download the beta.

As well as all the Qumana features you know and love, the new Qumana beta has some high demand improvements:

- a "blog manager" that locally stores your drafts and published posts
- support for trackbacks and pinging
- improved editor with valid XHTML, plus ability to view and edit code
- a way to refresh the editor ('New Post') - to clear away published material and start a new post instantly
- improved image dialogue, including preview and auto upload trigger from Drag & Drop
- and more…

At this stage in development, you're likely to encounter a few glitches. Please contact us with any feedback or bugs, and stay tuned here for regular update announcements.

We're also launching a new blog - Qumana 'how to' - which will cover tips on using Qumana 3.0, Lektora, and AdGenta, along with great productivity tips for blogging.

CONTEST

As a part of our launch, we're having a contest. A big one. It's the QUMANA Ski or Surf Ultimate Vacation CONTEST - that's right, we're giving away a vacation for two - and all you need to do is blog!

Thanks to all our pre-beta testers for helping us get this far, and thanks in advance to everyone for downloading the beta and passing back feedback to help us continue to develop the best Qumana experience possible. Download the beta here.

Tags: qumana, qumana3.0, offline editor, blogging