Unlike some other software companies, you aren't going to have to pay to download and try our beta.  We love getting your feedback, why put limits on the number of people getting it?

Tags: Qumana beta

One click on DropPad ... open Qumana

Type in title of blog post

Type body of message ...

Open "Source View".

Paste html snippet where the cursor is flashing ...

Posts that contain Qumana per day for the last 30 days.

Get your own chart!

Return to WYSIWYG ... check and adjust line spacing if desired ...

Add italics ... check Categories for this post.

Insert Q-Ads text advertising if desired ... place cursor where you want the ad, click on "Insert Ad", type a keyword (use the customizable banner designer to customize ad), then click OK.

Check which blog you're posting to ...

Add Technorati Tags by clicking on "Insert Tags"

Type tags into dialog box, click OK.

Take a last look ...

Click on "Publish Post".

Presto !

Tags: Qumana, offline blog editor, easy blogging, ease of use, usability

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I realize that you need power to run computers. Obviously, after your computer's battery runs out and you can't recharge it, it's hard to keep composing blog posts ...

When there are power outages or other related systems outages that affect the Web but you still have computer power for your individual machine, you can still compose blog posts with Qumana, and save them to be posted later.

Silicon Valley gone dark day #2

George Ou reports that 100-degree weather coupled with widespread power outages have made for a miserable weekend in the Valley. George spent his afternoon assembling a gas generator to power his AC, refrigerator, DSL modem, wireless router and laptop...

Tags: blogging client, offline, advantages, flexibility, versatility

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When will that marker be reached ?

Tonight Technorati states it is tracking 49.4 million blogs, so I assume it will be towards the end of this coming week that the 50 million mark will be passed.  Friday ?  Next weekend ?

Certainly many of them will have been abandoned some time ago, or shortly after being created, and no doubt many are moribund or generally inactive ... but Technorati is still tracking them.

And it's interesting .. and useful for us ... to note that they are still being created at a rapid clip.

It was on September 18th, 2004 that I posted that Technorati had just crossed the 4 million blog mark.

So, there have been at least 46 million new blogs created in just over 22 months by the time the 50 million mark is reached on Technorati. That's a heckuva growth rate.

You'd think that at least one or two million of the bloggers who have kept on blogging would want a simple, elegant, effective and free offline blogging tool ... like Qumana.

If for no other reason (though making blogging easier is a big benefit) than to avoid the frustration they seem to experience when whatever blog platform they are using experiences a service outage (which is at least as frustrating as the dropped call cell-phone experience that is now such a problem that the cell industry's advertising focuses on the issue).

I also wonder how many of the 50 million are from countries such as Spain, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Central American countries, California ;-), France (and Quebec ... technically not a country, but ...), Holland and Germany.  Bloggers who blog in those languages now have access to Qumana operational in their native language (German coming in  a day or two).  Good thing Qumana plays nice with Typepad ... they have a growing base of users in those European countries / languages.

Surely more than a handful will want to try it out.

Tags: Qumana, Qumana Spanish, Qumana French, Qumana Dutch, growth of blogging, Typepad, Typepad Europe

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Qumana is going International
Introducing three new versions of our Qumana blog editor. We are proud to announce the release of:

Qumana Dutch

Qumana Spanish

Qumana French

Qumana is happy to announce the first International versions of Qumana - our first steps to make Qumana a universal tool for bloggers around the globe.

The increased demand for Qumana has prompted us to develop Qumana into versions that can be used by non-English speaking bloggers. Our first non-English versions are French, Spanish & Dutch, with more versions on the way. Of course, all versions are for both PC & Mac users.

Each new version of Qumana has buttons and instructions written in natural language. We've had bloggers helping us get the translations just right, so thank you for all your help!

Here at Qumana we think every person who has a voice on the Internet should have access to the tools to make communication easier. We built Qumana for every blogger, and will be continuing these translations to ensure every blogger can use Qumana. And, we are also working to Q Ads inventory in every new language too!

Which language of Qumana will you blog in?

Tags: qumana, qumana french, qumana dutch, qumana spanish, espanol, nederlands, francais, international, global, translation, blogging, blog editor, blog

Here's how I used to do things before I started using Qumana regularly:

I'd be browsing, and I'd be reading something which triggered a thought and then the desire to blog about it.

I'd leave the page, open my blog page, go to "Post New Entry", which would take me to the blog software's editor (which had taken me a while to learn).

Then, I'd put in a title, and maybe write a sentence or two.  I usually quote an excerpt from what I have been reading, so I would have to go back to the web page I was on previously, highlight the excerpt, and then go back to the blog software editor .. where I would paste what I copied.

Then, I write some more to flesh out the post.  And then,  if I wanted to include some links, I'd have to start the round trips back and forth between the web pages where I would copy the links, then go back to the blog software editor and type in all the <a href> tags, and any WYSIWYG effects such as italics or bold, etc.

And THEN, on top of all that, I would have to preview and proof read, because I am not a hugely accurate typist.

AND THEN ... what if I wanted to include Technorati tags ?  I still don't know how to include Technorati tags in a  Blogware blog post using the Blogware editor.

Lots of work, demanded lots of concentration ...

Now, using Qumana ... here are my newly developed blogging work habits:

I'm browsing, and I read something which triggers a thought and the desire to create a blog post around the quote.

I highlight what I want to quote, drag and drop it onto the DropPad .. double-click on the DropPad, which opens the Qumana editor.

I add a title, I write some text to flesh out the post.  I go back to the quoted page, or surf to another page (leaving the editor open), copy the URL of the links I want to include, go back to Qumana, use the Insert Link function to create the links (it's just pasting the URL into the dialog box).

There' still some back and forth, but it's much easier because the Qumana editor window is open just "over there" on the left.

There's spellchecking, so the final review is much easier (for me).

Tags ?  Click on The Insert tags button, type in the Technorati tags you want to include, and click OK.  That's it, that's all.

Adding images and video clips is easy .. and will get easier still in the future (it's one of the things we are working on).

If you're a blogger that wants to use advertising on her or his blog, that's easy too .. but just because it's a function available to you in Qumana doesn't mean you HAVE to use that functionality.

I'd never go back to the way I used to compose blog posts ... no way.

Tags: Qumana, easy blogging, content assemblu, personal publishing, blog advertising

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I suspect that it is just as straightforward as with YouTube and Kaneva.

Let's find out ...  update: it is, yay! 

With a minor squiggle - you don't see the frame for the Google Video clip in the WYSIWYG window of Qumana.  We'll have to work on that .. but don't worry, the clip's html is there and does get published, so that the clip itself is published.

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The next wave of publishing to the Web continues to grow.  The Globe and Mail's feed from AP provides an article outlining the spectacular growth of the video clip publishing web site YouTube.

The report is from an invitation-only Sun Valley conference and points out that YouTube has emerged into the limelight.

There is a big wave of video coming on-line and these [media] guys want to work with us to stay relevant in this changing marketplace," Hurley said during an interview. "This trend in the Internet isn't changing, so we are working with them to find solutions on how they can embrace what we are doing and really leverage that to help their business.

It's another signal about the continuing blurring of the lines between mainstream media and the "new media" environment represented by blogging, podcasting, vlogging, music sharing and so on.  For example, one of the key ways YouTube videos get into circulation is by being published to a blog and and distributed throughout link-driven social networks.

That's a key reason why we have made it a breeze to publish YouTube (and Kaneva, etc.) clips to your blogs by copying and pasting the embed code into the blog post.  We know some of the blog platforms enable this pretty easily too ... but our next version will make it even easier, through the use of a Publish Multimedia icon and a simple dialog box.

The following excerpt from the article sets out more clearly how big traditional media are looking at these services and the spaces represented by social networks more and more closely.  YouTube and CBS ?

Hurley proved he is quickly making powerful new friends Thursday when he hooked up with CBS Corp. CEO Leslie Moonves for a 45-minute sit-down held in a small room outside the closed-door meetings where all the other conference participants had gathered.

During a wide-ranging conversation that could be heard by several reporters working in the room, Moonves seemed to become increasingly intrigued as he learned more about YouTube's rapid evolution.

Moonves marveled when Hurley informed him that YouTube's steadily expanding audience is now watching about 100-million videos per day. He asked how YouTube might be able to direct more traffic to websites owned by CBS. The meeting ended with Moonves concluding that CBS should start posting daily snippets of its programming on YouTube.

If CBS forges a formal agreement with YouTube, it would mark the website's second endorsement from a major television network in less than three weeks. In late June, NBC announced it would share some of its programming on YouTube as well as buy some advertising on the website.

"That was a big, key moment in our history," Hurley said of NBC's stamp of approval.

Now Hurley may face his biggest challenge — proving that YouTube can attract enough advertising to become profitable. The 52-employee company has so far been subsisting on $11.5-million (U.S.) in venture capital.

So, CBS and NBC will be publishing some of its content to YouTube.  So can you, of course.

And, using Qumana you can take a clip from YouTube and post it to your blog, add an advertisement (Q-Ads), and publish it.  see, that wasn't so hard .. you're a media publisher.  Do you think the lines are blurring ?

Adding an advertisement ?  Hmm .. we of course let you insert ads into a blog post.  I wonder if YouTube is going to be following the same path as Google Video, and creating ways to have advertising work its way into Google video clips ?

Google Testing Ad Supported Premium Video

Google is running a test offering about 2,000 premium videos available for free streaming viewing, inserting a persistent banner-type ad at the top of the screen and showing an additional post-roll video ad once the premium content has finished streaming.

The test is expected to last about a week, according to Peter Chane, group business product manager, Google Video.

Tags: publishing videos, YouTube, Kaneva, Google Video, Video clip advertising

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Thanks for your patience. The Qumana installers for Windows are now back up. I'll blog about the whole fun and games later.

So get it now!

Tags: Qumana

A user was kind enough to e-mail me just now while I'm here at Gnomedex that there might be a problem with the installer for the latest Windows version of Qumana.  So while we are exploring this issue, we've temporarily disabled the downloads of Qumana v3 b4 for Windows.

We'll keep you posted and pour lots more coffee down Ianiv's throat.

Tags: Qumana