Mac Lab Report

iBlog Revisited

- 2003.10.02

I ponied up for iBlog some weeks ago and have been using it for my daily agenda postings on the Internet since then. In an earlier article, I detailed the features of the program I liked, but now that Apple has decided to offer iBlog as a free download for .mac users, I thought I'd share a couple of other experiences I have had lately.

First, never ever move one of the iBlog folders you may come across in your Sites folder or in Application support. iBlog depends on these local copies for archival and preview settings. I installed a preview version that accidentally renamed one of these folders "iblog" instead of "iBlog", which of course the Mac doesn't care about - but the Web does. When the next revision (which matches the current version from Apple) came out, the pages stopped updating because all my links said "iblog" and the sites were now "iBlog."

One email and a rapid response later, I reset the publishing and preview state, previewed again, published again, and was back in business. Should you get stuck with this problem, remember that Safari will recall the last site you visited and will stubbornly substitute "iblog" for "iBlog," thus causing a loading error.

I would like to see a couple of changes. There seems to be no way to manually force the system to upload the general homepage again. Resetting didn't cut it. Also, I wish we could allow future posts to be read (good for classroom blogs to show future lessons being planned). There seems to be no simple way to make a link back to your regular homepage without editing the HTML templates, which is fine if you know what you are doing, but it goes against the user-friendly and reliable nature of the program.

I hope you will consider registering this fine program if you do not have a .mac account. I don't buy that much shareware, but I do pay for things that are useful, such as GraphicConverter and now iBlog. I like it so much I don't even begrudge the fact I also pay for a .mac account.

Now that it's included with .mac, more people can use it. But not everyone has .mac, and if you don't, you should seriously consider buying this program.

Jeff Adkins is a science teacher who isn't afraid to state his preferences in computing platforms. In his classroom he has everything from a beige All-in-One to a a G4 XServe, and they all work together nicely. He calls himself the "poster child for technology integration" in the classroom. He was the 2006 Outstanding Educator of the Year for the California Computer Using Educators (CUE) organization. He also maintains a site for astronomy teachers at www.AstronomyTeacher.com.

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