Once just a vehicle for broadcasting teen angst, blogs are popping up everywhere these days. Though many people use hosted blogging services like TypePad, LiveJournal, and WordPress.com lots of folks in the FOSS community swear by the blogging software platform offered by WordPress.org. Our sister site Linux.com often highlights various WordPress plugins and there are loads more to check out on SourceForge. Some plugins tackle broad issues like adding extra language functionality while others are designed for with a very specific purpose in mind.
Of course, WordPress isn’t the only game in town. The Flash Blog “uses XML as the source of the files and PHP as the workhorse. Flash Blog is more of a Blog System, rather than just a blog.” If Java’s more your thing, Ministone might be just what you’re looking for.
If you’ve got multiple blogs to maintain, the cross-platform app Thingamablog can help. Linux.com’s Tina Gasperson took it for a test spin recently and says, “The software is easy enough for beginners to use, but sophisticated enough that veteran bloggers will appreciate it too.”
While all of these blog platforms contain their own editors, there aren’t too many standalone blog editors to choose from (why is that?). Offline apps like Mars Edit, Journaler, Qumana, Ecto, are either platform specific or not Linux-friendly. Yarns is an offline blog editor written in Python but looks to be a relatively new addition to the roster of apps hosted at SourceForge. If you’re adventurous, you could always try ScribeFire (formerly Performancing Firefox) but since browsers crash from time to time, this may not be your best option. Instead try an app like Bleezer, Drivel, or BloGTK to get the job done.