I like the freedom to edit my blog, basically any where I am by jumping on any computer with an Internet connection and logging into the admin interface at georges.nu/blog. This is particularly nice on any Mac machine which spell checks for you in any browser by default. However, on my own machines, I’ve gotten into the habit of using desktop blogging software. I like the convenience. It’s faster. You’ve got spell check. You’ve got other admin features. You can save local copies to work offline. Anyhow, I just like it. It feels right. On my Windows machines, for this purpose, I use (this may come as a surprise) Microsoft Word 2007. The blogging features work nicely. And since we all have spent a lot of time in Word, it is comfortable. You’ve got all the language tools you need: spell check, grammar check, and thesaurus. I need all the help I can get. At one point (before Office 2007 came out) it seemed like I often found myself editing in Word and then copying over to the browser interface anyhow. Now to be able to simply post when I’m finished is a great little time saver. The thing is, I just got a new MacBook Air, which has become my main portable. I’ve got both Office 2008 and iWork. But Word 2008 for Mac doesn’t have the blogging facilities of Word 2007 for Windows. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would see here a deliberate effort by Microsoft to cripple their Mac offering to undermine their competitor, Apple. It is rather inexplicable. I generally find that the Mac products from Microsoft are classier and “funner” than their Windows counterparts. Anyhow, since Word 2008 doesn’t have the blogging facility, where does that leave me for a desktop blogging app for Mac? Well, there are a lot of voices out there. It is hard to tell who is out front, but I’m placing my bets on ecto. It has a feature rich editor. All the admin functions you need. And it is priced better than its main competition. I’ve drafted this post using ecto. We’ll se how it goes.