One of the perks of working with Adriaan is that I got to test out new beta release of ecto 2. This new version has gone multi-windows (or in Windows speak, MDI). It is modeled pretty closely to Mail.app (or Outlook) and I am just starting to exploit this feature. It is very convenient to be able to have a draft opened and jump back to edit an existing post. With ecto 2, I am beginning to treat blogging as the same as emailing.

I am not a big file uploader so I haven’t tried out the new ‘attachment’ feature yet but I feel it is definitely a step forward from the already great file upload feature in existing ecto. What I can’t wait for though is the WYSIAWYG editing. The existing preview feature is great but it is not as intuitive to use as WYSIWYG. However, being a developer myself I am comfortable in reading text interceded with code so WYSIWYG isn’t as big a deal as most user.

This also means that just when my Windows version of ecto catches up with the Mac version in terms of features and functionality, Adriaan has leaped ahead with ecto 2! Am I going be forever playing catch up? 🙂 The obvious question is of course when will WYSIWYG editing coming to the Windows version. Without giving away or promising too much, all I can say is that this is what I am working on right now 😉 How long will it take to become available, that I can’t tell you as I don’t know myself! Watch this space though…

[composed and posted with ecto 2]

I’ve been accessing Usenet since I have internet access in 1992. Lots of people nowadays equal the internet with the web but there are much more than that. Usenet is such a diverse and rich medium in which to get information that a lot of the time it is the only source.

Since I’ve switched to Mac I’ve been using the free newsgroup reader Halime. Sadly its developer has stopped work on it since November 2003. It has a very strong user interface and preview features that I love. However, since this weekend it has been behaving strangely with lots of beachball period.

I finally gave in this evening and downloaded a copy of Union from Panic. It has a different user interface philosophy but I got used to it very quickly. The one feature that I found really useful but not available in Halime is the ability to filter out messages without attachments. This is very useful for browsing binary newsgroups.

I think Union is very close to my ideal newsgroup reader. The only annoyance I have with it is the rather large icon/view of newsgroups’ groups (i.e. grouping of newsgroups). I prefer minimalistic UI and this is not one of them.

$24.95 is a slightly above what I would fork out without consideration so I think I will take the full advantage of the trial period and decide at the end.

[composed and posted with ecto 2]