NewsGator Inbox – Options (Post to Blog – Vol. 2)

So I am a little happier today with the Post to Blog tool. I was finally able to get another Blogging service besides Wordpress.com to work. The one that worked today is LiveJournal.com. If you want to see what a post looks like when it arrives, please feel free to see my LiveJournal blog. I still have not been able to get the link to Blogger.com to work yet. I will work on it and post an update at a later time.

So today I learned that there are two options that you can choose from in order to post to your blog. The first is simply a “New Post”. This is pretty much as it sounds. It is something that you type up and are posting to your blog as a new post. You will use the functionality within Outlook for creating a new message. There are some slight differences in how the window looks when are creating a post versus when you are sending a message. Basically the compose window is open just like with a message. The difference is that instead of send the word “Post” is listed.

After you complete your new blog post just select this post button. This will initiate the posting sequence. You will also notice that instead of a To: line, it will say “Post To: Posted Items”. This is because a new folder has been created in your folder tree in which these posts will be placed. This is sort of like the sent folder in your email. Once you select Post you will be asked which blog you want it to post to (this will happen even if you only have one Blog listed). If you have more then one you can post the same thing to all of them at once. If you only want to post to only one blog just select it from the list and click “Ok”.

On my test post I put a Category on it to see what would happen. I noticed that because the category I entered is not listed in my LiveJournal Blog I received an error message. The error asked if I wished to continue or cancel. I selected continue to see what it would do. Then it asked me if I wanted to continue with an uncategorized post, I pushed forward. I found that it simply removed the tags and then posted to my LiveJournal Blog anyway. Other then that the new Post was published exactly as I created it and it was placed into my LiveJournal Blog in the same format as the Blog.

So the other option is to “Quote Selected Item”. This allows you to create a new blog post using something that you found in the news delivered by one of your feeds. There are a couple of ways to initiate this. One way is to select post that you want to post to the blog, then go to the NewsGator Inbox drop down list and select “Post to my blog” and then select Quote Selected Item. The other option can be found on the NewsPage. As I described in the NewsPage review there is a small menu under each Headline listed. To post to your blog all you have to do is select the last icon that looks like a piece of paper with an arrow to the right. For both options a new message window opens with the post options. The window will also have the link to the story that you are quoting and the information sent as a part of the feed. You will also be able to put your own text in as well. When you select Post, NewsGator Inbox will follow the same post sequence that I described above for the New Post.

So next time hopefully I will be writing that I got the link to Blogger to work. Check back to find out.