So I’ve been testing blog clients for my Palm 700p cell phone (updated)

So if you’ve seen any short test posts lately it’s ’cause I’m testing blogging clients for my new Treo 700p handheld. Some old some new, some worked some didn’t, some the new versions didn’t. I just updated this post since I got slightly confused between a few of the clients when writing this up. The winners IMHO are:

  • Mo:Blog – easy to use (but I did have to look at the manual a few times), stand alone. I only did a few test posts so we’ll see later. One bug – when getting the blog id from the site the numbering got goofed up somehow, since none of the other clients did this I thought I’d mention it. The other odd thing was you pick the category when you set the blog up, not on individual posts. It’s about $15.
  • Azure – I think this was my favorite on my old phone too. It requires some kind of Java environment (I used IBM’s) to be installed. It does allow for the extended entry (and one category) and will download previous posts (this always makes me nervous on the mobile clients due to field length). And it’s free. See below for install information.


    I’m always surprised at how hard it is in some software to find out the web site of the company that makes/made it. It’s not in the about, or in the manual. I’m especially surprised in the ones that want you to register, it might have been on the page where you got it, but it’s gone (or you forgot where you got it).

    For new users to mobile blogging Mo:Blog is probably better, the Java VM stuff is a little tricky (unless you’ve used it before).
    For those interested:

  • None let me use the extended entry (except Azure).
  • Most clients give an error when posting (but still posts). Flickr does this to me too, so it’s an MT thing or something with my install.
  • The other ones I tried include KaBlog 1.42 (limited but always reliable, couldn’t get newer versions to run once I hit edit post), plogit, blogplanet (stable but missing a few features), uBlog, handx, hblogger and I thought one other but…

    The thing is I can do most of this with the MT quickpost option and it lets me use the extended entry (I compose in memopad first). Several programs seem like they’ll work directly with the photos on the palm (and the camera) but no luck with any for me. But I can use the Flickr e-mail option to post photos and text to the blog for that (which works great).

    Decision, decisions…

    FYI – To install Azure: First download the IBM Java WebSphere Everyplace Micro Environment (CLDC 1.1 /MIDP 2.0) on your computer and install J9JavaVMMidp20.prc and JavaVMCheck_enUS.prc (in the JVM/ARM4T directory) on your treo. Then once that’s installed, launch it, say install and type http://web.vee.net/projects/azure/azure_0-5.jad and it will download it from the net and install it. Keep in mind when running Azure it’s got all the options in the menus (title, body, excerpt, extended, bold, paragraph) and you have to go “Back” for some menus. It takes a minute to figure it out, but it works. When it asks for your blog address, what it really want is the long xmlrpc address for your site.

  • One response to “So I’ve been testing blog clients for my Palm 700p cell phone (updated)

    1. I’m just looking for for a VGA screen or better Pocket PC Phone with extended battery life.

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