I have been blogging about my trips in Thailand for many years. Normally I have to wait until I come back before I post my pictures and report. For a long time I have been wanting to be able to post my blogs live. Finally, earlier this year, technology caught up with me. It all started when I decided to buy an iPhone. It was a big jump for me as I had been using a second hand Nokia for years. It cost a lot but I have never regretted the decision. In early March 2010 I started using Twitter for the first time (@RichardBarrow). I still feel like I am a newbie in this game as I have only been tweeting for eight short months. I know I have a lot to learn. But, I really have been enjoying myself.
In particular, I enjoy sharing “live pics” of my trips with the people that I am honoured to be following me. It is nice to have them along for the trips, even if it is only virtually. The next step up from there for me was live blogging from my iPhone. This is what I have been doing over at www.MyThailandBlog.com. Everything on that blog was done from my iPhone. Often while I was still travelling. Many people have asked what applications I use to do this. I have been hesitant to write about it as I feel I am still an amateur in this game. But, hopefully if I share how I do it, then maybe someone else will suggest a better way.
The first app that I use is Photogene ($1.99). This is like having Photoshop on your iPhone. It does everything that I need and more. Some of the basics include cropping and rotating pictures. You can also play around with the brightness and colour to make it look better. If the picture is crooked you can straighten it and also make it sharper. The main reason that I chose this app over all of the others out there is that when you come to save the picture you can choose any size you like. That is perfect for blogging. Pictures on the iPhone are normally very big and my blog only allows pictures with a width of 450 pixels. Photogene will do this for you. The other advantage of resizing is that it makes it quicker to upload the photo blog from your iPhone.
To actually write the blog I use BlogPress ($2.99). I know there is an official WordPress app but I find that only useful for moderating comments. The advantage with BlogPress is that I can use it to post to other blog engines including Joomla which is what I also use. It is not perfect, but it does everything that I need for a short blog. I can type the blog as normal and insert pictures. I then type in the title, choose a category and then either save it as a draft or upload straight onto the Internet. Very simple. You can also add video to the blog and it will be automatically uploaded to youtube. When you post your blog you can set it to notify your twitter and Facebook followers.
Don’t forget to bookmark www.MyThailandBlog.com to see where I have been travelling to in Thailand.
