Blogging and iPads

I am always tweaking how I can keep blogging while away from my computer. This is how I was posting about a year ago and this image shows what I was carrying around in February (when I took the photo, uploaded it for a blog post and then never motivated myself to post it. Oops. In the photo is a copy of Blogging 2.0, the latest Company magazine, two notebooks (one of which I still haven’t even written in) and my purse of pens.)

Since then, however, I have been bought a new iPad (I know, I am spoilt – an unexpected gift from Alex’s ridiculous trip to the US when they came out. Just to make it more silly, it has a pink leather Smart Cover* and pink Speck shell case* for the back.) and I want to use it as much as I can.

So here’s what I’m currently lugging around with me in the hope that I can keep to my personal set schedule for posting (unlikely)

My iPad, along with this little Bluetooth keyboard. Sometimes a physical keyboard is much nicer to write on. And for £13.95 delivered on Amazon Prime, this keyboard may be cheap*, but it works! The keyboard is meant to act as a cover for your iPad, but it doesn’t work with the cases I already have, so I just throw it in my bag. It’s not amazing, but for £14 for something I don’t use all the time, it does the job.

Of course I have my iPhone with me at all times, and most of the apps I list below are ones that work on both iPad and iPhone, and sync between the two.

Oh, and tea, because I like tea.

While I love my iPad, sometimes, I find it easier to write down what I need to (and sometimes its much less awkward to pull out a notebook than to pull out an iPad). I wanted something that I could keep organised. I picked up this personal sized Filofax leather Finsbury on eBay for £7.50 with no inserts. I then went to WH Smiths and bought a huge notebook for the Filofax, and some dividers (WH Smith sell own brand inserts for Filofaxes, which are much cheaper than the branded stuff. I mean, its just paper. Who cares if it says Filofax on or not?)

I think every blogger has a Canon SLR (well, except Sarah, but I still talk to her.) and probably has this little lens* on there. MY SLR is the Canon 400D, and cost about £600 when I bought it new in 2007 (before tbis blog even began!) and I picked up this remote* for it a few months later. The remote clips on to the strap, which is so handy.

The white square is actually part of the camera connection kit from Apple*. When Alex first bought his first iPad, he asked me to stop in town on the way home and pick up the camera connection kit. It comes with two adaptors – one for SD cards, and one for USB connections, which I claimed. This means I can connect any camera to my iPad, and while there may be cheaper alternatives, sometimes, its just easier to buy the official version.The black cable is from my little compact Sony camera, but is so useful, because it detaches from the Sony adaptor to become a mini USB cable, which means I can connect my SLR to the iPad.

Obviously though, the iPad (and iPhone) have a lot of apps that make things easier – here’s a few that make blogging easier for me.

Echofon* and Echofon Pro* (£2.99) are my favourite apps for Twitter – I bought Echofon Pro a while ago, and it has most things I want in a Twitter app – most importantly, the ability to mute people and hashtags! Twitter has been quite important in blogging for me, which is why I included this app.

Office² HD* (£5.49) is more for documents and spreadsheets, but it syncs with my Google Docs account, which means I can look at the bloggers map easily. I quite like using this to write blog posts as well.

Another text program that I use to blog in is PlainText* (free, but in app purchase of £1.49 to remove ads) In previous versions, I used to have problems with the WordPress app crashing out when I’d written something and it would lose the text. PlainText is available on iPad and iPhone, and syncs .txt files to my Dropbox account, which makes it easy to access the files on my desktop. It’s pretty basic, but sometimes, that’s all you need!

Reminders – this is actually already on your iPhone or iPad. I have two lists for blogging – one full of blog ideas, and one of things I need to do for the blog (emails to send, things to install, etc)

Snapseed* (£2.99) was free in the 12 days of Christmas promo that iTunes does every year, and is a great photo editing app. The only complaint I have about it is that I can’t resize photos on it, which can cause problems when uploading in WordPress.

I’m a WordPress (free) user, so obviously, I use the official app. It’s on both iPad and iPhone (unlike the official Blogger (free) app, which is only on iPhones) and is useful for quick additions, moderating comments, and – like I’m doing right now! – for full posts.
(I’ve heard good things about Blogsy* (£2.99) for those Blogger users with iPads, but haven’t needed to use it, obviously!)

What’s your blogging set up like? Show me photos (or if you post about it, link me up!)