Research

Despite a migraine, I've been fiddling with two pieces of reference management software as I pull together stuff I'd like to look at regarding spinning and history of textiles.
The first is Mendeley.  I like the web-based nature and I especially like the bookmarklet that allows for importing of references from webpages like Amazon or Web of Science or any number of other common research databases.  I also like the social-networking potential for sharing resources, citation lists, etc.  Unfortunately, it is very slow (at least for me) at the moment.  The bookmarklet can take ages to load.  I haven't imported old citation libraries yet (when I was more active in research as a graduate student and research assistant I typically used EndNote and haven't yet exported those old libraries).
Mendeley also interfaces with OpenOffice.  I haven't tried it yet, but I'm hoping it will be similar to the CiteWhileYouWrite function in EndNote which was a huge blessing for me as a graduate student.

I've also started playing with BibDesk.  After a few false-starts, I think I'm getting the hang of it.  I like it a bit better than Mendeley in some ways - it's faster and a bit easier to use.  I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of the internal browser for finding references, especially since GoogleScholar freaks out a bit and thinks I'm a bot if I do too many searches and imports.  I'm slowly getting the hang of creating new references and was very excited when I finally figured out the importing from clipboard feature which allows for highlighting, say, a bibliographic entry from a document or web-page works cited, going to BibDesk, highlighting the author name, title, etc., one at a time and telling BibDesk which is which.  Very, very cool.
I'm not sure if BibDesk integrates as well with a word processor, but I'm using both applications for the time being, so while it might be mildly awkward to keep them both updated with each other, it should be possible to generate bibliographic lists for printing or in articles.

Gahhhhh!

My latest amigurumi is driving me batty.  And I can't even complain about it properly here because it will ruin the surprise for the recipient.  Suffice to say I'm having troubles even though I've been following the directions.  Clothing is too big.  Other details are challenging to make.  I feel like crap and my brain is extra foggy, so that adds extra fun.  It's probably a good thing you can't really stab anything with a crochet hook or there would be even more trouble.

On the brighter side, I'm really enjoying Remember the Milk so far.  I'll try to remember to write up a more detailed review later on when I've used it a bit longer, but so far, so good.  I especially like the ease of setting up recurring tasks without having to assign a time.  This might not seems such a big deal, but for me, with a very fluid schedule based on health and sleep cycle, it is very, very handy.  And it really has helped me in remembering chores.

:P

And what do you know...

In my brain-fogged state, I failed to realize the difference between WordPress free hosting and WordPress the blog client (for which you must obtain a host).  WordPress free hosting does not do what I want it to do and is not nearly sufficiently flexible and I don't see the point in paying for web hosting as this blog has maybe 2 devoted readers at the moment.  Sigh...  

As much as Blogger annoys me, I prefer it to WordPress, primarily because of the integration with various Google services, especially Reader and because of the relative degree of flexibility even if you have no html-fu to speak of.  However, I hate the Blogger web interface, especially when dealing with images.  At the moment, I'm looking for a desktop blogging client for Mac OS X - preferably free, but as time goes on I may be willing to pay a bit.  I've already tried Qumana and find it annoying and not particularly functional - I especially dislike the failure to recognize and download drafts for editing.  Nor am I seeing the ease of "drag and drop" though that might be because I'm slower than usual today.  I tried an extension for Open Office but it cannot seem to connect to Blogger, despite claiming that it could do so, so that did no good, especially as I haven't the patience to fiddle with the blasted thing.  

I'm contemplating trying Flock, but I prefer using Safari as my primary browser, especially because Safari (and Safari alone) integrates so beautifully with Notebook.    I'd rather not run multiple browsers...

So, I need a desktop blogging client that meets the following criteria:

• Mac OS X (native, no running X11 or any of that happy crap...yes Gimp, I'm looking at you and flipping you the bird)
• Integrates well with Blogger, including draft management regardless of where the draft was originally made (in other words, if I started it via web or if I started it in the client)
• Easy to use (seriously, my brain has shiny spots...)
• Better graphic management than the Blogger interface
• Free or inexpensive (under $30)