How many of the applications you use on a daily basis are web-based as opposed to locally installed native applications? For me, the answer is way more than I ever would have expected.

Had you asked me this question a few years ago, I would have vehemently denied that the future of development is on the web. As much as I could see and understand the value of a ubiquitously available web-based application, there's just no way to approach the level of power and integration (not to mention the ability to be always-available) that is possible with well conceived and developed desktop software.

Of course, back then I didn't imagine that web applications could become as useful as Google Calendar or Remember the Milk. I also didn't imagine that light - yet still useful - versions of these apps would be available from my mobile phone almost wherever I was.

In fact, and much to my surprise, today most of my personal data today is tied up in online services: Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Backpack, Remember the Milk, Facebook, Newsgator, and Evernote to name just a few.

Most of these are probably pretty familiar names, but one is a newcomer in the web space: Evernote. Still in beta, the new version of Evernote contains a full-featured web version, but synchronizes seamlessly with desktop software on either Windows or Mac platforms. And it's a breath of fresh air.

There are two fantastic options for offline blogging (that is, managing a blog without using the web-based browser interface the blogging service provides). The first is Windows Live Writer Beta, which, as the name would suggest is a Windows app, but one that's so useful it might compel Mac users to invest in Parallels Desktop just to run it. The second is Ecto, a Mac-native blog composition tool that many bloggers swear by. (Ecto also runs on Windows.)


We've tried them both recently, so we were able to pit them head to head like the Indians and the Yankees to see which one is better. As was the case with many shocked Yankees fans, the conclusion of our little challenge was surprising. So which is superior--Live Writer for Windows (pictured above) or Ecto for the Mac? You be the judge after the jump.

If you're a blogger, the chances are you've heard of ecto - the multi-platform-supporting blogging client for Mac OS X and Windows. Today, however, sees the unveiling of an entirely new, from-the-ground-up, re-write of the Mac OS X version of ecto in alpha form.

Apart from the shiny new icon (shown right) a new rich text editor that leverages the WebKit engine and a plugin-based architecture where "almost everything that can be powered by a plugin is a plugin." are amongst the gems found in this (feature incomplete) build. There's plenty more features still to come in future builds, but this looks like a very exciting, and free, upgrade to a long-established application.

[Via Andy Piper's Twitter]

As RSS becomes more and more of a vital tool for online media consumption and production with each passing day, the need for efficient and well-integrated RSS clients rings loud and true. NetNewsWire for Mac OS X is just such a client. Originally borne of (and still written and managed by) indie Mac dev Brent Simmons, it was purchased after v2.x in 2005 by NewsGator to help round out their empire of powerful RSS clients that now span Mac, Windows and even mobile devices.

More or less since its inception, however, NetNewsWire has been hailed as one of the best Mac apps of all time, and for a while (and possibly still) held the title of most widely used RSS reader on any platform, including Windows. NetNewsWire has earned these accolades by offering a powerful set of features in a well-designed UI, and integrating very well with other Mac OS X tools. It offers support for anywhere from ten to hundreds - if not thousands - of feeds, various methods for synching read/unread news item states between computers, a built-in tabbed browser based on WebKit (the same rendering engine Safari and many other Mac OS X browsers use), blogging to any number of desktop clients such as ecto and MarsEdit (another app originally developed by Simmons), synching open tabs between computers and posting them all as a linkdump to said blog editors, bookmarking in del.icio.us, AppleScript and much more. Today's version 3.0 milestone, however, takes NetNewsWire to an entirely new level.

New in this release is even more desktop integration, offering things like Spotlight searching of news items, adding blog authors to Address Book, support for microformats, Growl notifications of news item downloads, sending news items to Twitterrific (the Iconfactory's stellar Twitter client for Mac OS X) and more. Clippings can also be synchronized between computers and the web, and a plethora of UI and performance enhancements make NetNewsWire sing even better on both PowerPC and new Intel Macs.

Of course, you can take all this power for a test drive by downloading a demo from NewsGator, but if you fall for NetNewsWire like so many other RSS users, a license costs a mere $29.95.

[Update: Scott McNulty at our sister site, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, just published 5 questions with Brent Simmons, an interview with NetNewsWire's developer on his thoughts of the new release, why he prefers the desktop software to the AJAX hype and the choices he had to make when adding - or choosing not to add - new features.]

With all the new and shiny Web 2.0 applications coming out, one may easily be convinced that desktop applications are breathing their last breath. At least that's what Google would like you to think about Google Apps, and its chances against rival Microsoft Office.

On the blogging front, most of the popular blogging systems (Blogger, Vox, TypePad, WordPress, etc.) have incorporated some degree of rich/WYSIWYG editor to make life easier for bloggers. Some of them integrate with other Web 2.0 applications (e.g. Vox with Flickr and YouTube, Flickr with blog systems) to allow users aggregate their disparate content. Does this mean the slow death of desktop blogging clients?

As the senior manager of the software development team, part of my duty is to interview job candidates. One thing that jumped out to me a while ago as I was going through a resume is that a lot of candidates have more interesting jobs at the beginning of their career than their latest employment.

My own experience is very similar. The first job I got after finishing college was with a software engineering company for transportation (mainly trains) and traffic control system, where 'engineering' meant exactly that. The company was ISO9000/9001 certified so that means every process and decision had to be clearly documented and signed off. The traditional software development model, i.e. "The Waterfall", was king and the thickness of the requirement and design documents were matched by the comprehensive testing documents. Every change request must be approved, coded, tested, and signed off before

We've asked you which blog editor you prefer (and so has Lifehacker), but for my money you simply can't beat ecto, at least on Mac OS X (I've honestly never used it on Windows). It's a powerful editor with strong integration with other tools and software, and Adriaan Tijsseling has just updated it to version 2.2 with quite a few new features and fixes, including:

• Flickr Search support for image upload
  
• support for CSS style/class for image upload
  
• support for generic tag format (e.g. Ultimate Tag Warrior)
  
• GoDaddy.com's Quick Blog to the preset list of blog type in Profile Creation Wizard
  
• initial support for the new Google's Blogger beta using the GData library
  
• profile backup and restore to file capability
  
• Paste Special option to Post window with capability to paste text as unformatted text or strip out MS
• and much, much more

This looks like a strong update to a killer blogging app, and if you're in the market for more blogging power than a simple web form, I highly recommend it whether you're on Windows or Mac OS X. You can learn more about ecto here and download a demo. A license costs $17.95, with discounts for cross-platform and bulk purchases available.

Ecto is a handy, fast, and powerful (but easy-to-use) blogging tool. Unfortunately, it's only been available for Macs- until now. The developers finally released the much-anticipated version 2.0 of ecto, now with Windows compatibility. It requires the .NET framework, and costs just under $18. What's so great about ecto? For me, aside from support for almost every major blogging service out there, it's the customizable HTML templates you can stick in the toolbar. That, coupled with the fact that you can save settings for each blog engine independently, means you can pretty handily set up your own blog empire within minutes. Seriously, I consider ecto to be one of the best apps of its kind. That isn't to say it's perfect. File upload in TypePad doesn't work yet, and there's no 64bit support yet in Windows, but ecto certainly makes blogging faster.

Back in November I posted about how much I was enjoying a WordPress 2.0 beta, and today I'm happy to say it has fortunately gone official. WordPress 2.0 is now available for your blogging pleasure, but there's just one problem for those of you who use external blogging clients like Ecto: WordPress 2.0 breaks file uploads. A post at Ecto's blog explains the whole situation, including good news for an eventual update from the WordPress crew themselves, but for now they also were generous enough to create a simple work-around. Altering two lines of code in one of the WordPress system files can re-enable file uploads for now, and I can personally verify this works on my own blog as I couldn't help but take advantage of that Ecto sale over the holidays.