So you've signed up for a LiveJournal or Blogger account, and are getting down to the business of creating your online masterpiece. Although most blogging sites have very good browser-based posting functionality, web-based posting can be frustrating. For example, some blogging services do not give you the option of saving a post as a draft to come back to later. Also, you may want to be able to use keyboard shortcuts to format your text, or to switch quickly between rich text and HTML views without reloading the page.

You may therefore find that your productivity is greatly improved with the use of a blogging client. This is a piece of software which allows you to post to your journal without logging into the website itself. There are many blogging clients available for different operating systems. Most are free to download.

- Semagic is probably the most feature-rich LiveJournal client available. Semagic is only available for Windows (and only supports LiveJournal); the Mac equivalent, Phoenix, lacks some of Semagic's functionality. Features include inline spellchecking; the ability to manage and edit past posts via the calendar view; currently playing music detection; post security options; and advanced friends list management.

- WinJournal and MacJournal are journaling clients for Windows and OS X respectively. The software is extremely powerful, and allows users to create their own independently hosted blogs, WordPress style, as well as posting to their web accounts. Other features include podcast creation and management; search features; music detection; drag-and-drop functionality; and entry interlinking. The OS X version even integrates with .mac technology.

- Deepest Sender is an open source Firefox journaling add-on which offers useful features such as the ability to view the client in the sidebar. Because it is a Firefox add-on, Deepest Sender will run on any operating system that supports the Firefox browser – which means pretty much every operating system! The client is small and fast and is extremely easy to install, and has the main features you would expect. It is necessary to download the add-on FoxyTunes for Deepest Sender to detect iTunes music. ScribeFire is also a Firefox journaling add-on with some extra functionality.

- Drivel is a blogging client for Linux platforms which includes an integrated HTML syntax checker, recent entry editor, and journal-specific features such as LiveJournal security settings and MovableType categories.

By Brian Jackson

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