Blogging with the iPod touch

As noted in my previous post, I prefer to keep technology that works as long as possible, even if others consider it obsolete. Case in point: my iPod touch, which is less than a year old, but which has been supplanted by a sexier version with a camera. I like to travel light, and I plan to visit Poland (in an area with wifi, my research assures me). I would rather not carry a laptop. Can I blog, complete with images, while on the road with just my trusty iPod touch and my foldy full-size Bluetooth keyboard?

Turns out the answer is yes. The blogging part is easy: WordPress has an app. Images were trickier. A test post revealed that the WordPress app won’t embed pictures. But I figured out a way around that: upload the image to a remote site, then hotlink it.

This blog post is a test for my new setup. I purchased, for a mere $40, the zoomMediaPlus card reader. As advertised, it reads SD memory cards. I popped mine out of my camera and into the reader. You have to download an app, which mediates between the touch and the reader. This step is the weak link in my blog-with-images scheme: it depletes battery life at an amazing rate as it copies from the SD card to the touch. It also doesn’t have a useful way to specify which images you want. I had envisioned choosing, say, three images to load onto my touch, just for blog posts; but it may be harder than that to select exactly what I want. On the up side, as the software transfers the image, it smallifies it to a version better suited to appearing on the Web. This means that the SD chip still has the high-quality images I took with my camera, but I can blog with poorer-quality, Web-optimized images, which is exactly what I wanted.

Once the image is on the touch, you use the zoomMediaPlus app to copy the image to the touch’s photo directory. Mine ended up in Albums > Saved Photos.

The next step is getting the image online so you can hotlink to it within your WordPress app post. Flikr and Photobucket both have apps; I use the latter. (zoomMediaPlus has an “upload to Flikr” button, which makes it even easier for Flikr folk.) I launched the Photobucket app and uploaded the image I’d pulled from my SD card. I copied the URL, then pasted it into the WordPress app blog post:

Test image, pulled from my camera’s SD card into my touch, then uploaded via the Photobucket app

Success!

Although my main concern was getting images into blog posts, the apps permit more to be done: both zoomMediaPlus and Photobucket let you upload images to Facebook, for example. And if you have it set up in your Photobucket account, you can tweet the image.

When I researched this topic, I discovered that most bloggers draft using the app, then save it and finish it at their regular computer, where they add in images and hotlinks. However, it’s certainly possible to do the entire thing within the WordPress app. Just be sure to hit Save before you exit to another app, or, like me, you may end up typing up the blog post twice.

Copyrighted under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Endless research

Yes, it’s happening again: I am engaging in endless research that in no way is time effective. I suppose I’m not the only one who would rather spend time than money. Last time I angsted this hard, I was attempting to optimize my Palm Tungsten E. I blogged about that experience, but months later, the Palm died utterly and I was forced to buy an iPod touch. Only recently, now that the new OS supports a foldy full-size Bluetooth keyboard without jailbreaking, have I become reconciled to the touch.

Then what does Apple do? It releases a pretty, shiny new touch that takes photos and permits video chatting. Darn you, Apple! Because I would rather not pay $400 to upgrade and hand off my old one to my husband. Whose Palm, I point out, still works fine.

The smart thing to do would be to buy a netbook. It would solve so, so many problems: they too cost about $400; they have a full-size keyboard, more or less; they permit USB ports, so I could push photos to it; I could use it to edit documents while on the road; I could Skype with my friends and relations; and the batteries last a nice, long time, so I could watch video while traveling.

iPod touch with Palm Bluetooth keyboard versus netbook

But no. I’d rather work what I’ve got. See, I’m going to Poland for the SFRA conference July 7–10, 2011. I’d like to blog while on the road, with photos! And I could do it all with my iPod touch—and my foldy keyboard, of course. All I need to do is spend $40 to purchase an SD card reader that will push my camera’s images to my touch, then use a few free apps to organize, blog, and tweet. Win! I take high-quality photos that I can download at home later, but blog low-quality, Web-optimized images that the apps generate.

I’m going to do this for three reasons. First, and possibly the most important, is the technical joy: I like making (obsolete?) equipment work. Second is my driven need to optimize small: I’m a one-bag packer. And third is the cost: $40 is better than $400.

iPod touch/keyboard atop netbook: Which would you rather carry to Poland?

Never mind that I will spend literally hours setting all this up (Apps! Passwords! Endless tweaking!). Never mind that the touch’s insanely small screen drives me nuts when attempting to surf the Net. And never mind that I can’t edit paid work on it (see above re. insanely small screen).

I think the fun of the technical challenge is worth $40.

This text and the two images, which I created, are copyrighted under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. This post was originally written on December 1, 2010. It may be freely copied anywhere. If you copy this post, please also copy the images and host them yourself. If you read this document at a site other than its original, I may not see any comments you might append, and I’d love to hear from you. Please comment at the original blog post if you wish me to see your remarks.