Post2Blog: Free for Today…and Even Longer with this Trick

February 6th, 2007

9 Comments Written by Ryan

I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with the Giveaway of the Day site, but I subscribe to it in my feed because I’m always looking for a great (free) download. Basically, the site legally offers a download each day that would normally cost you money. There is one catch though, you have to download and install the application that same day! You’re sorely out of luck if you ever have to format your hard drive.

Normally on Giveaway of the Day, the software doesn’t seem to be that great, and I actually haven’t downloaded any of their offerings. After you download one of their programs you have to run their activator before you install the program, and I assume that their activator only works for the day that the download is available for. If you try and activate it anytime after that you’ll probably receive some sort of warning stating that you cannot activate the software yada yada (although I’ve never tried so I’m not sure what the activator would do).

I’m sure that is the only way they can get these companies to offer the software to them for their readers, because this way they get their software on the computers of a variety of people. Then, when a user clears their computer they’ll realize that the software can no longer be installed so they might actually go and buy it if they grew accustomed to it.

Post2Blog

Today the software available is Post2Blog which is exactly what the name implies: blogging software. It normally costs $39 but it is available for you to download and install for free during the next 7 hours from Giveaway of the Day. I was a little skeptical about giving the software a trial run because I didn’t want to cozy up with it, and then later on down the road want to buy it since I have become so used to it. However, we write a lot of articles so I was curious what a commercial blogging application had to offer that other free alternatives, like Windows Live Writer, didn’t have. Here are the features that the site boasts…and there was one that really caught my attention in regards to the activation scheme (see if you can find it before I point it out):

WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) editor with complete hot-keys support
Built-in "Live" spell checking
"Portable Mode" support
Images are uploaded automatically (supported uploading types: Flickr, file area of your blog, imageshack.us, picturelli.com, custom FTP server)
Post text and/or images from Firefox or Internet Explorer to your blog with 2 clicks only using plug-ins for Firefox (check example) and Internet Explorer
Compose new posts in MS Word and post them to your blog using Post2Blog toolbar for MS Word
Integration with RSS Bandit (rssbandit.org) and Sharp Reader (sharpreader.net) - you can post selected items from these RSS readers using Post2Blog plug-in
Post files, images, documents from Explorer or any other program using "Send To -> Post2Blog" command
Add Technorati, Del.icio.us, Buzzwords, 43 Things tags to your posts
Automatically send trackbacks, ping web-services to notify about updates in your blogs
Earn money using "Insert Amazon Link" feature
Use built-in smiles for use in your blog

Post2Blog Portable Did you see it? The third option down mentions a "Portable Mode" that I was intrigued to see how it worked. Very rarely have I seen commercial software offer a portable version, and I was excited to see this. Being able to have a great blogging utility on my USB drive wherever I go was an appetizing thought, so I was excited to give it a shot.

After installing the program there is a new option in the Start Menu entry called "Create Portable version" that you use to put the application on your USB drive. All it does is copy the files for the program and your settings into a single folder (that you specify) so that you can run the app from anywhere. Pretty slick, but that also brings up the big point that I want to make…this portable version has your settings, files, and registration info! If you save this folder you’ll never have to install the program again, and it will always be registered. So if you reformat your computer, there is no risk in having to go and purchase the program.

I was thinking to myself that this might be against the terms of Giveaway of the Day somehow, but I don’t see how it could be since you are just taking advantage of features the program has to offer. The download only has 7 hours left so you have to download and install it before that time expires. Then you can go about creating the portable version whenever you feel like it, as long as you do it before you format your computer!

Hope this helps any bloggers looking for a nice commercial application to use! I really like it, but I’m not sure if it is worth the $39. Oh yeah, and for those of you who like Web standards, this does have an XHTML option to generate XHTML code.

Thanks to Radu for pointing out that this software was available.

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Tags: Software, Apple, Downloads, Microsoft, Screenshots

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February 6th, 2007 at 8:09 pm Max (All-Star)

So if I create a portable version and uninstall the regular version off of my PC, the portable version will work without problems?
February 6th, 2007 at 8:27 pm Ryan (Author)

I haven’t uninstalled the regular version, but is should work just fine. I tried the portable version on two other computers and it worked just fine without installing the application, and it showed up as registered.

One thing you might want to do is create the portable version immediately after installing it and then keep a copy of those generated files somewhere. The reason I say this is because generating the portable version will actually copy your settings over from the installation, so if you create the portable version right after installation it would be like having a clean install.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:38 pm javasharp

Thanks Ryan for this info!
February 7th, 2007 at 12:03 am Ryan (Author)

No problem, it is really a nice piece of software and I’ve fallen in love with the “Quick Snippets” feature. Also there is an Advanced Toolbar that can be shown if you click the button next to the Quick Snippets. That toolbar has a lot of the things I was looking for like centering text or doing bullets.

Let me know if you see something else that might be a little hidden in the program.
February 7th, 2007 at 12:31 am curtissthompson

I wonder if the authorization time restriction is based on the users system clock, or internal time countdown. Because if it were based on the system clock it would be an easy work around to change the time on your system so that you could install the software anytime.

Interesting site nonetheless, thanks for the post! I’ll definitely try out this software.
February 7th, 2007 at 1:46 am Radu Capan (All-Star)

GiveAwayOfTheDay use for activation their own clock, so you cannot change your computer date and activate the program. Who did not read Ryan on time, just missed this opportunity. I have tested several blog tools, and for the moment this is the favorite one, better than Windows Live Writer. I love also the Quick Snippets feature, but if you look at each dialogue, you can see that the authors did think at great details! When you enter a link, there is a great option: Link all occurences of same text. When you insert a picture (can be done from clipboad) can on fly resize, convert (to PNG better), make round corners. It has a option in menu “Clean MS Word HTML”, which is implicit in WLW, but do not exist in other blogging tools. With WLW & WordPress, setting a different date for the post is not working, but with P2B is perfect (I can post an article for tommorow, and tommorow will be shown). I like also the way it publish the material: there is a Cancel (not in WLW) and you see the process step by step. There is a Compact View Mode (full screen) option. Can sit on systray. And many other small features which it really make it great. At least for me.

And now get back to GiveAwayOfTheDay: each day they provide a program and a game. From time to time, the program is worth of download and install. As for games, if you have kids, at least once per week you can find a great game . Subscribing to their RSS is worthing.
February 7th, 2007 at 5:29 am Sridhar Katakam

Damn, missed it
February 7th, 2007 at 9:52 am onlineapps

Radu Capan wrote:

And now get back to GiveAwayOfTheDay: each day they provide a program and a game. From time to time, the program is worth of download and install. As for games, if you have kids, at least once per week you can find a great game . Subscribing to their RSS is worthing.

Definitely agree, Giveawayoftheday is one of the best sites around.

About Post2Blog, I was actually really skeptical about YET ANOTHER BLOGGING CLIENT. But you know, I really like it now. Especially the built-in Flickr uploader, since I run out of Wordpress.com’s storage quota real fast.
February 7th, 2007 at 1:42 pm Ryan (Author)

Radu Capan wrote:

When you enter a link, there is a great option: Link all occurences of same text.

That’s a cool feature…didn’t see that one. One thing I did notice was that it will automatically paste a URL into the Insert Hyperlink dialog box if you have a URL on your clipboard.