I have not heard from the publisher at all this week (what a surprise) so I decided to email them. Guardian was scheduled to go to print last week. With only a week to go to Easter I needed to know what was happening.

I received a reply back that the files went to the printer on the 25^th. They’ve been through pre press and are in the process of being printed. The publisher has asked that the printers send 20 copies directly to me. The Publisher told me they will be getting an update from the printers shortly and will get back to me with a firmer date as soon as they have one. We shall see!

On another note entirely; now I have my new blog up and running I thought I would review the Qumana software I found to remotely write and then upload a new blog. When I checked on the net most of the reviews were dated 2006 or earlier. I also thought they were unfairly negative considering the software was free!

When you load it on for the first time you are asked for details of your blog. Once they are entered correctly (I had a bit of a hiccup as my blog is hosted by WordPress but embedded into Rapidweaver) If I did not have the added complication of WordPress being embedded the process would have been very simple.

Qumana then goes and retrieves any old blog files you might have. Once they are downloaded they reside on your local computer so as well as typing a new blog off line you can if necessary edit an old blog. Once the files are downloaded you are presented with a screen like this.

Blog Select Screen

Here you can select an old post to edit. I don’t normally edit old posts so for me this facility is largely unnecessary. Also you can from this screen add another blog or refresh the stored posts.

Once you press the new blog button you are presented with the screen shown below. You have a normal text editing screen with all the normal font and formatting options similar to MS Word. You are able to change the date and add HTML code if required. You can select a category from the list you have already active on the blog. The only drawback I can see is that you cannot add a category.

Add a New Blog

There are a few extra facilities such as adding and collecting images from various sources for the next post, which I have not used. However for a free off line blog editor I do not think you can go far wrong.

Guardian Two word count: 20600