New version of ecto

I upgraded my copy of ecto over the weekend...the new version supports a rich text editing mode (sort of like using MS word instead of typing in raw HTML). I haven't used ecto much lately but it is a nice frontend to MT.

The only problem I'm seeing with the Rich Text editing option is that it doesn't support all HTML tags. While understandable, it'd be nice if there was an option to ignore HTML tags it doesn't understand (or define new tags, or something other than to strip out tags it doesn't understand).

I see from this post that the developer of ecto is running into the same problems using the various blog APIs I've been running into (though I'm only frontending MovableType these days). My biggest problem: getting content entered by users converted into clean UTF-8 encoding for XML-RPC. MovableType does not appear to normalize content when you retrieve it via the XML-RPC interface, so you can end up with content entered via the MT forms which you cannot retrieve via XML-RPC (at least using the PEAR PHP XML classes). I'm not necessarily blaming MT, I have no idea where the fault lies.

Blogging coverage in NYT and WSJ today

In Madison Avenue Ponders the Potential of Web Logs we learn that the advertising world still doesn't know what to make of weblogs and blogging. Fears of loss of control over content, brand and message are colliding with the recognition that the better blogs tend to be snarky, irreverent, and are not necessarily professionally written.

The WSJ has a generally positive article about the use of blogs and blog software in classroom settings. Schools are using blogs to allow students to collaborate on projects as well as just to keep diaries on school activities. One school is highlighted as having cancelled blogging due to concerns about possible conflicts with existing policies covering student communications, specifically that posts should be/should have been reviewed by teachers prior to being made public. There are also concerns about students being contacted by outsiders via email or comment feedback.