I had really meant to have this up a long (long) time ago since I find the whole thing so useful. I'm talking about Windows Live Writer, one of the best things about the whole Windows Live suite of applications (besides @live.com).

windowslivewriter 

As many of you will probably remember, I was very eager to see what all the fuss was about when Live Writer was first announced for beta. Now that is officially "official", it's about time to take the wraps off and share.

Essentially, Live Writer is a desktop blogging tool that mirrors Word 2007 in set up and functionality giving you everything you've come to love (and hate) with Word. You can even insert Tables and (egads!) work stuff.

But that's not why I'm using it, nope, none of that work stuff here at MorninPaper. What I find so great about the application is it's easy to use set up with wherever you choose to blog.

After you've downloaded Live Writer, it will ask if you want to connect with your Windows Live Spaces, create one or use something else. Not being one for Live Spaces, I quickly chose elsewhere.

Once you've entered in the URL and password, Live Writer handles everything else, even importing the theme of your blog if it can to give you a more WYSIWYG.

After that point, it is just like using a simplified version of Word that has been tweaked with the more common shortcuts for posting to the blog of your choice. All the standard stuff is taken care of like Insert Picture, Insert Hyperlink, etc. which makes it very easy to use. It'll even let you preview the post and check your source code before hitting Publish.

Although all blogging software has a Dashboard that also makes posting easy, Live Writer makes writing and managing your site easier if you are familiar and more comfortable using a more word processor type application than what your blog provider offers.

But, probably the main thing that keeps me using Live Writer and why I am writing it about it is the ability to manage several blogs from the same place as opposed to having to go to each site individually. You can do that from one central location now. Invaluable if you have more than one blog to keep track of.

Each entry is stored locally allowing me to keep track of what I posted and when in a work environment that I'm already pretty familiar with.

Is Windows Live Writer for everyone? Probably not, especially if you only have one blog. Anyone can learn to use the software provided.

But, if you have a few personal/business blogs or contribute post to other blogs, and want to manage all of that from one central location, Live Writer is a real time saver without every having to open your web browser.

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