Tools of Choice (4)

Blog with Windows Live Writer

I like simple tasks to be simple.

I use the Blogger platform for this blog, hosted with my web hosting service.  It was easy to set up, and it works well for me.

And then, you need an offline blog editor to do the actual work.  (It is a pain to try and use the web interface).  So far, I have used Qumana.  It hasn't been too bad.  In fact, it's been quite effective, and I've enjoyed using it for more than a year.  And it's free.

Then I changed my account from the "old Blogger" to the "new Blogger" (Google).  Qumana didn't like it!  After trying every which way to get it working, and failing to get a reply from Qumana's help desk, I started looking elsewhere.

Ok, to cut a long story short, I gave Windows Live Writer a go.  I like it so far!

It's a Beta version, and has been for quite a long time.  There were a couple of things to get used to, a couple of annoyances, and, as expected with a Beta, the Help is pretty lightweight.  But in general, it's friendly and easy.  Pretty much does all I need.

It's nice to have some basic features that Qumana does not have, for example font selection.

It provides the choice of a number of editing modes, including true WYSIWYG, which is very cool.

Uploading of images whan publishing is an excellent feature.  The facility to easily insert Virtual Earth Maps could be handy someday.  And I also discovered (but have not tried yet) that there are quite a few add-ins available out there.

I assume a full version will eventually happen, and I look forward to that.

Technorati tags: Windows+Live+Writer, GTD, Blogging