lazy industries

OK, so here’s the thing. I’ve decided that I want to start blogging more but don’t always have the time/internet availability but I do always have my laptop with me. So, how do I blog while I’m on the road?

In Part 1 of Offline Blogging, I’ll be looking at the beta release of Microsoft’s Windows Live Writer (which I am using to write this post).

Download & Installation

First things first… finding this little gem is not as easy as going to the Live website and following a link. You’ll have to do a quick search for Windows Live Writer to find it. The download is relatively small @ 5.4Mb. Installation was a breeze and required very little user input.

Download Windows Live Writer Here

Setup

There’s a nice pretty (Vista style) splash screen to greet you as you start Live Writer for the first time. You will then need to setup your blog.

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You have 3 options - Windows Live Spaces, SharePoint weblog, or Another weblog service. Don’t worry if your blog engine isn’t listed, just select the last option and click Next.

Enter your blog URL, Username and Password and off it will go to configure your weblog settings.

If everything was entered correctly, you should now see something that looks like this…

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Give your blog a name, click Finish and you’re done!

Usability

Now we get to the good stuff… OFFLINE BLOGGING. The interface to Live Writer is decidedly Microsoft.

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Everything you need is easily accessible along with some stuff you probably aren’t going to use.

Easily add Links, Pictures, Tables, Maps (MS Virtual Earth), Tags and more. Most things are right where they should be, although some of the standard formatting options (Text etc) is buried in menus (having said that, the standard MS keyboard shortcuts still work Ctrl-L for Left etc).

An example map, Melbourne CBD, Australia

There’s a good spell checker that will highlight misspelt words as you type (how ironic, I misspelt misspelt) and additionally a very good plugin API with a number (42 at time of print) of plugins ready and waiting to be downloaded.

Working in draft mode was very easy, you can either choose to save a local draft or Post to your blog and continue to edit online.

MSLW will keep a history of recent Posts and drafts.

All in all it’s a very easy to use product that caters to the general user with it’s familiar interface.

 

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