Windows Live Writer Beta 3 makes blogging easier

Filed under: Internet, Blogging, Microsoft, Beta

Windows Live Writer Beta 3 makes blogging easier

by Brad Linder Sep 6th 2007

Microsoft has released the third public beta of its Windows Live Writer blogging application. The program is available as a standalone download or as part of the new Windows Live unified installer which will throw so many Microsoft applications on your machine you'll think the company owns you.

So what's new in this beta of Live Writer?

XHTML support
Insert videos using "insert video" dialog
Upload images to Picasaweb when publishing to Blogger blogs (we weren't able to confirm this feature. Anyone else have any luck?)
Support for 28 additional languages
Better image handling
A slew of bug fixes

Overall, it's a pretty handy blogging tool. But one thing that we really don't like is that Microsoft tries to cram every Windows Live service down your throat when you install Live Writer. Even if you download the standalone installer, a window pops up during installation asking if you'd like to add Windows Live Mesenger, Mail, Toolbar, and other applications. If the answer was yes, we probably would have downloaded the unified installer, now wouldn't we?

Tags: windows live, windows live writer, WindowsLive, WindowsLiveWriter

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Todd said 12:55PM on 9-06-2007

SRSLY what's the point? Geeks won't use it and blue haired little old ladies don't blog.

Cydewinder said 1:00PM on 9-06-2007

I love this program, if only for the way I can drag and drop images from my computer into it, and then when I publish it will upload the images and create a thumbnail copy for me. Using the built in wordpress editor requires me to upload each image individually, and using something like Flickr requires me to manually create an image tag. Dragging and dropping is far superior.

ronin691 said 2:22PM on 9-06-2007

@Cydewinder

Sir there are dozens of Wordpress plug-ins that let you do everything you have described inside your standard Wordpress editor, the first of which is :

http://tantannoodles.com/toolkit/photo-album/

There are hundreds of Wordpress helpers here:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugins/Images

Check them out! Don't drink the koolaid, Microsoft does NOT want to help you blog, they want to chain you to the Windows operating system.

raycosm said 5:42PM on 9-06-2007

Hey, don't use Google Search. They only want you to use their search so they can serve you ads and collect your information.

Even if the best (free) program that does X out there is NOT opensourced/is owned by a company (OH CRAP! A COMPANY! IT'S AUTOMATICALLY PURE EVIL), I'm going to damn well use it anyway.

Edward said 7:33AM on 9-07-2007

Agreed raycosm; if this suits your needs, bloody well go and use it.

And re: the extras it wants you to install - that reminds me of all the times google toolbar or itunes have been forced upon me.

BlueLion said 7:33AM on 9-07-2007

I didn't find the Piscasaweb feature, either.

stefan svartling said 7:34AM on 9-07-2007

If you insert an image into a blog post you write for a blogger blog it automatically post it to Picasa Web album. Look at the source code after you have inserted it, but before you have posted it.

Sincerely, Stefan
http://www.clipotech.com

Brad Linder said 7:35AM on 9-07-2007

Stefan, I understand how it's supposed to work. But I got an error message when I actually tried to upload an image to a blog hosted by Blogspot.

stefan svartling said 4:13PM on 9-07-2007

Hmm.. that was strange. For me it works perfectly.
See this test post with an image I've posted directly from Live Writer:
http://www.clipotech.com/2007/09/test-of-posting-photos.html

Dennis Hurd said 8:10AM on 9-08-2007

I sort of like it. Of course, I've been using the blogger.com editor for years> Net 2.0 is fine but there are still times when I'm offline and this interface and ability to save drafts may help.

http://www.dennissylvesterhurd.com/blog/2007_09_02_vault.html#3900797953363861664

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