Writing What We Want

Ok, so I'll admit that I'm only writing this post to test out the Windows Live Writer that I downloaded last night.  I've been hearing good things about it for quite some time now, mostly from Scoble, and wanted to try it out.  I never actually got around to it, though, because I didn't really see a need for it.  I didn't really ever write when I didn't have a net connection, and I don't really have a major problem with Blogger's post creator.  It seems, though, that in the last few days I've been hearing a whole lot more about this.  I think that it is largely due to Microsoft just releasing their Live Installer to install their suite of Live software.  As an aside, I've actually been a fan of all the Live stuff I've tried (which I admit is fairly limited).  They all seem to be some nice products, though.  Anyhow, I finally decided I'd grab it last night and give it a shot.  

Part of why I never really felt the need for a special writing utility is that I don't really do anything other than write some text.  I hardly ever use images, and never really do anything else.  So just throwing out some text, and the occasional image, I couldn't think of why I'd need something special.   However, if I did decide I wanted to do some more adventurous posting, this definitely makes it easy.  They have a button for just about everything.  Also, with the ability to add plugins, you can make adding anything to your blog just a click away.  One thing that I've already found and love is the recognition of short-cut keys that are default across Microsoft products.  To create those links I made, I just highlighted the text I wanted and instinctively hit ctrl-k.  Sure enough, up came my hyperlink window.  Beautiful!  It's great to have the things that you use as second nature to work how you'd expect and want them to. 

There is one thing that I don't really like, though, and that is how it does its HTML code.  It puts in all sorts of stuff that I really don't think are necessary, and I personally don't use when writing it myself.   I suppose that you make trade-offs for writing in a formatting friendly environment instead of just typing the code.  Then again, when all I'm posting is text it makes you wonder why I don't just write in HTML anyway...

I do enjoy that I can write posts while offline, and then post once I get back to the net, though.  Before, if I did happen to be without a connection and wanted to write something, I would have to type it up in Word or Notepad, and then copy/paste it over later.  This wasn't horrible, but it did make it inconvenient with the title and tags (yes, I realize the extent of the inconvenience was having to copy two other items, but when the comparison is zero or two, zero is obviously the winner).  This is definitely nice if I decide I'd like to go sit in a Starbucks and write some, as I'm not going to shell out for the use of the hotspots.

For now, I've got it installed on machines and I'll use it exclusively for updating until it does something to piss me off.