OmegaMom

This is a test post using Windows LiveWriter.  Supposedly, LiveWriter is a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) blog posting software that resides on your home computer, links to your blogging site, and allows you to compose blog posts like a word-processing document.  (So far, so good–it is actually showing me what my blog will look like as I type, woohoo!  Blogspot’s editor doesn’t do that–it just shows you Times Roman…this interface lets me see how my post title looks–blue bar with bolded white text–and what the typestyle of my blog is.)

It was easy enough to download and install, though reading the license agreement was…um…well, like anything legalese from Micro$oft, unnerving.  It’s part of their whole “Live” line of applications, which integrates with Messenger, Net Passport, Live This and Live That, so the license agreement has to cover just about everything associated with those items.

I tried the “Insert Picture” from the tool menu on the right-hand side; it opens up your computer pictures…I’d rather have the option to cruise to a website (currently, I host my pics on Photobucket).  When I cancelled out of that dialog box, it dropped my cursor to the very beginning of my post, rather than back where it was when I clicked on the “Insert Picture” option.  However, when I went to the Insert menu on the top toolbar, and did the same thing, it placed my cursor back where I was when I opened up the dialog box.  An inconsistency.

One thing that I am curious about, before I wholeheartedly endorse this product, is what kind of HTML code it produces.  I have used FrontPage quite a lot, and occasionally (foolishly) clicked on “save as web page” in Word.  Both styles drop a boatload of unnecessary and bloated HTML.  The recent redesign of my blog was deliberately set up to be CSS, lean and mean, with no unnecessary tags.  Once I publish this post, I’ll take a look, then come back and edit to mention how the HTML looks.

I’ve also downloaded and installed a plug-in for it called “Tag4Writer”, which lets you pop in tags for Technorati, de.li.cious, LiveJournal, and a whole slew more categorizing services.  Woohoo!

ETA:  Okay, I posted (click on the “Publish” icon, very easy), and looked at the HTML.  Amazingly enough, unlike most Micro$oft bloatware, there were no weird and unnecessary HTML tags.  Color me impressed.

I don’t think they have a Mac version, sorry, folks!

Thanks to Kent Newsome for the pointers!

Technorati: LiveWriter, blogging, WYSIWYG
de.li.cious: LiveWriter, blogging, WYSIWYG

So on a whim, I took the Pew Blogger Survey, from Pew Internet & American Life Experience. This is an adjunct to a phone survey they performed last month. Very interesting. The report is here, and says that the main reason people surveyed blog is “creative, personal expression”.

Go take the survey!