Fun With Live Writer Blog Software

Today I’m trying out Windows Live Writer, which is a free software package from Microsoft.  Yes, Microsoft does give away software from time to time.   This one is meant for putting up posts on Microsoft Live Blogs (this is not one) but it also supports other kinds.  So far it hasn’t allowed me to italicize a word but it does offer a groovy wysiwyg editor which is nice.  Oh dang, I couldn’t bold “wysiwyg editor” just now.   That would be strike 2 folks.  Let’s try to insert a simple picture…no dice.

Okay how about trying from the top menu bar….nope.  How about this Map icon on the right?  That looks enticing!

Ok, was pretty cool.  I can underline “pretty”.  I just italicize or bold it.   Wait I’ve found a 3rd way to try to insert photos.  Let’s try that again…nope.  Oh, wait there’s a “source” tab at the bottom.  Let’s try some simple coding.  Pretty cool.

Okay let’s do a simple list of what we know so far:

1. The tool bars don’t work so well.
2. Some of the formatting functions require the use of coding
3. Attempting to insert a photo gives you a nasty error by any of the 3 methods I tried.
4. The map insert work wells and integrates the aerial bird’s eye view option.
5. The publish to your blog from the software works well (I published this from Windows Live Writer).

Okay so now I’m back in the wordpress editor.  Which is pretty cool cause the buttons on the interface work!

Let’s now try to upload some of those pix again. Like the cool one:

;And the not so cool one:

Just to be fair. It could be an issue with this blog or that fact that I’m running it on a Mac through Parallels. I’ll check that out next.