Live Writer

Microsoft have released a beta version of Live Writer. I read about it here and here, and you can download the beta here. I am using Live Writer for this post. The interface is, as you’d expect, okay looking and fairly intuitive. I tend to use Perfomancing for Firefox for my posts (you can get version 1.3 here) – which, being a Firefox plugin, is cross-platform. Both are easy to set up (getting spellchecking working in Performancing for Firefox was a little tricky, details here, while LiveWriter’s spellchecking lacks an ‘Ignore All’ function) and both have comparable features. The preview available in Live Writer is very good (although no better than WordPress) – not so impressed with the Web Layout view. Will I use it? Sometimes, maybe. There’s no compelling feature that makes it a must have, yet. And its Windows only (which means I can’t use it for Martini blogging – anytime, anyplace, anywhere.)