Pretensions began experimenting with the beta version of Windows Live Writer (WLW) a couple of days ago and so far has been very happy with it. She was somewhat surprised as her experience with Microsoft apps and Windows Live in particular has not always been as bucolic.

For those not in the know, WLW is a desktop blog-publishing software for Windows which works with most common web blogs. For example, P's main blog runs on self-hosted Wordpress, with a mirror for her friends on Tblog. Using WLW, P is able to compose and edit her blog posts offline complete with non-broken XHTML links, videos and pics and then publish the lot to her Wordpress blog. This means that P no longer has to brave the vagaries and slow loading times of the Wordpress visual editor (diabolical if you have a slow or iffy internet connection) or lose her entire post if the dashboard times out while saving.

Besides Wordpress, WLW supports Blogger, Livejournal, Windows Shared Spaces etc. The WLW editor is pretty sophisticated and supports tables, quick map and tag insertions and spell-checking, so P's entire blogging process has just got much smoother and happier.

Also, WLW supports plugins. These little bits of code integrate with WLW to add extra functionality. For example, P is curently using a couple of plugins to add Amazon quick links, IMDB movie information and best of all Zemanta functionality.

Zemanta is a great app that brings up related content that you can add to your post. This includes links, associated photos, related articles etc. Besides the WLW plugin, Zemanta is also available for IE7. P recommends it to all bloggers and you can bet that you will start seeing Zemanta content in P's posts.

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