I've been spending a lot of time researching where to post my next blog... which site to use, how to publish it best, what topics, what domain names.... all these questions have flown through my radar and in my research I have found a great new tool that will help me accomplish my next foray into blogging with much ease.

Windows Live Writer Beta is a new tool by Microsoft that they've published and are distributing freely for bloggers to use.  It is thus far a great tool for publishing and formatting your blogs properly for multiple sites. 

I have used it recently on one of my experimental blog sites...  and basically what I've done is take the HTML codes from my ActiveRain posts and put them into the HTML window of Windows Live Writer.... then I switch over to WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) mode which operates almost exactly like Microsoft Word to reformat and make everything look RIGHT in the window provided.

The cool functions include:

Formatting specific to the blog site you use:  If you are a TypePad user, you set up an "account" in Live Writer that has the formatting set for not only TypePad but for your personal formatting/settings/themes/colors

Multiple Accounts: lets you publish to multiple blogs even if they are on different hosts

Templates: the templates are the "windows" of your site... as they're formatted specifically to the parameters of Typepad, Blogger, etc... you work in that window and know exactly how it will look

Publish to site button: finish your blog and click this button and it uploads the post and all the pictures at once to your site.

Control: After learning about the SEO techniques you can put them into use on here very easily to maximize the SEO power of your site.

Offline Editing: Away from the office and looking for something to do? You don't need the Internet to Blog!

Download it here.

Maybe someday soon, we'll be using it for all our ActiveRain blogs... in the meantime I'll try to create a template to use for publishing to ActiveRain...

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60 Comments on Blog Editors: Blogging with Ease

20 Most Recent Comments Displayed Show All

JUN
05
2007
 Windows live writer is blogjet. Just stolen out from under Dmitry. Who wrote the blogjet program.
11:33pm • #41
293,094 Points 19 Featured Posts Outside Blog
Cool tool Jeff. Thanks for sharing yet another toy for us all to learn!
11:35pm • #42
JUN
06
2007
1 Featured Post

Jeff,

I don't think I quite understand why you wouldn't just write in Active Rain or like Word Press. What is the advantage? Wish I understood this blogging a little better! Just when I think I am beginning to understand, there is something else. It sound like this is something that I should try but will I mess up my blog if I don't understand it?

Sandra
12:21am • #43
128,614 Points 12 Featured Posts Outside Blog

Sandra and Ryan - Jeff who??

Sandra - because:

  1. there are limiting formatting tools native to ActiveRain
  2. If you accidentally close the window or hit BACK, you lose everything
  3. there is no backing up on ActiveRain/Wordpress
  4. If you're reading up on SEO and proper blogging techniques, this is a tool that should help you maximize your ability to utilize those techniques

I don't think you'll mess anything up unless you're just prone to doing so... if you think you'll mess something up, create your blog and save to your computer - check it and double check it before you publish.  Publish to a hidden blog (one you DON'T promote) to see how it will look first!
7:38am • #44
128,614 Points 12 Featured Posts Outside Blog

Jeff Link -that's a common claim on the Internet... "Microsoft stole..."... whatever - drama that doesn't need to be there or here

Bob - thanks!

David Britt & Lois Geller - come back and report to us!

Mott - I agree...plus they know how to market it and get it out there

Natalie - my pleasure

Michael - same here

Missy - thanks

Teri - sorry I missed you the last re-comment :)... thanks for the comment!

Laura - have fun!
7:43am • #45
David thank you for posting this.... I feel like blogging 101
7:56am • #46
445,301 Points 5 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog
David, thanks for the tip.  It's impossible to keep up with all the new tools popping up every day -
8:04am • #47
51 Featured Posts

Sandra, It's just another tool.  It's not necessary.

David, I looked at the post your linking to and didn't see a problem.  I'm not clear on what issue you're having.  I used to write back and forth on both as well prior to going Mac.

1:02pm • #48
128,614 Points 12 Featured Posts Outside Blog

Caleb - not in that post - in a couple others... posted from AR's editor... they run too wide for the "box"/frame... then they cut off the right side of comments and text

I'm going to try to write my next post in Live Writer just for fun and see what happens... starting a new blog entirely tonight/tomorrow and will use it exclusively there
1:11pm • #49
51 Featured Posts

David I see the posts you are talking about now. I didn't see it before because it is a result of a browser issue.  Internet Explorer is not interpreting the page correctly.  We'll have to put in a fix for this.

Thanks! 
3:35pm • #50
128,614 Points 12 Featured Posts Outside Blog
Caleb - no problem :) ... guess I should have sent that through the feedback option!
8:12pm • #51
JUN
07
2007

David, you are the MAN!!  Thanks for the advice!!  I spend about 2 hrs blogging to my different sites, this will definitely streamline things for me and the rest of us!!

Thank you so much for the tip!!

12:05pm • #52
Hey David, did you use "Community Server" when setting it up and what's the remote posting URL for AR?  I've set up my blogger acct but it seems like the other accts get a little trickier!!
12:48pm • #53
128,614 Points 12 Featured Posts Outside Blog

Beth - I just started a 3rd blog (AR is one of the three)... it is a great tool to just connect and go with multiple blogs...

Blogger worked well... Wordpress is awesome...

Caleb @ AR said that he does not have it linked up to automatically post to AR so he blogs in it and then cuts and pastes the HTML code into the HTML window in AR... then you can tweak it.

I found on Wordpress the only thing it didn't like was the all important H1 tag - for whatever reason it didn't format well and it was invisible text even when I changed it to black

I don't know what you mean by Community Server though... I'll look at the program and see what I find

MY GOAL: To get all my AR posts backed up and streamline posting for multiple blog sites
1:10pm • #54
JUN
12
2007
741,859 Points 18 Featured Posts Outside Blog Called Shot Master

David,

Count me in!

Just downloaded and opened a MS Live Space, too.

Oh, what fun...
9:31pm • #55
AUG
23
2007
653,516 Points 105 Featured Posts Outside Blog Called Shot Master
Thanks David. This was great information and a great share.
3:20am • #56
SEP
01
2007
308,212 Points 2 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Called Shot Master
Hi, David!  Thanks for the informative post.  I've bookmarked it for reference.  (I missed it but discovered it through Mike Mueller's post).  Happy Labor's Day!
12:19pm • #57
114,721 Points
Well David, I was trying to take off a day from AR but I think I'm going to have to give this a try. Lots of good  info. I'm new and my last blog, I wrote in publisher, was trying to figure out how to get it into AR. I ended up bringing it in via the image box.( I had put a photo in the blog) After it was published I noticed I hadn't gotten any points, I emailed AR about it and they said they didn't give points for images. I wrote back explaining what I had done and the response was sorry, it was coded as an image. I'm going to try downloading Live Writer now. Thanks again...so much to learn.
2:32pm • #58
OCT
03
2007
1 Featured Post

I have spend many hours wondering how do certain people know how to make their blogs look so good.

Thanks!! It has been bookmarked for me.
10:26am • #59
JAN
09
2008
124,145 Points

David,

I sure hope you're still monitoring comments from this post.

I have set up live writer and I'm using it for a wordpress blog I have and it works seamlessly.  I'm very happy.

Now, about Active Rain, why can't that work seamlessly as well?  Why do we have to do the cut and paste thing?  I would think the AR blog is based on wordpress or typepad or atom publishing or some other system.  Or did AR create it's own protocol or platform or whatever?  I would think that if we knew what system AR is built on we could set up our Live Writer properly.  Any ideas?  W
9:50am • #60

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David A. Podgursky, PA

Boynton Beach, FL

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Boynton Beach & Lake Worth Florida Real Estate Broker Associ

Address: Boynton Beach, FL, 33437

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