Monday, August 14, 2006

Testing. I'm in beta, watch out!

I mostly despise computers. Really, I do. I like using them as tools, I do it all day long for work, and often far too much at home. However, I don't actually like mucking around with them anymore.

Case in point, I started reinstalling my main machine last night. Too many years, too many odd things, have made it start to act funny. Plus, I wanted to upgrade a drive in it anyway. Man, I hate reinstalling.

However, despite all that, sometimes I like trying out new, silly software. Today's silly software is a piece of blogging software by none other than Microsoft. I really should find out some day how some of these little side projects actually get released as a Microsoft product. I know how hard it is for me to get a company product released, I'm not sure how they let these slip through.

Anyway, just announced today is a beta of something they call Windows Live Writer. It is of course aimed at their new Live site. However, they have nicely included support for other blogs. Not just for posting either, using the crappy Blogger API they were actually able to pull down my previous posts, and my visual style.

Now, rather than using the horrendous Blogger web interface (Google, you're sleeping at the wheel, yo), I can use a familiar interface. Supposedly this may be a small foreshadowing of the Blog support to be included in Word 2007. I really don't care, I just hope it doesn't have the standard Word annoyances, thus far it hasn't.

Oh, did I mention that now the spell check uses your system dictionary, so all that stuff you have taught it in Word or Outlook is still there. Nice. Plus it actually saves drafts for me, rather than eating them.

Well, if you are reading this, I believe this program has accomplished all that I wanted from it. I'm pleased.

UPDATE: Here is a link to the app. Also, here is a review that has already been written, linked from UneasySilence.

...and a screenshot for Ryan:

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