I just installed the beta of Windows Live Writer on my XP desktop. After reviewing it, I thought I’d give it a try. Running a program on my PC in order to post to my blogs seems a little contradictory to me, but on the other hand, I usually end up writing drafts in notepad, then pasting them anyway. This way, I can write the post and actually preview it, and Writer has some really cool plugins that allow me to insert screenshots, Flickr images, and more. I have more options available on my laptop, which is running Vista, but the basics work quite well on their own. This is the first post using Live Writer, and it’s more of a test than a review. But based on my experience so far, I like it. I wish I could set up my Virb and Tumblr blogs on it, as well as my Wordpress installations. It wasn’t immediately apparent if I could, and I haven’t devoted any time to figuring it out.

Writer allows you to set up multiple blogs. The post editing can be done in a semi-preview mode, which shows the entry, as you write it, in the size and layout of your actual blog. It imports the HTML and CSS setting from the blog, and you can preview each post before publishing it. Formatting and editing is easy, and previewing changes is MUCH nicer than doing so in Wordpress. On the other hand, at this point, I don’t know what is going to happen when I click “Publish”.

I would probably use a tool like this much more on my laptop, when I am away from an internet connection and want to work on a blog post, but I see myself drafting my entries here instead of in notepad from now on.