Several weeks ago I was talking to one of my old friends, Mitch. Mitch and I first met many years ago when I was teaching a computer course he took at Massanutten Technical Center. We later became friends as a result of our mutual appreciation for cigars and computers.
He was saying that he has created a blog that had 10,000 views as of November 9th. We proceeded to talk about blogging and some of the tips and tricks of the trade. He supplied me with many.
He mentioned that it was very hard to post to his WordPress.com account, "Heritage Basket Weaving & Chair Caning.” He told me how difficult it is to add new posts to his blog using the WordPress Dashboard and I agreed. The geek in me knew a better way.
Microsoft created a tool for posting to your own blog several years ago called "Live Writer." If you are a blog owner I highly recommend it to you. It is actually a portion of a larger MS suite called "Windows Live Essentials." You can find out all about it at the MS site, or you may search for it using its name.
At this time there are a total of 11 applications which may be installed with Live Writer. You may find some of them to be beneficial. After you download the small installer file from the site and you are ready to install "Live Essentials" select, "Choose the programs you want to install." If you choose the other option you will install all 11 applications which include Messenger, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Family Safety (good if you have little ones in the house who are sometimes online), and Live Mail to name a few. Most of them are excellent apps but you may not need them all.
If you are a blog owner you know the hassle it can be to post using the dashboard but with the writer application it is much, much easier. There are a few setup questions to get started but after that you will be on posting "easy street." I use "Live Writer" to post all of my articles to the Double Clicks site and you know me…all of these apps are free.
You can add graphics (just like the one on the left) to your blog just by pasting them where you want them. You can easily resize them and place them on the page. The text will appear exactly as you put it on the page and not "jump" around after your post is online. Another very useful feature is that you can write the post and tell it a time to actually put it on your site, whether it is hours, days, weeks or even longer. There are a number of other great features included in the application.
I found after an article several weeks ago that there are a lot of you out there blogging. If you are a blog owner you simply have to try this out. I am sure you will not be disappointed.
As always, if you try it, let me know how you like it.
