A Word of Warning about Microsoft Live Writer
I know, I know, that's what I get for using beta software (from Microsoft no less), but might I recommend that if you choose to try out Windows Live Writer, that you decline when it offers to try and download your blog theme to improve the preview feature:
Reminds of my college newspaper days, when 20,000 copies hit the street with this gem of a headline (A 2-line headline is referred to as a "double-decker"):
A Triple Decker
Goes Up Here
And Down Here
I do love the promise of applications like Ecto and Live Writer, especially for someone trying to manage posts among multiple blogs. The emergence of blog management tools like that (from Microsoft no less), and of fully hosted services like Living Dot suggests an attractive market is forming as people and companies learn that much like traditional publishing, blogging does not scale comfortably without both technical and organizational effort.
It should be interesting to see that market develop as attention expands from tools designed for individual bloggers (or small teams) to ones meant for managing dozens or hundreds (look for something like an InCopy for blogging in the not-too-distant future).
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Comments: 7
[10.09.07 08:16 PM]
So what are you warning us about? I saw the post, ignored it, and guess what? It didn't change my life.
It's a little melodramatic here to "warn" people about something as simple as this.
I have no relationship with MS or Windows Live Writer - except as a satisfied user. One that thinks you over-reacted here, and owe the development team an apology. This isn't worthy of a warning.
Hardly worthy of a mention.
It's a freaking test message for crying out loud. One you specifically allowed to be sent.
Rob
[10.09.07 08:33 PM]
That's fair, Rob, thanks for the comment. I certainly don't put the blame on anyone but myself (and thought that was clear in the post, though I can see how the title might be misinterpreted).
I actually do like Live Writer, and will continue to use it (though not for my Radar posts, at least until Draft Posting with MT is supported).
[10.09.07 08:40 PM]
Andrew - no biggie. But titles are all a lot of people look at. They are worth some consideration. I DID understand through your post that you had the opportunity to say no.
But there is so much negative coverage on MS and I think Windows Live Writer is one shining example of what MS *IS* doing right. This is the output from a MS acquisition. A MS acquisition that has done great things (for free!) to numerous bloggers.
I use WLW to post to nine different blogs on four different blogging platforms. I couldn't do that without WLW.
But I have asked if they could instead use a draft post for these test messages - no reason to publish it, as far as I can tell!
Rob
[10.09.07 10:34 PM]
I'm with Rob on this that this is one of the positive things MS is doing in this space. I've been using WLW for quite a while on both Blogger and Wordpress without any problems. The odd test post coming through a feed doesn't bother me that much and won't stop me reading the Rader blog.
[10.10.07 02:41 AM]
An investment bank once sent out a piece of research on a company which still had "For Internal Use only" on it.
It became one of the most read pieces of research simply because investors thought it had insider information in it, when in fact it was simply a goof.
[10.10.07 03:43 AM]
I've had those messages several times over the period I used LiveWriter. Just about any time it downloads site information from the blog, in fact.
I agree with the "Microsoft, no less" remark, and I like LW a lot, but I use Scribefire most of the time because it's much faster and I already know what my blogs look like.
[10.10.07 09:44 AM]
Hey,
I'm a dev on Windows Live Writer. Thanks for the feedback (and the comments thread!).
We do attempt to minimize the need to post a temporary post - we only do so if we can't figure out the template information just by looking at your weblog itself. We usually can do this based upon existing posts, but from time to time, we can't and we resort to the temporary post. Of course, we always prompt you first, since we know it might be pretty undesirable for us to do this in some cases.
We do, unfortunately, need it to appear as a published post rather than just as a draft :(.
Best,
Charles
