HELLO ALL! I’m back…WOW—has it
really been more than a week since my last post? Sorry for the long hiatus…As it turns out, just
like Rod Boothby from the Innovation
Creators blog, I ended up canceling my trip as I was due to fly out of
Boston to London’s Heathrow airport on the same day as the foiled
bomb plot in UK. Oddly enough, things at work also got REALLY busy, so I
decided to take a mini “blog-vacation” for the week, anyway.

So, I’m now
back into the blogosphere and sooooo much has happened in the last week that I’m
not sure where to begin—how about starting with big news on blogging tools from
Redmond?

Microsoft recently
launched
a new blogging tool, called Windows
Live Writer. The free
download “…is a desktop application that makes it easier
to compose compelling blog posts using Windows Live Spaces or your current blog service…Our
goal in creating Writer is to help make blogging more powerful, intuitive, and
fun for everyone.” Of course this is not the first application
to do this (see Qumana and Ecto),
but it definitely shows that Microsoft is starting to take blogging really seriously!

If you own a Mac, you can stop
reading here…There’s no Mac version at the moment or any indication of when one
might be available.

For PC users, here are
some of Writer’s features:

WYSIWYG Authoring
You
can now author your post and know exactly what it will look like before you
publish it.

Photo Publishing
You
can insert a photo into your post by browsing image
thumbnails through the “Insert Picture” dialog or by copying and pasting from a
web page.

Map Publishing
Writer has the ability to
insert a Windows Live
Local map directly into a blog post. The map can then be customized
directly within Writer, including changing the view to show road, aerial
or bird's eye detail and by adding pushpins.

Writer SDK
The Windows Live Writer SDK allows developers to
extend the capabilities of Writer to publish additional content types.

Compatibility
Writer is a great client
for Windows Live
Spaces but also works with other weblogs including Blogger,
LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress (and many others). Writer
supports RSD (Really Simple Discoverability), the Metaweblog
API, and the Movable Type API.

If you want
more info, start by reading a brief overview
at GigaOm, where Om Malik says “Live
Writer has the look and feel of Office 2007…It [has a] very clean interface,
and still retains some of the Microsoft Word features that would make it
attractive to a larger mainstream audience. It is not often, I say good things
about Microsoft products, but with this free blogging tool, I have to say: write on!”

For more
in-depth reviews, visit Robin Good’s MasterNewMedia blog, which includes a very informative video
(via YouTube) that really provides lots of insight into how it works. Also
check out Rod Boothby’s comments on WLW’s implications
on the Enterprise user, Tim Heuer’s blog,
a write-up on
ARS Technica, and a host of other
reviews.

Well, it’s
good to be blogging again, but there’s so much catching up to do after a week
off…Stay tuned for more!