I usually don’t use Wordpress’ “write post” page to write blog entries unless I am using linux. Although there are some web clients as well, it is not better than wordpress’ post screen. I was using Windows Live Writer but nowadays I have switched to Word 2007 to post blogs. First of all, Word 2007 offers a reach interface comparing to Windows Live Writer. On the other hand Live Writer’s plugin support is better than Word’s; however I don’t use any plugin for the user interface. Second, Windows Live Writer is so slow to start and work. Windows Live Writer is not as good at formatting html as Word 2007 does. With Word 2007 you have the benefits of the rich platform, especially if you have a document written in word, it is easy to post it.

I am surprised with the support of many blog platforms, including wordpress of course.

You are able to use existing documents to format your post and the interface is nice to use for formatting the post.

We are getting close to Minority Report as a futuristic sense. Microsoft has updated their Virtual Earth product to take a ride around some cities. The world is getting smaller.  It’s impressive to take a race car or a sport car to hang around Seattle or San Francisco or you might want to walk as well. Those cities will be more in a matter of time. Unfortunetely, we are really approching the limits of virtual world than Singularity is near.

Blog it from Windows Live Writer.
Windows Live Writer is a new desktop application for composing blog posts to your blog service.

Usage

Currently the addon posts a page link or selected text to Windows Live Writer. You can access it from the context (right click) menu or the main menu.
To use it you need to have Windows Live Writer installed on your machine.

Screenshots

Download Firefox Extension

From Mozilla Add-ons Site - Live Writerfox

Currently it is pending for aproval on firefox site, you can download from the link below.
It is now available on firefox site as well.

From my Site

Install Live Writerfox or

Changelog

v0.4 (2008-06-21)
Firefox 3.0 Support

v0.3 (2006-10-25)
Added Firefox 2.0 Support

v0.2 (2006-08-27)
Added toolbar button Blog It
URL issue has been fixed
Removed extra double-quotes

v0.1 (2006-08-19) - Initial Stable Version.
Blog a page.
Blog selected text.

Just a great blog poster from Microsoft Live team, Windows Live Writer. A fully featured blog writer with the support of trackbacks, image editing, image uploads, spell checking.. I am just posting this with Live Writer on wordpress blog and looks very cool. I didn’t like any blog posting tools for while. Lastly I just tried performancing for firefox, I was thinking of using it till I saw this tool.

You don’t have to configure the API’s URL you only type the URL of your blog and writer recognizes your blog api and all the settings you need to post.  The view settings are nice, you can edit the html code and WYSIWG. Also you can view your site’s theme before you post.

Screenshots

Auto Configuring Blog Settings.

Auto Configuration Complete

Editor Windows

Web Preview View

I was surfing on the developer site of Windows Live . I saw the new (for me) MSN SDK. Lastly there was only activity sdk which is not real SDK.
The new Messenger Add-in SDK is included inside MSN Live messenger, althought the site says it is a seperate download.

Anyway to use it,

• Add the key to windows registry -> HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\ MSNMessenger\ AddInFeatureEnabled 1



• Create a class library project
• Add MessengerClient.dll which is located on the messenger installation directory
• Use the interface to create the addin, the code will guide you on how to do that

public class AutoReply : IMessengerAddIn
    {
        MessengerClient m_messenger;
 
        void IMessengerAddIn.Initialize(MessengerClient messenger)
        {
            m_messenger = messenger;
            AddInProperties properties = m_messenger.AddInProperties;
            properties.Creator = "Can Erten";
            properties.Description = "Test";
 
            m_messenger.IncomingTextMessage += new EventHandler<IncomingTextMessageEventArgs>
(m_messenger_IncomingTextMessage);
        }
 
        void m_messenger_IncomingTextMessage(object sender, IncomingTextMessageEventArgs e)
        {
            m_messenger.SendTextMessage("Unavailable..." + e.UserFrom.FriendlyName, e.UserFrom);
            if (m_messenger.LocalUser.Status != UserStatus.Online)
            {
                string message = m_messenger.LocalUser.PersonalStatusMessage;
                m_messenger.SendTextMessage("Unavailable..." + e.UserFrom.FriendlyName, e.UserFrom);
            }
        }
 
    }


As you can see it is very simple and well developed class library. Thanks to MSN team for being that clear.

• The different part for the delivery is the assembly name. You need to change the assembly name to the namespace and class name.
• Run Msn messenger, in the options windows, addin tab add your dll file. That’s it.

Finally you might want to debug the addin. To do this in visual studio, attach to msn process, make breakpoints and here we go, just debug as normally you do