Windows Live Writer - No Mac Equal?

Readers of Doc’s Tech Notes will find this hard to fathom, but this post is actually being written on a Windows box using Windows Live Writer. As I’ve mentioned before, I am forced to use a Dell Windows box at work. This is a simple small inexpensive form-factor Dell box with dual monitors and Windows 7. Adequate for the job, but suffers the same problems I have with all Windows boxes…it crashes regularly, is slow to startup, lags when opening software and I regularly have to do battle with McAfee. As a productivity killer, it is doing a great job.

Luckily the campus has ubiquitous Wi-Fi and my MacBook Pro with new SSD is always at hand; however, I am really digging a piece of Microsoft software installed on my Dell called Windows Live Writer. Find out why this Mac user is really enjoying Windows Live Writer for Windows  after the click.
So let’s keep this simple and give you the bullet list of the good that is Windows Live Writer (WLV).

• FREE!
  
• Supports multiple blogs
  
• Set up is a breeze and in a couple of clicks and a few text input boxes, I was connected to my Blogger account
  
• Publish as draft to save blog post to the cloud before publishing
  
• Familiar MS Office Ribbon interface for those of us forced to use Office
  
• As you can see from the screen shot provided, WLV provides a WYSIWYG interface that is generated when you connect WLV with your blog service (in my case Blogger)
  
• A Preview tab provides an even more representative view of how your post will appear once published
  
• A Source tab is provides access to the HTML view – with none of that FrontPage HTML nonsense of days past
  
• Categories from the blog service are downloaded at setup and ready to use
  
• Support for a large collection of plugins to add additional functions such as Amazon affiliate links
  
• Rudimentary image editing provides for quick touch ups, rotation, positioning, etc

Again, I am pinching myself that I am even writing this post, but have to say, I think WLV is superior to every free and paid Mac blogging software I have tried, and trust me, I’ve tried them all. I now have this deep-seeded hope that Microsoft will consider a Mac release. For now, I’m off to my VirtualBox Windows 7 install and am adding WLV to that installation. If you know of a Mac software rival to WLV, let me know by dropping a comment below. I’ll be surprised if you find one.