geeky tutorials, tips, guides and reviews
I spent much of my weekend playing with the beta version of the new Windows Live Writer, and I do have say – they have won me over again. This program is sleek, it gets the job done and really – it is hard to believe that it is put out there by Microsoft for free, because there is no close competitor to Windows Live Writer out there. So lets take a look at why you might want to switch your blog updating to this magnificent tool.
Now most of the time, free applications from Microsoft aren’t worth trying out – but I have found one that really is. Windows Live Writer has to be one of my favorite programs to use to write up new blog posts across my own network of websites. It is really simple to use, and it gets the job done.
Things looking a little different today? Over the weekend, I was able to finish up my redesigned look for Mitchelaneous.com. Go check it out, and let me know what you think. This place has gone from being my own personal blog to more of a junk drawer of my thoughts, cool things I find and tons of geeky entertainment.
I hope you have enjoyed the evolution over the years and this new version of the website too. If you have any feedback – or there is something you would like to see me cover, be sure to leave a comment and let me know.
Thanks to you all, I appreciate all my wonderful RSS subscribers and website visitors. Without you guys and gals, I’d just be rambling on to myself. (I’m not, am I?)
You know I am having a good day when I can get two of my favorite services talking to one another. Another reason why I picked Twhirl as my Twitter client of choice is because of it’s easy integration into another awesome service I love to use, Ping.fm.
So how do you get the two to talking to each other? First, you need to open up Twhirl and wrench icon, which will open up the configuration menu.
Now, you will need to go down to where it says, “Post status updates to other services”. Click on the checkmark box next to Ping.fm.
Click the key icon next to the empty text box to go get your API key from Ping.fm. Copy it from the Ping.fm web site, paste it into the empty text box and then hit the “Save” button.
Each time you update via Twhirl, your updates should also to to Ping.fm which can in turn update Plurk, LinkedIn, Tumblr, FriendFeed and more. Now when your all done, you can come follow me @mitchkeeler.
Pingvine is a neat new application that takes an Atom or RSS feed from your web site or blog, and publishes it to a few of the other “lifestreaming” sites out there. Currently it works with Ping.fm, Identi.ca and Twitter.
All you do is give it your login information for one of those three choices, give them your blog’s RSS feed and tell them how often they should look for an update to tell the world about. Personally, I have been using Ping.fm a lot – to put my own work out there on all the various social networks I belong to. This could save me the trouble of having to do so manually through Ping.fm’s web site.
You can sign up for free on Pingvine.com!
Dear Apple, please stop it with the useless updates…
Is it just me, or is Apple starting to remind you more of the Real Player more and more? Or perhaps, maybe Adobe and the 10,000 unrelated updates it asks for?
I have always been a big fan of VideoLAN – VLC media player, and with the most recent upgrade it looks like the best just keeps getting better.
The biggest improvement over past versions is that the FLV support is much better. So if you download a lot of YouTube (or any of the other video sharing sites) videos, you will no longer have to reload the player if you try to fast forward or rewind. You can check out the full list of features too for this tiny player, if you are not impressed yet. For more on this most recent release, check out the “What is cool in 0.9″ page or check out this video:
VLC media player 0.9.2 – Grishenko from Antoine Cellerier on Vimeo.
I was really behind Odeo years ago, thought it might be one of the break out podcasting web sites out there. Of course, then came iTunes and all the podcasting related sites just kind of got twisted in a tornado of, "what was that you do again?". Odeo is back though, with a fresh new look and I have to say it does look really pretty.
They have added a lot more video content – so they have both the video and audio aspects of podcasting covered now. Also the new design is pleasing to the eye and very functional. One little pet peeve for me was that it doesn’t keep me logged in. Each time I visit the site I have to login again.
Checking out my own page on there for the Web Hosting Show – I see another nice new addition. They actually updated the RSS feed! Before this redesign, it hadn’t been combed in a few months, so happy to see they are updating the podcast feeds they are watching because without it – well, you don’t have much of a podcasting service without freshness.
All in all, I wish the new Odeo the best of luck and who knows, if they can keep the feeds update this time around I might move my own subscriptions over there soon.
Hello civilized world! Since Thursday, I have been without power due to the big storms that crossed north Texas and Oklahoma that night. Best report I have heard thus far was 80 mph winds but I have a feeling it was a lot more than that.
Also with the way things were torn up around here, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out there was some tornadic activity that night as well. Last night I finally got power back here, so I am slowly getting caught up with all that I missed out on. Here are a few photos of the damages:
Everybody around here is OK which is the most important thing, but I might be cutting down and carrying off limbs and trees for a month or so trying to get the outside back to normal.
Ok, maybe I am a little behind the times – or am very careful before I give Microsoft the fair shake. Whatever my reason was, I never tried Windows Live Writer till the other day. I figured it would be like every other blog updater I’ve seen out there. It would do everything but (insert feature here). Well, I am happy to say that Windows Live Writer does it all – and does it well.
I am damned impressed with the entire product. I hate to sound like an anti-Microsoft goon, but it is a little hard to believe they developed such a nice product. (Just in case any of the Microsoft guys are reading, really don’t mean that as a back handed compliment) It worked with WordPress right off the bat too with no problems at all.
Inserting pictures into posts is as easy as dragging the image from the desktop of folder into the main editing window of Live Writer. It gets automatically uploaded, just as any other image would to my hosting account. The in-dept draft feature is nice too. I can save as a draft here on my machine, or on the server.
The only downside I have found (and this might be more my fault than Microsoft’s) is the Web Layout preview doesn’t work that well with all of the various places I write. Other than that though I would highly encourage any and all to go check it out if you haven’t. Windows Live Writer is definitely worth your time for sure and won’t cost you any money.
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Mitch Keeler is nothing more than your average Joe trying to leave his mark on the world though both his professional work and his online projects, articles, podcasts and more.
