Windows Live Writer, Dual postings.

One if the big advantages of using Windows Live Writer to publish your blogs posts is if you have more than one blog and each is on different blogging platforms. I am in this position, I have two blogs on Wordpress.com and also two on Blogger. Windows Live Writer allows me to send the same post to both at the same time, so I can do a ‘double’ posting to each one. In this post, I will be showing you how to do this, step by step.  Firstly you will need to set up both your Wordpress.com blog in Live Writer and also your Blogger blog. For this how to, I’m going to use my Photo blogs in order to demonstrate how to set them up in Writer and then how to publish the exact same post to both of them.

Review: Flock the Social Browser.

I have made no secret in the past that I love using Flock the social browser. I have used it for a good many years, but in its former incarnation when it used Firefox as its base, it did tend to be rather slow and cumbersome.  Yesterday the latest version of Flock, now based on Chrome, was released. . In this post, I intend to explain why using Flock in order  update all of my social feeds makes my life so much more convenient to be able to not only see all of your twitter/Facebook, RSS feeds, YouTube and Flickr updates in the sidebar, but also be able to instantly access any links, reply or tweet yourself with just one click.

 

Windows Live Essentials 2011. Windows Live Writer.

Of all the programs included in the Windows Live Essentials suite, Live Writer was probably the most obvious one to benefit from the use of the ribbon interface. Before this update, it was amazing just how many had been using Live Writer for their blogs and were not aware of many of the features contained within it. To give one example many users did not realise they could add a watermark to their photos from within Writer or alter their photos by applying different effects. These features were all tucked away out of sight under the ‘Advanced’ area in the sidebar originally, but now that they are offered to the user in easy to see icons across the ribbon when they click on a picture or photo, they are constantly visible and only one click away to access.

Windows Live Essentials 2011. Live Movie Maker.

 

Windows Live Movie Maker has already received both the ribbon interface and lots of new features during the past year, so compared to the other applications in  Windows Live Essentials suite, it hasn’t really had all that many new features added in its 2011 incarnation. However the new addition of Auto Themes is a really great feature that allows anyone who has never created a Movie before to be able to make a fantastic and professional looking movie with just one click from the ribbon interface is a stroke of genius in my opinion.

 

Windows Live Essentials 2011. Live Photo Gallery.

 

As with all of the other applications in the Essentials suite of programs for your desktop, Live Photo Gallery has received some very welcome new features in the new 2011 update. Beginning with the use of the Ribbon Interface to make finding all of those really great features much easier, to a brilliant new addition to the Create tab, there is now a multitude of editing and creative things you can do with your entire photo collection. Here are just a few of my favourite new features.

 

Windows Live Essentials 2011. Windows Live Messenger.

 

Windows Live Messenger has undergone some very extensive changes in Windows Live Essentials 2011. . It is now far more than just an instant messaging program, it is a fully functioning social networking centre which brings together all of your connected social networks inside the Messenger Social  window so that you don’t have to visit all of those different websites which often means having  to create yet another account..  Whether your family and friends are on Facebook or MySpace or any of the other services that you have chosen to connect to. You can see all of their updates, comment on them,  share photos and videos with them without leaving your desktop in order to do so.  Messenger has now become the ultimate social dashboard for staying in touch whilst eliminating the noise. Here are just a few of my favourite features.

Windows Live Essentials 2011. Windows Live Mail.

I have used Windows Live Mail as my only method of writing and sending out emails since its first appeared many years ago, and I consider it unequalled in its ease of setting up your email accounts, requiring no knowledge whatsoever by the user of any settings.  Windows Live Mail copes with just about everything that you need to read or access on your computer and does so in an easy to use format and now that it has received the ribbon interface, its even easier to use because all the most important features that the average user is likely to need  are presented in readily available icons across the top ribbon needing just one simple click to access.