Windows Live Writer– Live Essentials

New beta version of Windows Live Writer is a now available with Live Essentials. You can download it from Windows Live Essentials 2011.

As a blogger (and not a Microsoft Employee), I have always found Windows Live Writer is one of the best free products from Microsoft. I maintain several blogs (http://nextnewton.spaces.live.com, http://mohdabubakr.blogspot.com, http://blogs.msdn.com/perdude, http://sarfaroshthemagazine.spaces.live.com) along few blogs which I have discontinued writing and to write content on all these blogs, it is tedious to learn all the different formatting options available. With Windows Live Writer, I have been able to compose content, set the formatting and publish the content, without even bothering about the formatting options provided by Live Spaces or Blogspot. Just format once in Windows Live writer and it automatically takes care rest of it. 

Here’s some cool things about Windows Live Writer

1. Ribbon Menu (similar to MS Office applications).
2. Options to format (enhance/style) photographs. (Also available in older versions)
3. Easy to post the content across multiple blogs without bothering about formatting. (Also available in older versions)
4. Plugin to link videos on YouTube. (Also available in older versions)
5. Posting Emoticons.  (Note: You can find the same Emotions in MS Office Communicator)
6. You can insert Bing Maps. (I believe this is a new … and looks very cool).