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Being a hybrid PC-Mac user, one thing that always drives me bonkers on the Mac, is the lack of a decent blogging app. I have tried Ecto, Mars Edit, Qumana and countless others, but nothing has been less painful that booting up a VMWare copy of Windows and running a full, albeit slow, copy of Windows Live Writer.

Let me be clear in saying that no, Blogo is NOT better than Windows Live Writer. It’s not even equivalent. What it is, however, is decent. Decent will do when I don’t need to do something heavily formatted.

All of the other blogging clients forget about images and treat them like a 3rd class citizen. Blogo at least gives images proper priority and provides tools for using images in your posts.

It would be nice if it allowed you to preview your posts on your theme in realtime like Live Writer does, but at least it does give you the ability to open a preview window and see how it will look when it’s posted.

It’s nice that you can insert photos, crop them, add filters to them, but I am not a huge fan that you can’t edit and resize them in the blog post with handles like you can in Windows Live Writer.

Other seemingly missing features are the ability to specifically size the thumbnail and manually set the padding. It’s a little unintuitive to have to select the image, and then edit it via the thumbnail outside of the post.

I will also miss the tons of plugins for code formatting, videos, etc. That being said, it’s the best blogging client for Mac I have used so far and definitely worth the $25 price of admission. I guess that’s 25 more reasons I like Windows Live Writer better

We get so caught up these days in “open source” this and “proprietary” that. Sometimes it’s a good idea to forget the dogma and just talk about what is simply good software. I decided to do this in a top 10 list, and as you will see, it is not tied to either Windows or OSX. This is just a list of software I love: (In no particular order)

10 – Mozilla Thunderbird (Free)

There are tons of email clients out there. I don’t have a single thing bad to say about them really. I use Outlook 2010 at work, I have Mail and Windows Live Mail installed on my Macs and PCs respectively, but for my home use, on both PC and Mac, I use Thunderbird. I host my personal mail via Gmail and Thunderbird works very nice with IMAP mail. I did use Postbox for a while, and really liked it also, but sometimes you just can’t beat free. Thunderbird is free, cross platform, stable, fast and I just like it.

9 – Windows Live Writer (Free)

I am writing this blog using it as we speak. I use it for both personal and professional blogging on a variety of platforms (WordPress, SharePoint, Community Server) and it’s rock solid and easy to use all the way around. Unfortunately for you Mac guys out there, it’s PC only, but it’s so good that I know for a fact I am not the only one who keeps a VMWare or Parallels running on my Macs so I can use it when I need to.

8 – Pidgin IM (Free)

If you communicate with a ton of people, you can’t be tethered to a single protocol. Some people don’t mind tons of Windows and apps running. I guess my OCD tendency for order and control takes hold here. Give me one list, and one chat window, tabbed with all of my conversations, regardless of network. That’s what Pidgin does, it supports MSN, Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, Facebook, Myspace, the list goes on and on. It’s PC only, I solve this problem on the Mac using Adium.

7 – Adobe Photoshop Lightroom ($239)

Ah, the program that knocked Adobe Photoshop out of my rotation. I actually own a legal licensed copy of Adobe Photoshop CS4. The sad reality is I use it about once a month maybe. That might be exaggerating actually. I use Lightroom all the time on my Macs. It’s PC also, but I only bought the Mac version. For going through tons of photos, making adjustments and minor corrections, and quickly publishing them to services like Flickr or Facebook, it’s a photographer’s dream.

6 – Zune (Free)

I am sure you are thinking that if I didn’t have a Zune, I wouldn’t use this software. I’d slap you in the face for saying that sir! It’s all about the ZunePass. I get all you can eat music downloads for $15 a month. I can download 10 songs a month free and clear as MP3s, and run the software on 3 PCs, as well as have my music on 3 devices. To be clear, I DO have 3 Devices, a Zune HD, a 120GB Zune and an 80GB Zune, but I would have it either way. It’s beautiful, it helps you discover tons of music you never knew existed, and it’s Microsoft man!

5 – Tweetdeck (Free)

This time a year or so ago I was blogging about how I just don’t get Twitter. Now I do, and boy do I. I don’t think I could manage it the way I do without Tweetdeck. I use it at work to keep up with the world’s conversations about our products, and I use it at home to keep up with my geek pundits and tech news as a whole. It’s free, runs on Adobe Air so it runs on any platform.

4 – Dropbox (Free)

I know I have blogged it recently, but I freaking LOVE Dropbox. Probably my most favorite software right now by far. I use it all the time. I use it on my iPhone, I use it on all my PCs and Macs, I move files back and forth with it all the time. I use it with my wife and friends to share files. It’s just an amazing way to keep access to all of your files, as well as share files with others. It’s just there, it works like you would expect, and it’s fast as hell.

3 – Foxit Reader (Free)

Let me make this clear. I HATE Adobe Acrobat Reader. Not only is it the most bloated software in the world, it also tries to sneakily install crap you don’t want. Foxit Reader is a very lightweight and easy to use Acrobat Document (PDF) reader. It’s free and works like a charm.

2 – X Marks (Free)

I use Internet Explorer 8 all the time. I use Firefox a fair bit. I use Safari from time to time. How do I make sure I never have to worry about finding bookmarks? X Marks keeps them perfectly in sync on any browser on any platform. It’s install and forget. You can also manage your bookmarks online which is very handy.

1 – Handbrake (Free)

Those of you that know me, know me to be pretty damned complaint when it comes to legal software, legal music, legal video. I buy them all. One thing that grinds my gears (thanks Peter) is that when I want to watch video I have legally purchased on the go, I need to repurchase it?!? No thanks. I use handbrake on the Mac and the PC to rip my DVDs into files I can carry along with me.

Conclusion…

Wow, a top 10 list of software I love, and only one of them isn’t free. Go figure. I have of course many paid programs I use and love (Final Cut, Logic Studio, Pro Tools, Photoshop, Office, Windows) but I wanted a list of stuff that is very useful to a broad set of people. Looks like the cost of general productivity software is getting low!!! If have provided links so you can download (or buy in the case of Lightroom) I hope you enjoy the recommendations.

Sometimes we find ourselves using several computers regularly. Many times bloggers will find inspiration for a great article, but run out of time before it can be finished. If you use Windows Live Writer to compose blog posts, and you should, you might have run into this little problem. Luckily Windows Live Mesh comes to the rescue.

Windows Live Mesh

Installing Windows Live Mesh is a breeze. Go to https://www.mesh.com/ and sign in with your Windows Live ID, if you don’t have one, set it up real quick. Once you install Windows Live Mesh, you will have a little taskbar icon that looks like a blue ball. After it’s all set up on both machines, start the following tutorial:

Step 1: The Source Machine

Browse to the folder that you want to sync, in my case on Windows 7 it is Libraries > Documents > My Weblog Posts > Drafts and right-click the folder. Select “Add folder to Live Mesh.” Leave all settings default, and choose OK.

Your folder may vary if you use Windows Vista or Windows XP, be sure to browse to the correct folder. Also keep in mind that this approach will work even if the destination folder is on a different version of Windows.

Once you have shared this folder, it will be available for you to sync on any machine you have Mesh installed on, as well as available online through the web interface at www.mesh.com if you need to access it from a machine that does not have Mesh installed.

Now let’s set up the destination machine.

Step 2: The Destination Machine

We are assuming you have Mesh already installed and the desktop on the destination machine should have a light blue folder shortcut that has the same name as the folder you shared in step one. Double-click that folder and it will show the folder name in the first text box, and the location on your desktop in the second text box.

Click browse to the right of the second text box, and browse to the Drafts folder on this machine. If you are on the same version of Windows it should be in the same place, if the versions are different it might be in a slightly different location. On either machine it should be inside your Documents folder somewhere.

Once you have completed this step, a dialog will come up confirming that you want to sync the folder to this location and asking if you want to merge to this location, you want to merge, that way drafts has a two way connection and anything you start on one machine, will be available on the other.

Considerations

There are a couple of things you want to take note of. The drafts that you start on one machine, will not show up on the recent list on the second machine. The recent documents list is stored in the registry so it is not synced. The drafts will still be easy to access, just click open in Windows Live Writer and they should be right there under “Drafts.”

The other thing to consider is publishing. When you publish something you will get a unique publish ID assigned by the system. If you open a published draft on the second machine and attempt to republish, you will have unexpected results. Instead of updating, it will publish again as the second machine will assign a new publish ID. This technique is best reserved for sharing unpublished drafts.

   1: <script type="text/javascript">

   2:             

   3:             window.onload = function() {

   4:  

   5:                 //define message default

   6:                 document.getElementById('message').innerHTML = "(please press a button...)";

   7:  

   8:                 //setup events

   9:                 document.getElementById('btnStart').onclick = playIt;

  10:                 document.getElementById('btnStop').onclick = stopIt;

  11:  

  12:             }

  13:  

  14:             function playIt() {

  15:                 document.getElementById('message').innerHTML = "you pressed PLAY";

  16:                 document.getElementById('btnStart').style.backgroundColor = 'yellow';

  17:                 document.getElementById('btnStop').style.backgroundColor = '#ccc';

  18:             }

  19:  

  20:             function stopIt() {

  21:                 document.getElementById('message').innerHTML = "you pressed STOP";

  22:                 document.getElementById('btnStart').style.backgroundColor = '#ccc';

  23:                 document.getElementById('btnStop').style.backgroundColor = 'yellow';

  24:             }

  25:             

  26:  

  27:         </script>

Get the plugin here.

I have been playing with this for quite a while now and nearly begging Joe Cheng and the Live Writer Team to let me blog about it.

I have raved about Windows Live Writer before but now you really have something special for your blog writing needs. Special enough that I even use it (via a virtual machine) on Mac because nothing for OS X comes close.

So what is new in this new version of Live Writer you ask? Well, let me show you…

Fun with Images

The most obvious change you will find on blog posts is the addition of new ways to view your images. The new image styles show reflections, pixel borders, rounded images and even allow you to tilt the image in question for dramatic effect…

In addition to these effects, you can also use the filter effects from before and even crop a photo from the original right in live writer!

In addition to these display features, you can also seamlessly integrate with your favorite modal popup type like Lightbox, Slimbox, etc. One other oft-requested feature is the ability to center images as well.

The beginnings of video integration are there as well with Soapbox support. Of course there are a myriad of plugins to work with your other favorite video sites.

Editing

One thing I am super excited about in this release is auto-linking. Not only can you create a database of words and phrases you use a lot and set them to link automatically, you can also do it as you create a link through the interface:

This is really useful to get your database going as you write instead of trying to think of things when you first set it up or forgetting to add them later when you think of them.

User Interface

Also big to those that really tweak their posts is the new tabbed interface for Edit, Preview and Source. Now you can quickly flip back and forth between these three modes with no effort.

The toolbar has been cleaned up a bit and for those of you like me with tons of categories, you can now search and filter for those quickly instead of browsing a monster list. This makes it really easy to get your posts in the right place.

SDK Updates

From what I understand this is where the real meat to this new version is. I don’t develop against it, so I can’t say for sure but for more details about the SDK, please see the blog post on Windows Live Dev.

Final Thoughts

Collectively these may not sound like a huge major release and I agree, if I was paying for it I would have to really need these features to pony up an upgrade, but this software is F R E E folks. It costs you nada, it’s not ad supported and has no nag ware. Windows Live Writer was already the best blogging software on the planet, and now it’s gotten even better. For those of you who are not already familiar with Live Writer as it stands now, I cannot recommend it enough.

The team that works on this product at Microsoft is passionate, brilliant and don’t ever stop thinking of cool things to make your blogging life easier. It would be interesting to try and take some sort of straw poll to see how many professional bloggers are already using this tool, there really is nothing like it.

So now you want it right? Get your butt over to the Live Writer Team blog and download it now.