Windows Live Writer – any meat in it?

So, I read about Windows Live Writer on a link through Social Software – topix.net. This product was developed by OnFolio, a company Microsoft acquired. I go on to download it. I wrote my first post from it on my Live Spaces blog. Connecting it to the blog account of mine was a snap. It does support TypePad, WordPress etc. Although, I was unable to connect it successfully to my WordPress blog.

I enter my account information (see below). It does a couple of things :-

Analyzing

• weblog editing style………
• downloading supporting files……….
• finalizing………..

And, here I am ready to blog.

Will I move away from Performancing plugin of Firefox? – hell no! It doesn’t allow me to blog inside of the browser. I am lazy. I’d not like to fire away a separate application to blog. My blogging is still about my reaction to a couple of research on the web as they relate to my life and work.

• I miss spell checking though, which Live Writer provides.
• There is another interesting feature – the ability to insert a Windows Live Local map directly into a post.
• The API will be the main thing that has the potential to differentiate Writer from other such tools. I’m itching to see what plugins will become available but currently there appear to be none at the Dev Site.
• GUI is nice. There is an option to edit in HTML too.

If I were a professional writer, I’d use such a tool. I’ve heard of support for writing blog from within Word 2007, which I’ve yet to try. I guess this could still be a free tool for somebody, who doesn’t want to pony out Office license fee. The Mozilla based Flock browser includes a very nice blog editor, which I want to try soon.