I’m trying it out in writing this post and so far so good. A very polished program for a first beta [but see my post-publish edit note at the end].

Although this free editor for Windows is clearly aimed at enabling you to write and post entries to a Windows Live Spaces blog, Microsoft says it will work with any blogging platform that supports the Movable Type API and the Metaweblog API.

What that means is that it should work with all the usual suspects – WordPress, Movable Type, TypePad, Blogger, etc – who support either or both of those APIs.

It certainly works with WordPress as I set it up very easily. Or, rather, the program did that with little intervention from me.

Unlike every other blog editor I’ve used, this one automatically configured itself for my platform after I’d entered just the address of this blog. It figured out the correct API and everything else it needs to know in order to connect to the blog. It didn’t ask me to check or confirm anything remotely tech; it just got the settings, retrieved the categories I use and so let me get started blogging.

Impressive.

One other thing that really does impress me is that the program configured itself to reflect the appearance of my published posts. So I’m writing this in web layout view (there are different views to choose from including HTML code view) and seeing the exact same typefaces and sizes that I see on the published blog. I didn’t have to do anything with figuring out a style sheet or diving into some incomprehensible HTML codes.

How does it compare to ecto for Windows, my current offline editor, or others such as BlogJet and Qumana?

As an editing tool, it’s very good with none of the functionality glitches that continue to plague ecto. It also gives you a list of all your published posts as ecto and the others do. So if you want to edit an already-published post, you can do that with Windows Live Writer.

One feature I don’t see is the ability to write and publish extended posts, ie, a post that has a “continue reading” link so that you get a brief part of your post on the home page with a link to the rest of it. Maybe that will come in further betas. If not, then this might not be for you if you write lengthy posts and don’t like having the complete content on the home page. (This post is long so I’ll edit it directly in my blog after publishing it in order to split it.)

Still, it appears to be a well-rounded blog editor and manager, which certainly places it as a serious competitor in the offline blog editor market.

I’m impressed with Windows Live Writer beta after a first look and a first write. If this post publishes correctly, then this is definitely worth continuing to try.

Nice one, Microsoft.

Related posts:

New ecto for Windows released

Word 2007 supports blogging

Blog editors: An opportunity awaits

[Post-publish edit] It published fine. But, with a major problem – the date and time were wrong. Not just wrong, wildly wrong, as in November 30, 1999 at 2:00am. This is the exact same issue I noticed with the blogging tool in Word 2007 beta. Plus, it didn’t carry-through trackback URLs.

What a pity. This is a show-stopper until it’s fixed.

[Update @ 14:25] This date/time issue seems to be specific to WordPress – I was able to successfully publish a post to my Live Spaces blog with the correct date/time setting.

[Update @ 17:20] Successful post to my WordPress.com blog. So it seems to be something with the date/time settings here in this blog. Help request filed at WordPress Support.

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However, 2.1 contains a major bug – a misbehaving insert hyperlink’ function – which has been swiftly fixed in version 2.1.1 released on Wednesday. If you’ve upgraded to or recently purchased ecto for Windows, this is definitely an essential free upgrade. The easiest way to get it is to set the option in your ecto configuration to check for an updated version every time you run the program. If it finds one, it will download and install it.

Some other issues affecting some users have come to light, though, judging from recent posts in the support forum, so you can expect a new 2.1.x release soon. Another good reason to have that check for update option set.

I’ve been using ecto since 2004 and, in spite of such niggly issues, I still think it’s the best blogging tool for Windows currently out there. Developer Alex Hung will soon go into development mode for the next major version – now’s the time to let Alex know your suggestions for things you’d like to see in that next version before he freezes the feature list.

Related posts:

• Word 2007 supports blogging
• Blog editors: An opportunity awaits
• The trouble with Rocketpost

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The appearance ones, definitely, and it looks like the functionality ones as well.

This release candidate looks and behaves good enough to use full-time instead of just in testing mode. So maybe I can now leave version 1.8.8 behind. Let’s see how things behave during the coming days.

Overall, a tremendous leap towards the final product!

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Quite a bit of time with release candidate 2 of version 2 of ecto for Windows, the offline blog manager and editor which I’ve been testing over the past few weeks.

I’ve been giving the developers a bit of feedback in the ecto Windows beta forum. Lots of typing messages to post there. Yesterday I had a tricky concept to explain where writing it would have taken ages and would unlikely have enabled the developer to see what I was getting at. So I recorded a video using Camtasia Studio to show what I was getting at which seems to have done the trick. And another one this morning. If you’re testing ecto, you might find these helpful, too. Links in the thread on the forum.

A (moving) picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

This afternoon, I installed Mint on my server. This is a stats tool that will give me loads of useful info about who visits this blog, where they’re from, what they read, where they go, etc.

But just saying Mint is a stats tool doesn’t do it justice. That’s about the same as saying Cadbury’s is just a bar of chocolate.

Amazingly, I couldn’t find even a simple description on their website that concisely summarizes what Mint is and does (but there is an FAQ). Here’s a pretty good review that explains it all well. Mint doesn’t work on hosted blog services like TypePad or Blogger, by the way, only on a Linux server (see the requirements for details).

Google Analytics offers much of the same features as Mint, plus additional/different ones, and it’s free (you pay $30 for Mint). Yet I feel pretty good about supporting an independent developer. Plus Mint’s running directly off my own server. And there are some very neat add-ins called Peppers written by other independent developers. Quite a community out there.

Next up – install Gizmo. This is an internet phone service that I tried last year. Wasn’t too impressed then (and I’m still not convinced about it now) so I continued with Skype.

But if you’re a regular listener to the FIR podcasts, you might have noticed in the last couple of shows that the sound quality when I speak has been a bit iffy. Shel and I record each show over Skype, with me here in Europe and him over there in the USA doing the actual recording. We have no idea what’s causing the poor sound quality with Skype. Anyway, we’ve decided to try something else for Monday’s show. Likely to be Gizmo.

Time’s marching so I’d better get it installed

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ecto for Windows 2: Release candidate number 1 is now available. As I mentioned recently, this new version has WYSIWYG editing and other improvements over the current version 1.8.8. Some rough edges remain, though, even in RC1. Still, I think version 2 when released should prove to be a tempting upgrade.

Qumana 3 for Windows and Mac: Now in beta 3, this free Java-based application gets better with each beta. I’ve been using the Windows version and it is good – good enough for Lycos to offer it as the Lycos-Qumana Desktop Blog Editor which Qumana announced last week.

If I had to make a choice I would use ecto for Windows. That’s because it’s a tool I’ve been using since 2004, I know it pretty well, I’m more or less comfortable with it (I have a love/hate relationship with it) and is the one I fall back to after trying everything else.

Which brings me to the opposite of good work with blog editors. That’s Rocketpost. Whatever you do, do not waste money on buying Rocketpost. The application and the developer’s non-existent support is so appalling that you will experience grief if you do.

But let’s conclude on a positive note. If you need a reliable tool for managing your blog posts, you do have some good choices. ecto (Windows and Mac) and Qumana (Windows/Mac) as I mentioned. Plus BlogJet (Windows, and which I also have and use now and again). There’s also BlogDesk, a free post editor for Windows.

There are others, too – if you Google “offline blog editors,” you’ll find more. So plenty of choice.

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I thought it would be really cool if bloggers did the same. I’m more interested in how you manage your workload and the tools you use than I am in Bill Gates. Here’s my crack at it. File yours under the Technorati tag .

I work Web 2.0 style across multiple Macs and PCs. Over the past two years I have shifted most of my work off the desktop and onto the cloud. I run far fewer applications this year than I did last. I keep either Entourage or Outlook running for my corporate mail. I use PowerPoint a lot and ecto or Marsedit for blogging. Beyond these apps, pretty much everything else I run in either Firefox or Camino across multiple tabs. I keep a copy of Firefox on a one gigabyte USB key with my bookmarks and cookies so that I can work from anywhere I get my hands on a computer.

In my browser I usually keep some combination of the following sites open in browser tabs…

Box.net for storage
Backpack for tracking actions/GTD
Gmail for personal/blog mail
Writely for my daybook
Bloglines or Newsgator Online for my feeds
Meebo for IM
Google for searching
Google Bookmarks for bookmarks
Popurls for meme and news tracking (a recent addition)

Our corporate intranet

Outlook Web Access for corporate mail/calendar/addresses (when I am not in my office)

When I am at my computer I use Backpack to track my projects and next actions. I add and subtract things to the list as they come up. I keep Writely open for notes. I start a new file each week. When I am on calls I enter my notes in Writely because I know that I can always find the information I need later because the database is completely searchable from every computer I use.

On an average weekday I get anywhere from 150 – 200 emails. They are split equally between Gmail and my corporate email accounts. I have a Blackberry that receives email from both accounts. I also use my Blackberry to check RSS feeds and to update my lists in Backpack. Writely doesn’t have a mobile version yet so I can’t access my notes on the go. However, they have an email-to-document feature which I use a lot. I write up notes after meetings and email them into Writely. I go over these notes when I conduct my GTD Weekly Review. Other than a thin Moleskine Cahier notebook, which I use in meetings, I don’t use paper.

Over the past two years I have made blogging part of my regular day. You can read how I do this on Debbie Weil’s blog. It’s a critical part of my day. The feedback I get from readers as well as the information I get from RSS feeds keeps me smart about where media and marketing are going. This helps me do my part in helping Edelman stay one step ahead of the curve. My day stretches from 4:30 or 5 a.m. until as late as 8 or 9 p.m. split between the office, at home and in transit.

Information overload is at times a challenge, but I enjoy it. I subscribe to a few hundred RSS feeds and I get all of my news online. I don’t read a newspaper or watch TV. The Web is my window onto the world for both business and personal information and communication.

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Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.

He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.

Yes, it’s a beta and so you expect to encounter bugs and other quirks. On first run, though, I’m impressed especially with the changes I see in the post editor.

Now, there is true WYSIWYG editing instead of the semi-code view of past versions. You can also access full HTML code view to directly edit the code of your post. While I like the semi-code view, there’s no question I prefer the combination of a rich-text editing environment and the option to dive into the complete code if I want.

In such respects, ecto for Windows is now in line with the type of editing interaction offered by competing products like BlogJet.

Other immediate things I noticed and which I like a lot include correct post formatting. With the current version 1.8.8 and previous versions I’ve used, I had a constant problem with creating posts for this WordPress blog where the only formatting option was no line breaks’ meaning that, no matter which blog platform API ecto was configured for, I still had to manually insert start and ending paragraph tags otherwise everything would be posted as one continuous paragraph.

Now I see that the formatting drop-down list doesn’t offer me any options, but a look at the code view for this post shows those paragraph tags automatically inserted. I’m fine with that as long as it works.

Another good thing – I see the menu bar and the formatting menu now include options to format text as bulleted or numbered lists. At last!

The only bug I’ve encountered so far in writing this post is that the undo feature doesn’t seem to work.

I installed this beta on a PC which already has ecto for Windows 1.8.8 installed, so it was not a fresh install – it picked up all my blog and other settings from that install. I haven’t gone through setting up a blog from scratch with this beta so can’t comment on how well or not that works.

So a quick post with initial thoughts. I’ve not tried anything else yet (eg, insert an image or photo) which I’ll get to soon.

Initial impression – this beta version looks very good indeed. Nice work, ecto.

Related posts:

• The trouble with RocketPost
• More choices with offline blog editors
• Filling the market gap for offline blog editors
• QumanaXP public beta launched

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Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

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While I’ve not been using it for every post I’ve been writing to my blogs – I’ve been mixing and matching between ecto for Windows, my long-time offline editor, and RocketPost which I’m also trying out – QumanaXP is very impressive.

The latest beta 3.0.0-b1 reflects some serious development work over previous betas – they do listen to the testers – and shows a strong commitment by Qumana to produce a reliable tool for blogging that will stand up well against the competition.

One thing I’m very pleased (and relieved) to see is that a major issue with posting to TypePad blogs has been resolved with this latest beta. Until now, if you posted to your TypePad blog, any category you’d set in your post would not carry through to final publish. This for me was a complete show-stopper for QumanaXP. From my email conversations with the developers, it appeared that this was a TypePad issue, not a QumanaXP one. Either was, they’ve fixed it.

I also tried QumanaXP with my WordPress blog – works perfectly including with categories.

Today QumanaXP goes into public beta, meaning anyone can download the beta and take it for a spin. It will be formally launched at the Northern Voice 2006 community-based blogging and personal publishing conference taking place today and tomorrow in Vancouver, Canada.

But don’t wait – download the beta now! Try it for yourself. You might also want to take a look at the contest Qumana has launched as part of their incentivizing bloggers to use their tool

I’ll be posting more detailed commentary about QumanaXP soon.

Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.

In that post, I talked about ecto for Windows, BlogJet and Qumana as examples of popular editors for Windows (and for the Mac, in some cases) which enable you to write your blog posts offline, on your own computer.

I’m now looking closely at Anconia RocketPost, a suggestion from Netanel Jacobsson.

On just a first quick look after install, I am impressed with this tool. It’s the closest I’ve seen yet to a solution to what I believe is a yawning gap in the market for a robust and reliable blog editing application for Windows that’s easy to use yet with powerful features. A sort of Microsoft Word for blogs. Could this be the one?

RocketPost offers a 30-day free trial which I’m on. Then it’s $100 for the license for the professional version (there are three versions including a free one).

I’m writing this post with this app. Very easy and intuitive to use.More later once I’ve played a bit with RocketPost.

[Edit] Hmm. It didn’t publish without my going into TypePad directly and publishing it. The post was in the list of posts and shown as published, but it hadn’t been. I’ll hold judgment on the reason as I suspect it’s more to do with Typepad – the server response back to RocketPost from posting took a very long time (4+ minutes) and logging in to my account simply took ages.

Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.

Plus, I always have the original content on my local PC – peace-of-mind insurance if you can’t connect to your blog host for some reason (or, nightmare scenario, a problem on the remote server means you lose your stuff and you didn’t do a backup yourself).

But offline editors aren’t perfect. In my experience during the past 18 months or so, one of the problems with those for Windows PCs is that they tend to be somewhat flaky. Crashes, peculiar behaviours, even puzzling interface glitches at times.

I use ecto for Windows as well as BlogJet, both of which you pay for (they do have free trial periods) and both of which are not bad in their different ways. Yet if you take a look at the numerous technical and usability issues continually raised in the support forums for both products, it’s hardly surprising if you have less than full confidence in either of them.

Still, my editor-of-choice remains ecto for Windows, currently on version 1.8.8 and with a new version 2 in the works for release soon. BlogJet released a new version last month, currently 1.6.1.55. (I reviewed both of these tools in September 2004. A lot has changed with both apps since then, and I plan a new review sometime after the new version of ecto for Windows is released.)

One other editor for Windows which I’ve never really used to any extent is the free Qumana, currently on version 2.0.2.96. I tried it mid last year at Tris Hussey’s urging but fell back to ecto, which I’m most comfortable with (ie, I know its quirks)

Now, though, there’s a new cross-platform (Mac/PC) version of Qumana in preparation, planned for launch early next month. I’m trying out the by-invitation beta of it, the latest build of which I’ve just installed. My first acid test – writing this post with that beta.

What do I think? Well, I’ll likely be posting the odd commentary as I play with it in the coming weeks, mostly focusing on usability.

On first use, it looks promising.

Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.