Windows Live Writer Beta just keeps getting better

Microsoft has got a winner in its hand. And its name is Windows Live Writer Beta. This is one application that Microsoft is not only developing with enthusiasm, but also taking inputs from end users and working tirelessly on it. After a long time I have seen a Microsoft app that just works right, is not bloated, is a very small download and with lots of plugins to help it out. Don't be surprised at the ease of use that Windows live Writer Beta offers you. And it still is in Beta.

Well, now a days, beta is the in thing. Its cool to tag around Beta with the name of your product/site. I mean everywhere you go online, you would find only betas.

Okay, so I strayed off topic. The topic is the Windows Live Writer. After making about fifty posts with Writer, I would gladly recommend it to anyone. I liked w.Bloggar and Performancing, but there were a lot of stuff they didn't get right. Writer supports a lot of blogging platforms right out of the box. I have found it works best with Spaces and Wordpress blogs. It works with Blogger and Blogger Beta. Though there are two very important features that I miss a lot. One I hope will be sorted out soon, and that is labels. Writer as yet does not support Blogger Beta labels. But do expect support for it very soon.

The other feature is image uploads. And that I don't think would work anytime soon. Not that Microsoft doesn't know how to implement it. But plainly because of Google's stubbornness of not allowing any other software or platform to upload images to its server. It means only Hello and Picasa as yet support image uploads, though they to suffer hiccups as of now. And Hello is soon to be phased out. So you will have to use Picasa or go and upload images manually.

There are many other options to include images in Writer when posting to Blogger Beta such as FTP and Flickr. But I am sure you will agree it is quite cumbersome and if you are a regular blogger and have to make many posts, you just don't feel it right.

Anyway's, hoping against hope some common sense will prevail at Google and they will open the image upload API.

Getting w.Bloggar to work with Blogger Beta

Getting w.Bloggar to work with Blogger Beta

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I signed up for Blogger Beta. Only to find out that none of my posting softwares work. I earlier used to use w.Bloggar, and had been using Windows Live Writer for the last few days. I downloaded w.Bloggar's latest version and tried setting it up with my new Blogger Beta blog. Behold the Beta Gods. It said my username/password didn't match. I realised it was not connecting to the beta interface, but rather to the old Blogger interface. And the old Blogger interface cannot login a Google Accounts username/password.

Being a lazy person, I searched the net first to see if womeone else had come up with a solution. My search yeilded no results. So I tried to play with the w.Bolggar account settings. Luckily, I got it right in the first attempt. Anyways, I decided to share this info with you all. So here is a step by step with screenshots (click on them to enlarge).

Getting w.Bloggar to work with Blogger Beta :
Requirements :

1. A Blogger Beta blog
2. w.Bloggar
3. Internet connection

Instructions :
Step 1 : Fire up the account selection box in w.Bloggar. You can reach it by Clicking on File, Select Account or by pressing F9

Step 2 : Click on the Icon next to the account name.

Step 3 : Selct New

Step 4 : Select "Yes, I want to add it as a new account"

Step 5 : Select Custom from the drop down list and fill in a name for you account. Select Ping if you would like to notify Weblogs or Technorati upon updates. Click Next.

Step 6 : Keep the settings as is. Click Next.

Step 7 : In the Host field type in "beta.blogger.com". (Without the quotes, of course!)

Step 8 : In the Path field type in "/api". (Without the quotes, of course!). Click "Next"

Step 9 : Type in your Google Accounts username/email and your password. Select "Save password" if you would like w.bloggar to remember your password.

Step 10 : Click Finish. You are done.

Do send your comments and feedbacks.

Blogger Beta is here!

Blogger has just gone beta with lots of new and exciting options. It us beta yet so don't expect it to be smooth. But most importantly it has some long awaited and needed features. For example, labels (tags), Comment feeds, Google Accounts integration and some other features. So here I am at this new blogging platform. Hopefully it will be a smooth sailing, keeping in mind Google's track record. So I keep my fingers crossed and hope to continue blogging nonstop on the new Blogger Beta.

Go ahead give Blogger Beta a try here : http://beta.blogger.com/
Or you can try migrating your blog to the new platform by following this link : http://www.blogger.com/migrate-login.g
Note : Bogger Beta is currently not accepting migration requests. But keep trying. Here is what it shows right now :