More by accident than design I’m back using Windows LiveWriter. I got here via the need to upgrade my Nokia N95 firmware the installer for which only runs on Windows. As a Mac user that meant installing Parallels and then XP. I cannot for the life of me get Vista to run in Parallels, despite having 2GB physical memory.
Running LiveWriter on a Mac may seem heresy in the eyes of some but a necessity nonetheless. ecto, my preferred blog writer is too long in the tooth and doesn’t give me the WYSIWYG control I need. The new version is not that much better and I’m not a fan of MarsEdit which seems to have gone into development hybernation. The online WordPress default editor is functional but temperamental, although it does have some nifty plug-ins like All-in-one SEO.
LiveWriter has come on in leaps and bounds since I last tried it with 79 plug-in additions in the portfolio, most of which are useful to different users. The Digg plug-in is a washout. It doesn’t work or at least causes errors when I try to use it.
The ability to create tables is a must have item for someone in my profession. It’s something that I’ve missed from the other available editing tools.
LiveWriter runs very quickly. Admittedly I am not running any Office software and only have Newsgator FeedDemon running in background. Therefore the computing resources I’m consum
ing are minimal compared with having the usual array of business applications running on the desktop.
The bottom line is that even though I’m an avowed Mac fan, there is nothing on the market that beats LiveWriter from completeness and ease of use. When we’re thinking about adoption of new technologies, these are the issues that really matter.
Does that mean I’ll be moving over to Windows running on Mac for everything I do? No. the Mac platform is way too good for me to waste time with the never ending stream of Windows patches and reboots taking up my time. At least with Parallels, I can leave them running in background while I do something else.
What I need is the discipline not to get carried away thinking that maybe, just maybe I could do everything I want on Windows XP. History teaches me that gorgeous though LiveWriter may be, the risk isn’t worth taking.
I’ve said it elsewhere but the best thing Microsoft could do is provide a cross platform version of this terrific free tool. Apple already claims that its Intel based machines are the best for running Windows. That may be so but most people will prefer a single environment. Getting LiveWriter to the Mac community would be a genuine olive branch with little or no downside risk and a nice way to market
. Until then…
