One of my general principles in life is that computers should work for us, not the other way around. In this context,  am always looking for tools that simplify tasks. One of those is adding posts to my WordPress blog. The best tool I’ve found for this is a Microsoft product, Live Writer. Despite the rave reviews in the blogging community, in their infinite wisdom, Microsoft decided to discontinue this product.

The built in online editor for WordPress posts is a bit clunky and you have to be online. I find sometimes it is not so responsive and every now and then, the internet link to my hosting server goes down. I also like the convenience of writing posts while internet access is not available. Enter Live Writer.

Once installed and linked to my blog, I can compose and edit with the features of many simple word processors. It is a WYSIWYG interface with click and drag dropping of images and videos. I paste the URL of a video and the video appears in a player on the posting.

It’s got word count and spell checker built in. Before I post, it forces me to select the categories. It is pretty much my ideal offline blog post editor seamlessly integrated with WordPress.