Microsoft come in for a lot of flack from the OSS world and the Mac users think they are better than everyone else when it comes to software. But I was surprised again today by how good Windows Live Writer integrates with my WordPress Blog, to such an extent that I will in all probability not use the WordPress WYSIWYG editor in the browser, for which I have a reason or two. Firstly, the WYSIWYG editor runs in the browser and I find quite a few things annoying:

• When I create a blockquote it adds a lot of spacing around it for some reason
• When I update a post or page the scrollbar will go to the top, instead of staying where I last edited
• The working area is relatively small

Compare this to what Windows Live Writer offers:

• Seemless integration with the blog engine. It was so easy to setup and it detects everything, from your theme to all your posts
• When you write a post you can edit it directly on a themed page, or you can do it in source view. You can also preview it perfectly
• You have access to ctrl + b, ctrl + i. A total lie on my part. I was using the HTML view here and not the Visual View! WordPress does support ctrl + b and crtrl + i.
  
• You dont lose scroll position
• Publishing is easy and seemless

So in my view Microsoft have really done well with this free piece of software, it just works, and it works better than some Firefox plugins I have used as well.