Testing Out Live Writer

I am sitting here eating Cheetos and drinking sweet tea, contemplating the dinner plan for tonight. There may not be pictures, but I can at least promise that we will have our first actual cooking related post tonight. While I'm sitting here thinking about things, I figured I would give the Windows Live Writer a try and talk about pros and cons of the actual program. Then I will talk about some goals and plans for the blog, since I hate to start a pattern of blogging off topic. On the topic of the actual blog, I am still working on customizing it, adding gadgets, putting the CC License up, creating a grab button that you will find in the right side bar. So you may notice it changing frequently until I get settled. I do apologize to the Firefox users who visit, because for some reason, probably due to the theme I have to use, some of my headers like the date and the gadget titles have blurs around them like ink that has gotten wet. I haven’t figured out how to fix that yet. According to the site where I got the background, I should be using minima or photowindow, but with the old minima theme I lose customization, and it appears that when you use the other themes (include photowindow) you are putting the theme on top of the background and it looks horrible. I will say that I am not a fan of the limited themes and what not in the design tab.

Moving on, let’s talk about Live Writer, which basically allows you to type up blog entries and publish them to your blog without going to blogger. I’ve been told that it has tons of features and plugins, but I have not tried them yet. You can get here for free. Hopefully I will be able to use these features as I continue on my mission. So lets talk pros and cons so far:

Pros

Spell check is automatic so there is no need to click the button each time.

Familiar work space if you are used to using Microsoft Word 2007

Your posts will look exactly as they will when published

If you have multiple blogs, like I do, you can write posts for both in the same program, simply switching between them with a click.

Useful plugins that allow you to edit photos

Word counter, for those of us curious as to just how much we write.

Edit, preview, and source tabs allow for easy editing.

Cons

It picks up the theme, but not the background images you may have added, meaning that you may have to work in the source tab instead of edit to see your posts

Too many functions and plugins may be a distraction.

Sometimes the program is slow to change tabs.

Now that I have rambled on about my publishing software and the like I guess I should talk about some of my plans for the blog, specifically how I hope to go about all this insanity. The grandiose explanation, which I may put in a side bar, is that I intend to prove that there are still people out there who enjoy the experience of food both making it and eating it. The simpler explanation is that I want to talk about cooking, baking, and eating.  I figure that this will be best explained in bullet points really, since there is a lot to lay out.

Detailed posts about cooking and baking, complete with recipes and pictures whenever possible

• Clever remarks, helpful hints, and useful, interesting information are also a part of this plan

Clever, insightful posts about food in general, cooking, baking, and eating.

• In general I’d like to be able to talk about the experience that is food.

Tag posts so that they can easily be used to find a meal or specific ingredient.

• There will be a page that explains all tags

Have this blog be both entertaining and useful, complete with my own snarky incites and “the more you know” posts that help out

Ok, I think I have rambled quite enough. Tonight there will be a food post with some pictures of the beef roast that is now simmering in the crockpot in the kitchen. There will be few pictures than I’d like because my father took over the searing of the beef and in general was in the way.