Windows Live Writer – Review

After committing on returning to the blog world, the first thing I did was to go look for a blog writing tool.  In the coming days I will be spending a lot of time traveling and thought an offline writer will help schedule comments on the site. 

To my surprise, I found Microsoft’s Window Live Writer.  I must admit that I have drunk the Microsoft Koolaid on many an occasion (specially .NET vs J2EE).  However, the ‘Live’ initiative has left a bit of a sour taste after suffering through the beta version of their Live integration for Hotmail.  It was so bad that I had to opt out of the program.  

That said, I was pleasantly surprised by Live Writer.  It does most of what some of the leading blog writing tools do and has some cool features (like downloading the CSS of your blog site to give you a more integrated feel when offline).   MS is rarely known for original thinking but this is a breath of fresh air in the blog writing spectrum. 

However, I would like to see some kind of scheduling functionality for posts (compatible with wordpress)

Overall a good product – highly recommend it. 

Technorati tags: blog tool, windows_live_writer

Return of the Silicon Valley Start Ups

The web is a buzz once again with acronyms (Web 2.0, AJAX, tagging) and concepts.  Again, it looks like a field day for anybody with a ‘new’ idea and business plan.  Concepts are fighting to achieve a critical mass in terms of ‘eye balls’ and users.  

However, there is something fundamentally different this time around (or so it seems).  They seem to actually add value (ya right – thats what they said last time).  Some common attributes of their products are:
Most new offerings are centered around recognition (individual or a group) and expression.  Usually it is based on ‘my list of things’ or ‘people I know’ or ‘I belong to’. The products/services comprises of a basic component that is ‘free’ and a paid one for the ‘power user’ that offers more advanced features.
They are also good at working well with each other and to a lot extent compliment and extend each others functionality.   

Another good thing about today’s start ups is the buy in they have from the big players like Goggle (no they are not competing with windows), Microsoft and Yahoo. 

 Start ups worth mentioning (if you are not already aware) are Plum, Prosper, MySpace, JaJah and Sharpcast to name a few. 

हिंदी ब्लॉगजगत का सहकारी ज्ञानकोष

WTF – I just wish they had usedspoken hindi instead of its literary flavor… I mean what is this:

हिंदी ब्लॉगजगत का सहकारी ज्ञानकोष

र्वज्ञ यानि जो सब कुछ जानता हो। कुछ ऐसा ही प्रयास है इस विकी को लगाने का। एक जगह जहाँ पर हिंदी ब्लॉगजगत व अंतर्जाल पर हिन्दी से संबधित सभी जानकारी मौजूद हो। अब यह कितना सफल रहता है यह तो आप पर निर्भर करता है क्योंकि यदि आप सामग्री में योगदान नहीं देंगे तो यह ज्ञानकोष कैसे भरेगा। याद रखें बूंद बूंद से सागर भरता, लेख लेख से ज्ञानकोष भरे। आप योगदान कैसे कर सकते हैं के लिए देखें आप भी लिखें

Firefox, Flickr and Flock – The holy trinity of blogging

Finally got around to test Flock. Its still not in full release but is revolutionary enough to turn heads. I am sure a lot of bloggers out there want an integrated solution that can bring together all components of web surfing and publishing contents (may it be posts, photos or links/feed) . Look no further – flock to it…

Things I would like:

1. Ability to wrap test around photos. Change the color of fonts. A robust spell checker
2. A feed reader. I have been using google reader and find it the best so far but its VERY slow – specially when one has 150 feeds .
3. Ability to publish a post to multiple blogs