Ughhhh to OMG Where Have You Been This Past Year…

I have been having issues with Blogger this past week and I am sure I am not alone in this!!! One of the reasons why I haven’t blogged that much is the excessive amount of time that is wasted trying to get one’s pictures in just the right spot and formatted correctly. I have had difficulties with this since day one with posting on this blog but I had gotten use to the editor and working within the limitations of the program on the Blogger website.
Well this week I was at my whit's end…I spent three hours the other evening trying to get the pictures for my Felted Purse Revisited post in a certain order and arrangement. What transpired was a HORENDOUS mess that continued for several hours with pictures not lining up or not formatting correctly.  You want to talk about being frustrated…it was a darn nightmare!
To prevent myself from going insane and totally losing my mind while working with this new editor, I took periodic breaks to visit some of my favorite blogs. By doing so I stumbled upon a comment left on a post of a fellow blogger and OMG….Hallelujah…I was saved; or more to the point my sanity was saved!
In visiting Dawn at Two On, Two Off I came across several of her posts, one of them being “Blogger, You Annoy Me” where she had been having difficulty with the editor as well.  How apropos is that…I was having issues too! As luck would have it beangirl had left a suggestion on Dawn’s “My Sewing Plan for Fall” post. Having spent a ridiculous amount of time that evening I cut and pasted beangirl’s  comment into a word document for later reference and shut down the laptop for the evening. The next afternoon I sat down and ran a search on the Microsoft website and came across the program beangirl suggested and boy is this the ANSWER TO MY PRAYERS and I am sure the prayers of many other fellow bloggers.
You may be asking, “Mimi what is this miraculous program??”  It is called Window’s Live Writer and boy does it work just the nuts! I downloaded it off the website and was up and using it in minutes. WOW is all I have to say about it. No more being frustrated with using Blogger’s online editor!!! Yippie Skippie. Here is Microsoft’s Overview on their product:

Windows Live Writer makes it easy to share your photos and videos on almost any blog service. With Writer, you can preview everything you’re adding to your blog, and see exactly how the fonts, spacing, colors, and images will look, before you publish. It's fast and easy to make photos and videos look great on your blog. You can even create a photo album—just select the style you want and Writer takes care of the rest. Writer is already packed with useful features, but if you like to tinker, there are all sorts of plug-ins you can add to help you do even more.

I have used this for the previous two posts plus this one and it is heaven sent. Everything I put on the page ended up previewing as I wanted. If something isn’t quite right you can quickly correct it. Added bonus when you first start the program it allows you to set up an association with your blog and will import its’ theme/design so that you can work offline. What a time saver!!! It is great…write your post, insert photos and links offline then Publish directly to Blogger from within the program.  I haven’t had time to look at all of its’ features but am satisfied so far with the program. The only thing I’ve noticed is that if you need to work within your blogs design that needs to be done directly in Blogger but other than that using this program has been wonderful.
If you are experiencing technical difficulties with Blogger I would suggest wandering over to the Microsoft website and checking it out to see if your system meets the programs requirements and downloading it. Give it a try you may become a convert like me.
~Good Luck and Happy Blogging~