I’ve been using Windows Live Writer to compose blogs on my desktop for some time now, and really like the tool. I was getting a bit frustrated with the lack of options on the “quick launch toolbar”, which couldn’t be amended in any way and with the fact that some features (e g the picture editing and formatting sidebar) were not usable on my netbook as they didn’t fit the screen resolution. As I often use my netbook to write in a local coffee shop this was inconvenient.

Several of the programmes I use regularly have adopted the ribbon interface of Microsoft Office 2007 (Serif WebPlus, MindManager), so I was delighted to discover that the beta of Windows Live Writer, issued in June 2010, has adopted the ribbon.

This has the “quick launch” mini toolbar, and organising tools on the ribbon interface means that the working area now fits on a smaller screen. New releases will also be added to Microsoft Update, meaning that it should stay up-to-date (and hopefully not cause problems, like some MS updates do, too often.

I know from the reviews that this doesn’t suit the people who find change difficult, but for me at least it has made a great blogging tool even better. Don’t take my word for it, give it a try, remembering that it is still a beta release so may be a bit buggy (although I haven’t found any yet).