I just saw on Robert Scoble's Blog that Microsoft has released a new version of Windows Live Writer. And I thought the previous version was good.

Since I both use and really like Windows Liver Writer, and its Free, I figured I give my endorsement and big thanks to the team for great job.

"Writer is a desktop application that makes it easy to publish rich content to your blog."

Highlights of New or Improved Features

• Inline spell checking
• Table editing
• Ability to add categories
• New look and feel

Key Features

• Compatible with your blog service
• WYSIWYG editing
• Rich media publishing
• Powerful editing features
• Offline editing

Developer Community

• Blog
• Community Plugins - here are three I'm trying out.
• Insert Spaces Emoticon
• Allows you to insert a Live Spaces Emoticon into your blog entry
• Paste from Visual Studio
• Easily transfer syntax highlighted source code from Visual Studio to elegant HTML in Windows Live Writer.
• XFN Link Editor
• This plugin enables Windows Live Writer to insert XFN (XHTML Friends Network) aware links.
• Forum
• Developers
• Provider Customization API

[Download]

---

There are new versions of Windows Live Messenger 8.5 Beta and Windows Live Mail as well.