Demo: Start your own blog with Windows Live Writer

Until recently, if you wanted to share your words with the world on a regular basis, you pretty much needed to be a newspaper or magazine publisher. Well, the Internet has changed all that—Hi, I’m Andy Sweet, I’m a writer on the Windows team here at Microsoft, and today all you really need is a computer, an Internet connection, and a blog.

Short for web log, a blog is simply a personal website where you can post regular updates about whatever interests you. Blogs are public, so others can read, link to, and even leave comments on your postings. Here’s one about cooking, here are some Windows blogs by the Vista community, and these are personal blogs, of some coworkers; just people sharing thoughts about everyday life.

If all this sounds like fun but you don’t know where to start—don’t worry. There’s a free program called Windows Live Writer that makes blogging about as easy as writing a letter. Let’s get started.

You can download Writer from get.live.com. You’ll also need one other thing: a website that can host a blog. I’ve set up a free Windows Live Spaces site as an example, but remember that Writer also works with many of the major blogging sites out there, such as Blogger and WordPress.

After Writer is installed, it will prompt you for a website to use. Let’s set it up to use Spaces. I’ll click Windows Live Spaces, enter my Windows Live ID and password, and Writer will make the connection.

A blog post typically starts with a headline—something that will grab the readers’ attention, or summarize the subject of the post, followed by the text. For this first post, I’m going to keep things simple.

Now that Writer and my blog’s site are connected, I’ll click Finish, and start my first post. Writer should look pretty familiar if you’ve used a word processing program before. There’s a menu and a toolbar up top, and the writing area below. Let’s begin with a headline, and then some sample text. I’ll get fancy with formatting later. When I’m good to go, I click the Publish button, and…voila! Hey, check it out—I’m blogging now!

Pretty simple, huh? Let's try something a little more complex this time and add a few pictures.

Click New to start a new post, and then click Insert Picture. With Writer, you can even do some basic photo processing in the Image Properties pane. I’ll make the first one black and white, and I’ll stretch the second one and try an effect. Color Pop sounds fun—wow. I’ll also change the style of a word or two.

Now, you might be wondering—But how will all this look? Well, the View button lets you preview the text before you post it. You can see exactly how it’ll appear on your blog. When everything’s right, click Publish.

Now, blogs are a great way to share your thoughts and photos with the world, but remember that blogs are public, and unless you change the default settings, anyone can read your posts. Don’t give out personal information like your home address or phone number. And remember that anyone can read your blog: your friends, your neighbors, even potential employers.

One final thing: most blogs have a commenting feature, where readers can submit reactions to your posts. It’s like a “letters to the editor” section, and it’s part of the connection. You can respond to feedback, have a lively discussion, and maybe make some new online friends.

There are tons of websites out there offering blogging tips and tricks—yep, there are even blogs about blogging, and they’re all just a few mouse clicks away. And who knows—maybe next week I’ll be reading your blog!