Posts tagged windows

Photo Album Test-o-Rama

Apr 30th

Posted by TurboDad in blogging

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I figured, in putting Windows Live Writer 2009 through its paces, that I’d try one of these newly-touted features, which is an instant upload of a photo album.  The above photos were some shots taken at Washington Park Zoo, and around Beaverton, Oregon, picked randomly from my local hard disk.   While the instant-collage that it makes is pretty spiffy, the only upload option then is to upload them to Windows Live’s photo gallery, so they can be displayed there.

This was my first exposure to their on-line photo gallery product, and being a long-term Flickr user, that left a little bit to be desired.  It actually now begs for a side-by-side comparison with the other leading photo services, but my initial comparison to Flickr is:

  1. Photos look terrible:  ‘Kay, I’m not talking about my framing or my choice of lighting or whatnot, I’m talking about the fact that Flickr very obviously does some sharpening and some brightness/contrast to the uploaded photos to make them look sharp.  The same photos uploaded to Flickr and to Windows Live look decidedly better on Flickr. 

    As an example, here’s a side-by-side comparo with Flickr and Live.

  2. Stats?  Well, perhaps it’s because I used to work for WebTrends, but I’m a total junkie for stats.  Even the free Flickr account will let you see how many views your individual photos are getting, and the pro acct will let you get all manner of analytics on your photos.  I searched and can find no such option on Windows Live. 
  3. Full Image Download: A point in Microsoft’s favour is the generous helping if disk space you get right off the bat.  Flickr lets you upload 100MB/mo, but my free Microsoft account gave me 25GB to play with, and the instant ability to upload full-rez images.  That’s pretty nice for sharing full-quality images with family across the country.
  4. Geo-Tagging:  Okay, and maybe it’s also because I’m a total map junkie and am addicted hopelessly to Google Earth, but I really dig Flickr’s ability to geo-tag photos.  For example, in terms of presentation, I was able to very easily just put together a map of my recent train trip up from Los Angeles to Portland Oregon, and display it as a map on Flickr:

    image

    Perhaps that’s not a real big feature for some people, but I find it a very powerful way to present photos, and an intriguing way to browse the photos of others, or a place I’d like to travel to.

In any case, I appreciate the work that went into making the instant-collage feature for Windows Live Writer 2009.  I now just think that a little bit of tweaking to the Live Photo Gallery product could make it a real winner and a genuine competitor to Flickr.

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War of the Blogging Clients

Apr 30th

Posted by TurboDad in blogging

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I’ve written a number of different articles in the past, exploring the difference in the blogging experience between blogging via the browser (i.e. using the built-in WordPress 2.7 AJAX interface), or blogging with the best of the Linux clients (i.e. Flock) or Windows (i.e. LiveWriter). 

Now that I’ve got the newest Windows Live Writer 2009 up and running, I’m preparing to make another go at this.  But before I do, I want to make sure my list is complete, in coming up with the best blogging client and environment on the net. 

Here’s what I’m comparing, and please comment if you know of a better one that I’m missing out on:

  1. image Windows Live Writer 2009:  It’s what I’m writing this current post on, and has been updated as late with a new-look UI, and some nifty new features.  Once more, it’s tough to beat the simplicity and speed of being able to paste the clipboard straight into a blog post as a drop-shadowed or reflected images like this can.  Really pretty slick. 
  2. Microsoft Word 2007:  After years of being an OpenOffice.org man, firing up Word 2007 surprised me when I saw the detailed blogging features it has.  How about the ability to stick smart charts straight into your blog as an image!  Looks cool, but has anybody even used that feature yet?  I have yet to see an Office 2007-authored WordPress blog, so I don’t know – will have to test it.
  3. Flock browser:  Another long-term favorite of mine is the Flock browser’s built-in blogging interface that remembers all of your blog accounts and allows a hotkey-assisted blog-this in any operating system – Mac, Linux or Windows.  And I’ve blogged on each quite extensively, and haven’t seen anything else on Linux that’s as polished. 

    4. Now, unfortunately for me I know there are more (like BlogJet, ScribeFire for Firefox, etc) but will need to see how many of those other ones really bring something neat to the table.  There have been some past reviews of the field from some months ago, but now I want an updated view.

    I’ll get back to you on this thread once I’ve gotten to wring some work out of these clients, but would welcome any suggestions or opinions!
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