I've been using Windows Live Messenger for a while now, along with Live OneCare as my security software. I have to say it is pretty good stuff, amazingly Microsoft have come up with good products! Today I tried 2 more offerings. Namely Live Mail and Live Writer.
Live Mail is simply an Outlook Express replacement. I say simply but it isn't wonderfully simple. It is not bad to set up but the interface is not wonderful.
That said it is quite clean, it does work and it is fast. My one major grouch is that message rules are complicated to setup. Well not complicated just a little long winded. Also there is no calendar included which is a big problem for me (as I use the one in Outlook quite a bit).
An 8/10 for the effort would be fair. At least it beats OE into the ground :)
Live Writer on the other hand is another matter. Quite simply a stunning piece of software. I'm using it to write this blog at the moment and it's working well. Writer is a blogger program that connects to just about any blog you can imagine and lets you post to them in a WYSIWYG way. sweet.
My only annoyance with it is that it keeps putting <p> tags in every time I hit enter and a few other html annoyances. Not a huge problem but it could be cleaner.
But it has a spell checker, it has the ability to insert media (although the attempt above inserting from Screencast didn't go so well) and it has lots of features. One useful one is the ability to live preview your post as if it were published. If nothing else it might make me make a few more posts :P
So 9 or even 10 out of 10 for writer.
So a couple of highly recommended programs there - give them a go. Microsoft's Live Network seems to be working out ok!!
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