For a Windows product, Windows Live Writer is an excellent blog editor. All of the C3 folks use it. They’ve finally released a new beta. Before I tell them that a new version is out, I’m testing it on my own blog with this entry. My blog is now WordPress and C3’s blogs are currently still in Movable Type. Hopefully that won’t make a difference.

There’s some good stuff in here. Besides a new more Live-like/Vista-like interface:

• Inline spell checking
• tables
• Extended entry support
• Adding additional categories

And more. The options change depending on the type of blog service. I noticed little things, like the option to link to an older entry in the hyperlink dialog box:

Okay, that was a way to play with the image editing. You can now rotate an image, add a watermark and other simple editing right from the window. You can now set a different directory for image uploads via FTP.

So far, I’d say this is worth launching Parallels to run.

Note: If upgrading, make sure you update your account settings, otherwise you may not see some of the new features in the window. For example, I didn’t see the option to add a category until I did this.