I’ve got three great new toys that I’m playing with… in no particular order, they are …

Windows LiveWriter

This is a wonderful plugin able blogger companion. It allows you to create, edit and upload posts with all the modern paraphernalia that go with blogging. The only downside I can see is that it REQUIRES XP SP2 and above, and will not run on older computers. Which is a pity. I tend NOT to upgrade unnecessarily.

LiveWriter: image of the interface.

In fact, I’m writing this post in LiveWriter at the moment. And it is so much easier to use than most other blogging companions, and much more powerful than Flock’s inbuilt blogger application.

WordPress 2.6

Yes, despite my prognostications about upgrading, I did decide to try the install (after taking the usual precautions) on Obblogatory. Here are some screenshots, I’ve only used it a little but some personal notes:

• 1. It upgraded easily, and quickly;
• 2. It seems a lot faster than I remember;
• 3. Finally I can delete unused plugins!

This image highlights the active vs. inactive plugins list… much neater… and you can delete them just there, too!

Oh, what was that third toy!?

FireFox 3.0

Nearly forgot Firefox 3.0.1 but isn’t that old hat now? Seems like just last week I was downloading that tool.

This is definitely an improvement over version 2.0.14, really. Lots of things seem slicker, faster and easier to use. I know it’s a bit bigger than FF2.0 but I found the browser faster to display my sites, easier to manage bookmarks and (despite niggles with some plugins) generally a better more stable browser.

Now, isn’t that how all tech products should be? Making life easier, more reliable and simpler!… What do you think?

I was reinstalling stuff on my reformatted PC with a new motherboard after the thing fritzed itself last week… and I downloaded the OPML feed. I had trouble installing the feed in my chosen Feed reader (FeedDemon 2.7) and wondered if anyone else was having trouble with the feed I had uploaded.

Please drop me a line on this post or the other post about the download or in the contacts form! I’d like to know because I only have got my own experience to compare: I know it works on BlogLines, and on Google Reader. It used to work on FeedDemon but not on the new version. (I actually didn’t like version 2.7 so I removed it pronto!)… where else did you try the feed?

Should I upgrade? The past two or three days I opened my own Admin Panel in Wordpress to see the following message:

I’m sitting here wondering about this… It used to be pretty convenient upgrading on Dreamhost, their one-click installs would speed you through the process: without any fussy backing up (all done), the entire install was copied to .old and the new files and files were copied from wp-content. It was an easy and beautiful thing to behold. All you had to do was turn off your plugins!

Now I’m on a manual install, and I have to do the whole thing manually… it’s not that difficult actually, as I’ve done it manually many times in the past. But it’s still a little more difficult. Of course the bigger issue is: Should I upgrade?

The new features are quite attractive: Take a look for yourself!

Click to watch this video.

This is always tricky to answer. If you watch the video, you’ll know that there is versioning of posts, better gallery type functions, gears-type functionality, and better flock-type tools for blogging things you find… If any of these features are necessary or highly desirable for you, then upgrading might be the way to go. Also, if this is your first blog and/or you have JUST started blogging, upgrading should provide you with all these benefits and not much downside.

For larger blogs or more production-sensitive sites, a little tardiness may be in their best interests because usually upgrading provides great new functionality and it can also break things, too. As I found out: version 2.5.1 breaks password recovery and I suspected some posts were being eaten, too.

I’m not upgrading IMMEDIATELY. Why? Because no matter how many bugs and flaws are removed, there are ALWAYS unexpected developments that need fixing, so it is likely that I will wait for those fixes to be applied and perhaps version 2.6.1 or at least until I know that there aren’t significant issues with this version. It’s very seductive though to try, so I’ll be upgrading some minor blogs and less high profile blogs so at least I will be armed with the knowledge of how things work. In fact, I’m pretty sure most regular bloggers have their play-blogs where they try stuff out first, too!