It’s a very simple piece of software which enables you to link your blogs to one central point for posting, rather than logging on to each website.

Live Writer has a variety of different tools available for use…from hyperlink, to pictures (single photos/albums), tables, videos, tags and more! Some of which may not normally be available from your software.

Interested in the software? Well download it from the Windows Live Writer site

Need some help with setting up a website?  Check out our Quick Tip Series on Basic Website Setup!

We think that this would be ideal for a small business or charity to get a quick opinion of their site connections/site visitors etc.  However, there are larger packages (which you have to pay for) which would be ideal for a larger company.  The tool has been used by a variety of well known companies, for example, FOX and PC World.

It’s worth a look!

So…My suggestion for this week is to check out the Windows Vista Magazine Blog! On the blog you will find news about recent Vista service pack releases, new tools that people have developed or come across, solutions to problems that people are having and much more.

Posts are made by three main groups The Magazine / Blog team, Partners and the Community. Filter out the ones you are not interested in to read just the good stuff!

Why the extra ‘x’?

For years documents on Office programs have been saved as in the same format e.g. Word’s format used to be .doc and Excel’s format used to be .xls. However, Microsoft have decided that now is the time for big change! All Office 2007 documents will be saved with an ‘x’ on the end, for example, Word is now .docx and Excel is not .xlsx. Why the extra ‘x’ I hear you say? Well basically the ‘x’ stands for a technology called XML which now helps run all office documents. The main differences between the two are that having the ‘xml’ technology makes the document smaller so that your software can handle with them faster, and also all of the Office 2007 software will ‘speak’ to each other so the software is more efficient. The documents are also more robust so are therefore less susceptible to becoming corrupted etc.

PDF and XPS

In the past if you emailed a document to somebody and they didn’t have the same version of Microsoft Office as you they wouldn’t be able to open the document without a compatibility software from a third-party company, which could potentially have cost hundreds of pounds! However, now Microsoft Office 2007 have provided a free download so that you can save your documents in .pdf format without having to use any thrid-party software. PDF is a format developed by Adobe, they offer a free reader to open files. PDF is ‘Portable Document Format’, this means that it can be opened on many types of computers or operating systems, e.g. different versions of Windows and Apple Mac’s. XPS stands for ‘XML Paper Specification’, and it is very similar to .pdf however it isn’t used quite as much over the world as it hasn’t been as round for as long. To download the software which allows you to save your documents in Office 2007 as ‘.pdf and .xps’ click here.

Blogging from Word

Word 2003 could produce simple codes for websites but not as detailed as you would expect from a specialised web layout tool. If you were to cut and paste the text from Word to your blogging tool you would have to ensure that the text format had been converted, as if it hadn’t been converted the post would be messed up! Therefore it was very stressful and not always worthwhile. However, now Microsoft Office Word 2007 has been given a dedicated blogging mode. Which can hook directly to a number of popular blogging tools, such as; WordPress, Blogger and MSN Spaces. Therefore it is even simpler to get yourself on the Internet! A huge majority of Blogs talk with both Microsoft Word 07 and Microsoft OneNote 07.

Fluent Ribbon

On Office 2003 it was often hard or long winded to find the feature you wanted as they seemed almost hidden within the ridiculous amounts of menus. Therefore we just assumed they weren’t there, when they most likely were, just in a less obvious place. However, the Office 2007 system has a new fluent interface! It is used for most of the applications in the suite and splits up the commands on offer to an easy to used structure and obvious grouping. Its a great time saver and your guaranteed to find some features that you ever knew existed!

For more on the new Microsoft Office Suite keep an eye out over the coming weeks

I haven’t been using WordPress too long but I have spent a lot of time with it over the last couple of months, from setting up, customising and generally playing with its capabilities. The first blog I released powered by WordPress was the Brandstar site, follwed by this pc toolbox site and there is a third non IT site on its way!

Ultimately I think it is an amazing tool and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to friends, family or clients. But why do I think that, is the most important question!

Firstly the Basic Install – Even if you just use the basic installation of WordPress without changing the theme or adding any plugins it boasts with a huge number of excellent features.

• Ease of use – within a few minutes (literally) you can be posting your thoughts on your own weblog. The only experience you really need is the ability to fill in an online form.
• The ability to have static pages as well as your blog really makes it more than just a blogging tool.
• Easily link to other bloggers with the “BlogRoll”.
• Spam prevention checks users comments to keep your site clean and tidy.
• User registration.
• Multiple Blog Administrators, Authors and Editors.

So out of the box the is plenty to get started with.
Themes – There are a huge range of free themes for WordPress that can be very easily installed, as simple as 1.2.3

1. Download your chosen theme
2. UnZip the downloaded theme
3. Upload the theme folder to your WordPress directory (you will need an FTP program to do this, I like Filezilla)

Plugins – To make more of your WordPress blog there are a huge number of plugins available, here are a few we have installed on PC Toolbox:

• Sociable – allows you to add the links to bottom of your post enabling visitors to share your post on some of their most favourite sites such as Digg.
• Adsense Deluxe – allows you to add GoogleAds to some / all of your posts.
• WP Polls – A Polls plugin built with Ajax. Easy to install and use and works well.

Fantastico – Many web hosts running a variant of linux have Fantastico installed which enable a very easy installation of WordPress in the first place, so users need very little knowledge of websites to get it installed. Need a webhost for this? Visit Brandstar’s webhosting company Wildhosting.co.uk and they will get your sorted.

Any questions or thoughts just leave a comment!

Happy Blogging

PcToolbox is a site linked with Brandstar UK and managed by their Technical Director Graham Martin (Me!). The aim of the site is to offer some techie blogs that are hopefully aimed at non-techies. Written for all to understand, highlighting the key information about the subject without going into unnecessary detail but with links where appropriate/available for further reading around the subject.

The plan is to offer a range of blogs and tutorials around a variety of I.T. subjects including Windows, Office, Computer Systems, PHP, New Gadgets, Software Tutorials and anything else we think might be of interest!

Who are Brandstar? Brandstar UK Ltd is a company based in Thakeham (near Storrington) in West Sussex (England). Brandstar offer computer support to local home users and small businesses, maintaining their standalone systems and networks. For more information check out the Brandstar UK Website. With this blog up and running the current Brandstar Blog will be just the news for Brandstar and anything specifically related to Brandstar Clients.

Another member of the Brandstar team “Alex” will be writing various blog’s here based around his area of expertise as well as writing a wide range of tutorials. For some tutorials already written by Alex & Brandstar take a look at the Brandstar Resource Area.

If you have any requests for blogs or tutorials please leave us a comment and we will see what can be done.

Cheers,

graham.