All you need to do is access your blog’s settings within WordPress and make a few changes. Just follow these steps:

1. In the menu bar go to "Tools" > "Accounts"
2. Click on the Account name you want and then click on "Edit"
3. In the Edit Blog Settings window, select "Pictures" as shown in the image
4. Click on the "Upload pictures to an FTP server" and then click "Configure FTP"
5. Enter your FTP information in the places provided
6. Click OK

That’s it!

You’ll need to know your FTP information of course, but I’d say you’re probably not interested in using this option if you’re not already familiar with FTP functionality.

Windows Live Writer makes it easy to specify your FTP information and the path to the images you’ve uploaded. Then, when you insert an image into your post it references the FTP location as the source of the file and automatically uploads the images there as needed.

Post from: EveryJoe

Setting Up FTP Image Hosting for Windows Live Writer

Frequently when talking to them about how to get started I begin talking about some other great tools that I use to organize your thoughts and create your posts and pages for your website. Most of these tools are free, or free with premium versions as well. All of them have been incredibly useful to me over the years (or months and days that I’ve been using them).

I’ve written about my use of programs like Evernote, Picasa, IrfanView, Windows Live Writer, Firefox and others on this site at some point or another.

I’m curious though, what other tools do you use regularly that you don’t think you could live without these days. If you’re not a blogger, don’t worry about it. Just let me know what programs you have installed on your machine that you use on a daily basis. Daily would be a good cut-off, perhaps at least every other day at the most.

Looking forward to hearing what you share and giving a few a try if I’m not already using them on my machine.

Image: sxc.hu

Post from: EveryJoe

The Tools of Blogging

When a blogger posts a blog through Windows Live Writer, it also maintains a copy of the post on the local machine. For regular bloggers, that adds up to a lot of space with time. A “proper delete” through the Open –> Delete makes it clear that deleting a post is equivalent to deleting it from the local machine as well as from the blog.

Some might like the backup, but we won’t mind an option to delete posts from the machine alone, do we? I am currently using a dirty trick to get it done.

All the posts you are working on using Windows Live Writer are stored as .WPOST files in the folder “My Documents\My Weblog Posts” under two sub-folders “Drafts” and “Recent Posts”. Delete the posts you want from them.

There is also a “cache.xml” file in the “Recent Posts” folder. This is the file responsible for keeping posts on the local machine in sync with those on your blogs. It is better left alone.

Please let me know if there is a cleaner way to do this. I am still a beginner user of Windows Live Writer.

Post from: EveryJoe

How To Delete Posts From Windows Live Writer

A search for “Live Writer” in the Microsoft Download Center took me to this page. It is an old page from which I downloaded the 2.3MB installer and tried to install the required software. Thrice. It gave me hell, with the installation hanging at 99% each time.

I then googled for a direct setup file of Live Writer and landed here. When we press “Download” button on this page, it redirects us to a funny page while the download of a new 1.1MB installer starts.

The installer worked, thankfully. But take a look at the funny page I just mentioned. It is common knowledge that Microsoft likes to treat its users as dummies. But what can any dummy make out of a page which has three empty screenshots that look like an idle artist’s doodles and three messages which start with “If you see a message asking if you want to…” and are followed by non-keywords? And which responsible website of such great importance not update itself even when a later version of installer is available?

Very helpful again, Microsoft.

Image Source: Microsoft Windows Live Writer download page.

Post from: EveryJoe

User-friendliness of Microsoft