Blogging, keeping an online diary or journal, has gone from being a specialist niche to mainstream pretty rapidly in the last few years. While it is easy enough to blog on a Web site with no extra software, Microsoft offers Live Writer to help you create and compose your text and images or video offline and then post them to the blogging service of your choice. It also uses plug-ins that will help you post to Facebook and other sites.
From 20-word notes on how the pet dog is doing, to endless essays on the family or sports team, blogging is for everyone and Live Writer with its spell checker, fancy borders and layout tools will make your words look great.
Photo Gallery is an improvement on Windows' own basic image browsing tools and lets you tag them to make it easier to find people, places and other elements of your snaps. Automatic face recognition means that you type someone's name in once and in future photos you add to the computer, Photo Gallery should be able to recognise and tag them automatically.
You can share photos via email or online photo libraries and even order print outs using an online processing service. There are also basic editing features so that you can fix imperfect shots or add some arty effects to some that need a little sparkle.
Movie Maker was originally a download for Windows XP, the came bundled as part of Service Pack 2 for XP and then Windows Vista. Now its back for Windows 7 users as a download again and has a beta tag to suggest that it is new and improved. The program has been redesigned to make it easier to add photos and music or audio to your movies. You can splice multiple clips together, add a range of effects from opening credits to smart transitions from one clip to another. Finally, you can publish your video, either for burning to disc or to post online for others to watch.
Family Safety is an extra add-on that looks a little like Vista's User Controls, but applied to the Internet. You can decide who can surf the Web, who they can chat with on Messenger and check what sites they visit. All managed from a single screen, its a lot easier to use than some older solutions and you can keep an eye on the logs to see just who has been doing what.
Finally, the Windows Live Toolbar gives you quick access to other Live Services, quick searches, favorites and other information from one easy bar across the top of Internet Explorer. The bar can be customized to show just what you want and drop down menus mean that it doesn't take up too much space from your browser.
