Open Live Writer with WordPress HTTPS (403 Error)

The developer team over at Open Live Writer have been busy with trying to address several problems with blog authors trying to publish their posts. Recently the Open Live Writer development team have been busy trying to address problems with not being able to publish posts to WordPress blogs that utilize the HTTPS (SSL) connections.

If you're one of those people, you'll be relieved to know that an unreleased version of Open Live Writer 0.6.2.287 has address this problem and reflects that the problem is solved in the next official release.

The resolution was tracked in this GitHub forum post.

https://github.com/OpenLiveWriter/OpenLiveWriter/issues/580#issuecomment-286349431

The post details out the process of reporting the problem and the additional steps that were taken to resolve the issue.

Scott Lovegrove provided a test release of Open Live Writer to the member that was having a problem, and after installing and testing, the user confirmed they could post again.

If you're having problems with Open Live Writer, check out the support forms at GitHub.

http://openlivewriter.org/

https://github.com/OpenLiveWriter/OpenLiveWriter/issues

 

I hope this helps…

Download Full Windows Essentials 2012 [offline] installer

The other day, it dawns on me that Microsoft has killed all their download links for Microsoft Windows Essentials 2012.

This was a slight problem because I was going to get my son started with doing some video editing with Windows Movie Maker 2012, but the download links were gone. Luckily, I keep a lot of the installers I download; that included the last full installer of Microsoft Windows Essentials 2012.

Open Live Writer – User Manual [CHM]

This is an 'unofficial' user manual for Open Live Writer. In the days of Windows Live Writer, there was never an official user manual for the application from Microsoft, just a bunch of websites with some how to's.

I decided to write this manual for all the people who might like to have an user manual for Open Live Writer going forward. It covers every function Open Live Writer has from downloading it from the website to the information in the About option.

If you aren't sure, Open Live Writer is an offline blog editor that was once called Windows Live Writer; from Microsoft. Microsoft abandoned the application because it didn't fit their business model for their 'Windows Live' blog platform. Thankfully a group of developers, that happened to love Windows Live Writer, worked with Microsoft to take over the project and make it open source.

Just so you know, this is a 'living user manual' for Open Live Writer; meaning it'll be updated as new features and functions are included with the application.


You can download it from here.
http://www.lehsys.com/open-live-writer-user-manual/

Getting To Know Open Live Writer

Seeing as how Windows Live Writer is dead [Microsoft no longer actively coding for it] in the last version of Windows Live Writer has been ported off to open source; Open Live Writer— it's time to start talking about Open Live Writer.
Easy enough. Let's start with downloading and installing it. Then let’s take a look where it puts everything.

WLMP Consolidator for Windows Movie Maker

If you have ever worked with Windows Movie Maker 2011 or 2012, you may have run into a situation where you're working on a project where it's partially done, but you need to build a Project to another location, on another PC and be able to work on that video project there as well.

Windows Movie Maker provides some baseline video editing abilities, but one of the things that it does not do is consolidate all of the media that are being used in the composition/rendering of the video. About two months ago, I was in the Windows Movie Maker support forums and there was an individual who is requesting for Windows Movie Maker to be able to grab all the media that was being used for his video composition and consolidate all media types into one folder.

Unfortunately, Windows Movie Maker 2012 doesn't do that. When you're working with a video project in Windows Movie Maker, Windows Movie Maker simply looks to the location where the source video is and works from there.

Windows Movie Maker 2012: Audio BUT No Video Problem?

Windows Live Movie Maker is a free offering from Microsoft that offers novice and average users the ability to edit video and from there, be able to share/publish it to Facebook, YouTube, eMail, DVD and even custom resolutions. It's a basic editor with very simplified interface, and it's part of the Windows Live Essentials Suite of applications.

It's a basic video editing package, but all the video formats it's supposed to support, the application doesn't support those standard video formats until you load the proper codecs. This isn't an end all be all solution, but it's important to mention when dealing with Windows Movie Maker; it doesn't support all the [listed] video formats right out of the gate.

A lot of users that want to use Windows Movie Maker 2011/2012 don't know this. If you are seeing this issue, your problem could be attributed to several things [video drivers, DirectX, codecs or system patches], but it's important to start with simple solutions versus what Microsoft normally does, which is recommend users completely reinstall Windows Movie Maker.

Windows Movie Maker 2012 - How Speed Up Or Slow Down Video

Windows Live Movie Maker is a free offering from Microsoft that offers novice and average users the ability to edit video and from there, be able to share/publish it to Facebook, YouTube, eMail, DVD and even custom resolutions. It's a basic editor with very simplified interface, and it's part of the Windows Live Essentials Suite of applications.

Windows Movie Maker 2012 has had the ability to speed up or slow down video since 2011, but it has not worked correctly until 2012. In previous versions, Windows Movie Maker could adjust the speed of the video, but in doing so the application would dump/drop the audio track completely; which, in some cases, makes the video that much more interesting.

If you'd like to download the full installer for Microsoft Windows Essentials 2012 for offline installation [includes all Windows Essentials apps], you can use this link to download it…

Link:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-live/essentials-install-offline-faq

This post is about being able to adjust the speed of the videos imported/created inside Windows Movie Maker.

Using Freemake Video Converter as a Windows DVD Maker Alternative

Windows Live Movie Maker is a free offering from Microsoft that offers novice and average users the ability to edit video and from there, be able to share/publish it to Facebook, YouTube, eMail, DVD and even custom resolutions. It's a basic editor with very simplified interface, and it's part of the Windows Live Essentials Suite of applications.

It's important to know exactly how Windows Movie Maker creates a DVD. So to clarify, Windows Movie Maker DOESN'T CREATE A DVD; it exports a WMV file to a TEMP location where Windows DVD Maker with the WMV in its queue for processing. Windows DVD Maker takes the WMV file and CONVERTS it again to a VOB format that DVD's use natively; it's just useful to know how the application accomplishes this process.

In the Microsoft Windows Essentials support forums, issues about having problems burning to DVD keep coming up. This is why you need an alternative to creating a DVD, outside of using Windows DVD Maker. 

How to install and use Freemake Video Converter

When Windows Movie Maker can’t handle the video format you want to work with, it’s time to convert it to something it likes more natively, WMV.

The depressingly sad facts about Windows Movie Maker is that it really doesn’t fully support the video formats it says it does until you load the codecs, but if you don’t want to do that, you have to convert. And the most commonly recommended video converter is Freemake Video Converter.

Freemake Video Converter is a great software package, but people can be really apprehensive about dealing with ‘video converting’ software. Even more so, Freemake bundles their software with ‘opt-out’ software.

This post covers the download, installation and conversion of a video file to WMV for use with Windows Movie Maker.

How to Load K-Lite Codecs for Windows Movie Maker 2012 [step-by-step]

While Windows Movie Maker says that it supports popular video formats, but the truth is the application doesn't natively support those video formats until the proper codecs installed.  Without having the proper video codecs installed, you may have issues with importing, editing and exporting video [MOV, MP4, AVI, etc…].
As a suggestion for downloading codecs, http://www.free-codecs.com/ has an array of codec packs to choose from. I have used the K-Lite codec pack [standard] for years, and I've had very good success; it even gave me the ability to edit FLV files in Windows Movie Maker. I have never had a problem.
I put this together because there are apparently a lot of people scared to install software if they don't know what it is. So, below is a step-by-step installation with screenshots so people can see what's going to happen before they do any thing.

Installing and Using MediaInfo for Videos [Windows]

When you're working with video editing, you may run into situations where the media editor you're trying to work with isn't working properly. There are several reasons for not being able to import video into a video editor, but one of the most common issues is not having the proper codec installed.

If you're new to video editing, the concept of a codec may be completely foreign to you, but this doesn't devalue the requirement for the codec, and the bigger question is, how do you find the proper codec for the video file that you're trying to work with.

Luckily, there is a free application called MediaInfo that will allow you to open and inspect the media file you're trying to work with. The application will give you detailed information about the media file and what codecs are being used to encode the file. In addition to giving you this detailed information, it also gives you options for downloading the proper player and the proper codecs for video editing.

The Top 10 Frustrating Things About Windows Movie Maker 2012

I think everyone has experienced their fair share of difficulties with Windows Movie Maker 2012. It’s fair to say that the application is basic in nature and that Microsoft didn’t intend that Windows Movie Maker would be a high-end video editing package.

My personal experience with Microsoft support was that Windows Movie Maker was intended to encourage me to purchase a separate video editing package if I was going to be doing video editing on a regular basis; and that’s what I did. But I still use Windows Movie Maker from time to time for very simple video editing projects.

I continue to try to assist other Windows Movie Maker 2012 users, through the support forums, and if you spent any time in the support forums, you’ll see a recurring trend of stupid problems with Windows Movie Maker.

Windows Live Writer 2012 - Working With Images

I was in the Windows Live Writer support forum the other day and I was trying to assist someone who was having problems with posting clear images to Blogger. Apparently the original images that she was trying to attach was fairly large and when she tried to attach them to her blog post, the images looked okay but once the article was published, she indicated that the images that she was working with or had inserted, were now blurry.

This topic got me thinking about how Windows Live Writer works with images that are inserted into blog posts.

What To Do When Windows Movie Maker 2012 Stops Responding During Saving A Movie

If you have Windows movie maker, you're probably visiting this blog post because you having problems with being able to save your movie. Windows movie maker has a systemic problem with being able to render movies. Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't have an answer for you.

If you visit the Microsoft windows movie maker support forums and look up issues where users are not able to save their movies because Windows movie maker becomes nonresponsive; the most the technicians will do in the support forums is ask users to supply activity logs, from which they submit those to an escalation, from which, you never get a response.

It's a ploy to make them look like they're getting your issue the attention and importance that it needs, in the meantime, it's backup 5 yards and punt…

Windows Live Writer 2012: Problems with authenticating to Blogger [solved]

Notice:
As of December 11th, Google/Blogger no longer works with Windows Live Writer 2012. This isn't Google's fault; they had extended support for Windows Live Writer for many months before shutting it down. Microsoft simply has failed to update their software. The good news is that Windows Live Writer has been open sourced; Open Live Writer. The devs with Open Live Writer are actively working on fixing this issue, and many others. You'll have to edit your Blogger/pages manually/online until Open Live Writer updates. Visit the Open Live Writer page and show your support for the new open source effort.

Ever since Google started using two-step authentication, and people started using it, people using Windows Live Writer and Blogger have been running into problems with authentication. The base problem being that their normal Google email address and password are not working with Windows Live Writer.

Sadly, if you go to the Windows Live Writer support forum, the Microsoft technical support reps simply orientate you in the direction of Google. This always kind of makes me irritated. Microsoft knows what the problem is, and they know how to fix the problem.
People are coming to them with problems having to do with their software. They could take the time to explain what the problem is and then try to point them to the appropriate knowledge base support forum or something, but they blindly point people in the direction of Google and give them best wishes in fixing the problem. I think that's poor support.

Windows Live Writer 2012 now has PAGE ZOOM IN/OUT ability during composition

Windows Live Writer is the definitive tool for most bloggers who want to compose blog posts off-line. It's one of the few applications for Microsoft that's truly embraced for what it is, what it can do and for the fact it's free.

One of the bigger questions about Windows Live Writer over the past couple of years has been that it doesn't have the ability to zoom in and zoom out during the course of the composition phase. Like Microsoft office WORD, you can zoom in and zoom out of a document making the appearance of the document larger, but you're not actually changing the font size of any of the text.

Unfortunately, the updates to Windows Live Writer are few and far between. Even more so, when Windows Live Writer is updated, when the version numbers change, Microsoft doesn't disclose what improvements or corrections is made in the application. People have no idea what changes have been made to the application except for the developers for the application.

I did a search on this today, and I couldn't find anything on it, but Windows Live Writer 2012 now has the option to zoom in and zoom out in the composition phase.

Windows Live Writer: How to Change the Default Theme Appearance [editing with no theme]

Windows Live Writer has the ability to allow users to see their blog as it'd be posted as they are composing, but what if you were having problems with that; what if you didn't want to see the theme, or if your theme preview wasn't working correctly?

The standard editor for Windows Live Writer; editing with no theme means there's no fancy theme background, no fancy fonts and the width of the composition area.

Forget the graphics of creating a post. What most bloggers need is to roughly see the fonts, the links, images and at the width the post is going to be published. And this applies to any of the Blogging services [Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress, Etc.] that Windows Live Writer supports.

Windows Live Writer: Working with the Default and Theme Templates

At times it's hard to explain the issues of why Windows Live Writer can't display a theme correctly. It's multifaceted, but it can be explained with a little effort.

The support forums for Windows Live Writer ask these questions from time to time and it's good to have an example to draw from. In this post I provide the location of the default theme in Windows Live Writer and the location of where the dynamic themes are stored.

Depending on what the sore spot is, the average person should be able to read this and then make some small adjustments, or just create a BASIC theme for themselves.

Windows Live Writer 2012: Exploring the Registry Entries

Windows Live Writer is one of the most popular off-line blog editors the bloggers use. Blog authors love the ease-of-use and the ability to copy and paste images directly into a post and then be able to keep those off-line for reference and do lots of other stuff.

I've noticed over the past couple of years people are always asking about changing this setting or changing that setting, and it really just requires people to jump into the Windows registry, by the Windows Live Writer entry and start making a few changes.

Some people are nervous about getting into the Windows registry but in actuality there's no harm in simply viewing the Windows registry. I've gone into my Windows registry and poked around and take a bunch of screenshots of the settings for Windows Live Writer so people can see what it's settings look like before they start poking around.

Windows Live Writer: How to Add Images/Pictures to a Post

The other day the question came up in the Windows Live Writer support forum about adding an image to a post. Adding a post to Windows Live Writer is very simple and easy; it's one of the key points of Windows Live Writer that makes it so favored to use.

Windows Live Writer is a fantastic offline blogging tool with a WYSIWYG editor. It interfaces with just about any blog service [Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress, etc.] If you're a blogger you'll find this tool incredibly helpful- and it's refreshingly free from Microsoft.

But for the point of adding images to Windows Live Writer, I thought I would do a quick post on it.