The advantages? Well, I’ve just opened up this service, so let me poke around as I write. That is, it’s so easy that you discover advantages just by looking around.
First, it’s an easy interface that shows you exactly how your post will appear. Otherwise known as What You See Is What You Get (often “abbreviated” with the unfortunate acronym WYSIWYG).
Second, it allows easier inclusion of photographs, like this vision of the Garden of Eden, also known as “Mieshelle in Portland’s Japanese Zen Garden”:
Third, it’s easy to link to other sites or pages. Just highlight the term to be linked from and then either (1) click on the image of a link on a globe (get it? link on the World Wide Web?) or (2) use CTRL-K. Insert your URL where it says “URL”.
Fourth, it appears to work just like Word, so that if you highlight something like “World Wide” as above, and press CTRL-U, the term will be underlined (for all you who were still using your mouse to underline, bold, italicize, copy, cut, and paste, I have many time-saving shortcuts for you, and they are, respectively, CTRL U, B, I, C, X, and V). And don’t forget CTRL-S to save your work while you type!
You can even go up to the menu bar, click on the button next to “Save Draft” (it will have different names depending on your last selection), and choose “Web Preview” and, instantly see what your post will look like on the blog! This is really cool.
The application also spell-checks, allows changing of fonts, block quotes, and more.
HOW TO GET STARTED
Install on your computer. Open. You will be asked for your blog address. You will be asked for your username and password. (Already provided to you via email, coaches). You will then start, thinking a thought of gratitude that the universe is so absurdly simple.
How do you make the actual post? I don’t know, let me guess, type it in here, and see if it works (if you see the post, it worked).
Aha. Just as I thought: to post, go to “File” and choose “Publish to Weblog”. Voila!