Problems Integrating Word 2010 With Blog software? Maybe it’s not you!
Eric Renderking Fisk - August 24th, 2010 
Currently
I’m trying to learn how Office 2010 works with other software packages
such as my own web editing package and “Blogger.” I spent a couple of hours trying with no luck to research
how to publish articles that I’m writing here on my laptop with “the
click of one button” that’s supposed to work with Google services.
Several hours of searching, trial and error, I still get the same
message – “Word Can Not Access Your Account.” It took me about 10
minutes to set up a Windows Live “Spaces” account and I was able to link
it to Word 2010 almost instantly. You don’t think that’s a coincidence,
do you? It just seems to me as if there’s something that’s not right
about this and I’m mulling it inside my melon to see if it doesn’t sound
too conspiratorial…
A Microsoft Product like Word 2010 won’t “sync” with Blogger or other
Google products, but works fine with a service that I didn’t even know
existed until this afternoon?
I don’t know why but there’s something desperate and “End of The World”-ish
about this, as if the only option was to pick through the ruins of a
fallen society with other zombie like scavengers, when all I really want
is to have things the way they were before everything came to a crashing
halt. All the other resources are controlled by a scant few with designs
of world domination.
These
is one of the reasons why learning how to “blog” is such a difficult
thing to do and why more people don’t try to do things like make their
own websites. I’m reminded of when I first started The Fedora Chronicles
– I was afraid to learn HTML because of the trials I knew I would have
to endure. It’s not so much learning the code, that’s hard enough if all
you know how to do is click “save” in your word processing program. It’s
all the other little things that you have to learn by yourself that’s
daunting, the nuances that no training manual or text book can teach you
since they’re every changing and too numerous. Who among us could have
predicted back before Office 2010 was released that for reasons that are
beyond us and are limited only to the omnipotent software designers that
one of the special features of Word 2007 would fail or be discontinued
in Word 2010? How can you prepare students for the inevitable
frustration that occurs when things don’t work? Who knows if there’s the
software mouse/keyboard short cut under an “Advanced” tab that’s an
equivalent of giggling the handle or kicking the motor.
Then I discovered another Microsoft tool called “Windows Live Writer” –
I can’t say enough good things about this, it’s almost like it’s the
little brother to my favorite HTML editing software and it does
everything Word 2010 says it does, but doesn’t. Write a post, then
simply click publish. It has a small “footprint” on my desktop and I’m
dying to see how it will work on my wife’s HP Netbook.
If I was just a blogger and The Fedora Chronicles existed only on
blogger or Windows Live Spaces, I would be an exceptionally happy fedora
clad man.
But one question I have is simple – for how long is Windows Live Writer
going to work? From what I read, Word 2007 allowed people to publish on
“Blogger,” but simply stopped and failed. Why? Because of some update? I
don’t know. Why even invest in the money for Word 2010 or the whole
suite of Office 2010 products when this one does it… for free? Microsoft
dropped the ball and is giving away the farm.
This
is the perfect time to remind everyone why I don’t rely on other
people’s servers, services or software to run The Fedora Chronicles. It
might sound a bit doctorial or tyrannical – I’m a bit of authoritarian
when it comes to running this site and I have to have control over
almost every aspect of it. I admit it. All I need to do is write my text
in Word for Windows (yes, the same program that won’t integrate with
“blogger”) and drop my text into my HTML editing software within one of
my division tables. HTML allows me to set as many or as few “keywords”
or category tags that I want… there are things I can do in writing my
own HTML code that I can’t do in “Blogger” or “Microsoft Live Spaces.”
That I know of.
[This blog post was written in Word 2010, Windows Live Writer, and Web Expressions. No newbies, software developers or laptops where harmed in the writing or research for this text. You can discuss this rant on The Electric Speakeasy – here.]
