This is a free, downloadable application that runs on your Windows PC and allows you to write blog posts.

SDK Updates
This release is largely about updates to the Writer SDK, which now includes hooks for pre- and post-publish events. These updates are still experimental and these APIs are not stable--we may make changes based on your feedback that break plug-ins that use these new methods. However, we’re really excited about the new set of scenarios have been unlocked and look forward to hearing feedback from all of you Writer plug-in developers out there.

For more details about the SDK, please see the blog post on Windows Live Dev.

New Features
You’ll also get an early look at some improvements and new features we’ve been working on:

Video and Image Publishing Enhancements

* Upload videos to Soapbox
* Image cropping and tilting
* Additional border styles
* Support for LightBox and other image previewing effects (like Slimbox, Smoothbox, and others)
* Support for centering images

Editing Enhancements

* Auto Linking
* Smart quotes/typographic characters
* Word count

UI Improvements

* Revised main toolbar
* Tabs for view switching
* Improved category control with search/filtering