Windows Live Writer Beta 3

Windows Live Writer Beta 3 has been released. I'm using it to post this blog entry.

A couple of nice new features.

The installer caught my eye - it installs Writer, but also lets you dynamically choose to install other programs from the Windows Live stable.

It also adds the ability to upload images to picasaweb when posting to blogger. So assuming that feature actually works, the above image should be hosted in picasaweb.

Microsoft Update Catalog

Ben showed me this yesterday - Microsoft have a searchable catalogue of all the updates they push out via Microsoft Update.

It lists the versions which is nice, but for some reason it refuses to run in Firefox which is a bit silly.

Latest Ralink driver refuses to install

I downloaded the latest driver for my wireless PCI card (a Minitar MN54GPC-RC) from the Ralink site.

However when I went to install the driver, it would crash

First I tried uninstalled the old driver, but this didn't help.

The next thought was "that has to be about the longest filename I've ever seen" - IS_AP_STA_6x_D-1.2.3.0_VA-2.0.7.0_2500_D-3.2.0.0_VA-3.2.0.0_RU-2.0.3.0_VA-1.0.15.0_AU_1.2.0.0_080207_0.1.0.24.exe

So I renamed the file, and guess what, the installer worked!

The new driver includes some extra features, though the included help file doesn't actually bother to explain what they are.

• WMM - appears to be Wireless Multimedia Extensions
• WPS - Wireless Provisioning Services

WPS doesn't seem to be relevant to me at home, and WMM looks like also requires Access Point support too. A quick search against my Billion 7402GL doesn't indicate that it supports this feature though.