Microsoft recently announced that it was ending its Windows Live  Spaces web service.  Everyone that has a Space can migrate it to a WordPress Blog.  After the beginning of next year (Q1) existing Spaces will be removed from the web.

I’ve been blogging for quite a long time, and I’ve been a freelance writer longer than that.  I’ve been wanting to combine my Windows Live Spaces blog (formerly called, PPC Guru) with iTechGear.org, which until last night, was hosted on Posterous. I’ve moved the domain to WordPress along with what was formerly PPC Guru.

Posterous is a GREAT blogging service; but for me, they were missing a couple of really important features

1. No way to Import Content from Windows Live Spaces
   I want all my stuff in one spot.  I want all my articles together so that I have a aggregated archive of my work.  I’ve been begging Posterous for a way to import content from WLS, but it apparently wasn’t (and now won’t be) a priority for them.
2. No Native Windows Live Writer Support
   The people at Posterous feel that e-mail is the best way to post a blog update; and it is a GREAT way to do that; but it really isn’t the only way, ESPECIALLY, if you want to post a longer, feature length article. While they DO offer a web interface AND a way to save drafts online, I am not comfortable saving drafts online.  I also don’t want to HAVE to do everything in Word, especially when tools like Windows Live Writer exist where I can write and post the article all in one tool.

Just for the record, a WLW plugin called Writerous, does exist that allows you to use Windows Live Writer to post to Posterous blogs; but it has some serious limitations, in particular, no support for in-line images.  All images posted via Writerous get put in a gallery at the top of the post.  This doesn’t work for feature length articles like my [Android] Smartphone Battery Guide.  The images really need to be placed in the article at the point of reference, and NOT a the top of the article.

So, there you have it. I’ve moved.  The dust is still settling; and need to pick a permanent theme and design for the site as well as manually post all of the content from my Posterous blog here at the new iTechGear.org.