Lately we've been finding ourselves discussing applications that we really like for one operating system, that would be great on another.

Now that we've been using our Mac computers for about a month, we can tell you that one of the applications we miss the most is Windows Live Writer. Microsoft has really done a great job with it and they've managed to pack it full of features without slowing it down. The new blogging software we use, while nice, just doesn't match up.

In an attempt to gain market share in the search arena, Microsoft has just announced a partnership with HP that will make their Live Search the default on Hewlett-Packard computers that are shipped in the United States and Canada.

In about 11 hours Microsoft will be launching their Windows Live Wave 2, which is a collection of applications offered at no cost. You can download the new installer now even though the "wave" of updated programs won't be released until later today.

Last Thursday we showed you how to make Windows Live Writer portable, and today we are going to show you how to create powerful text templates that will save you incredible amounts of time. Unfortunately the plugin you'll need to install, Dynamic Templates, won't work with the portable version.

The recent release of Windows Live Writer Beta 3 has, in my opinion, put that blogging software well ahead of any competition. The addition of XHTML support is what caused me to switch back, but prior to that I used another free application called Post2Blog. One of the major benefits it offered was the ability to assemble a portable version so that you can blog wherever you go.

Looks like I was right about there being a new Live Writer released today. The Live Writer blog just announced that Beta 3 has been made available, and it can be downloaded by anyone and everyone.

It looks like Microsoft is pulling a Google and offering their most popular apps in a unified package. Well, it's not exactly like the Google Pack because Microsoft is only including their own homegrown programs, whereas Google also includes some third-party software (such as Norton and Skype).

The Windows Live Writer team just posted the Beta 2 which is now available for you to download. It has a handsome list of new features, but nothing I hadn’t really seen in a blog editor before:

Windows Live Writer has become one of the most popular blogging tools for Windows-based PC users.  It’s free, and a quick download which makes it easy to publish rich content to your blog.  And on top of it, Live Writer works with WordPress, LiveJournal, Blogger, and others.