There are several software titles now that fall under the "Live" name.  I'm using Windows Live Writer now to make a blog post to my BlogEngine based blog.  I was investigating using some other live software when I stumbled upon a blog post by Mads Kristensen about using Windows Live Writer.

I was trying to use another of the Live software, Windows Live Messenger.  I wanted to use video conferencing, and Skype did not seem to support my Firewire based video camera on my Windows Media Center.  I set up Windows Live Messenger on my Windows Media Center (and accidentally installed a few other things because it was hard for me to read the text next to the checkboxes that I was checking on my TV).  When I created a "live" account, it asked for a birthday.  I gave it 2005 as the birthday of my Windows Media Center.  It then through me into a process of having a parent verify my account (did they figure a 2 year old was setting up their Windows live account?).  I figured I'd just create another account @live.com and do the verification thing.  When I tried to create the account, it only gave me @hotmail as an option.  I finally realized that my old passport account would work, so I tried it and got to something that asked me for a credit card number.

It's that point I gave up, decided to just try to use Skype. I went to buy a USB video camera and found one that was $99.  When I went to read more reviews on Amazon.com, I found that it had a $50 rebate.  Hooray for 1 click buying.

/cry - Tried to publish using Windows Live Writer and got an error:

Server Error 0 Occurred

Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Guess I need to check the BlogEngine provider I wrote first before I can publish this from Windows Live Writer - gonna just stick it up using the normal interface for now.