A concern has been brought to my attention that dial-up users have limited monthly connection time and may not want to remain connected to Copper.net while drafting their blogs.

But perhaps a more pressing reason to draft blogs offline is the inactivity cutoff. For dialup users this happens after 4-minutes which goes by fast while developing thought and writing (at least for me). When you Add a Post using the online editor, there are no postbacks to refresh the page unless you remember to make frequent document saves.  Copper.net will see this as inactivity and the countdown timer starts. You may find your connection dropping while in the midst of drafting your blog and losing everything since the last save.

Well, I have a solution. You can draft your blog entries on your computer while unconnected. When you are ready to publish your blog posts, you can connect and upload your posts.

Though I’m always connected to the internet, I have been using Windows Live Writer to edit and publish my blog posts for several reasons:

• I like the idea of editing and saving post files locally then publishing when ready.
• I can maintain and post to several blogs from one interface.
• Local resources such as images are easier to insert. The Live Writer interface handles the uploading for me.
• During the beta testing phase, I may lose my post – I want a local copy to republish if this should happen.

Windows Live Writer is a free download from Microsoft and works well with MyCopper blog as well as the following blog services: Windows Live Spaces, SharePoint Blog, Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, etc.

File size is 1.08MB.

Once installed, launch the Live Writer application found in the Windows Live folder on your Windows Start menu. Follow these simple steps to set up a blog account for Writer to post to. The automatic initial setup may take you directly to step 2.

1) Choose "Add blog account..." from the Blogs menu.

2) Select "Other blog service" then click Next

3) Enter Web address for your blog, this is found by logging on to the MyCopper portal and selecting MyBlog from the main navigation menu. You will need to enter you login Username and Password for Windows Live Writer to access your blog.

Important: Select “Remember my password” unless you want to enter your login information each time you make a post.

4) Writer will attempt to connect to your blog. You will then be prompted to allow Writer to detect the theme of your blog. If you select Yes it will post a temporary post on your blog.

5) Most likely you will receive an alert that Writer could not delete the temporary post which you will need to do manually. Press OK.

6) Enter a Blog Nickname for your blog. This is used by Writer and will appear in the Blogs menu.

7) Go to MyBlog on the MyCopper portal and you should find a new blog post that looks something like this.

Click Delete.

Note: You will need to be logged in to delete a post on your blog.

More support on Windows Live Writer.

When creating posts, if you are confused about how to use Categories and Tags, perhaps this post will help.

By selecting Add Post or Editing an Existing Post, you will see the following interface:

Here you will have the option to select Categories your post belongs to as well as declare several Tags. This can be confusing to the beginning blogger, but using Categories and Tags correctly can greatly improve the experience of your blog’s visitors.

Categories are a useful way to provide thoughtful structure to your blog. Posts of similar content should be categorized under the same Categories.

Example: If you were to post many recipes on your blog, you could have each recipe belong to a category such as “Main Dish”, “Side Dish”, “Desserts”, “Drinks”, “Salads”, “Soups”, etc. and every recipe could belong to a general “Recipes” Category.  This way someone interested in finding a good dessert recipe could view at just your post under the Dessert category.

Tags are keywords found in your post content. 

Example: A recipe post for Banana Cream Pie may use the keywords: banana, pie, dessert, award winning, easy bake, low calorie.

Note: Tags will appear in the Tag Cloud view in the sidebar of your blog.