I know, we're already a few weeks into the new year, but I have been so busy with work and life stuff that I haven't been out here in a while, and it sounded like a good start.

I had dinner with Graz last night, and he off-handedly mentioned that I got passed by Mladen in blog post count, as if I might not already be aware of it. ;-)  (Congrats Mladen!  You are doing a great job and a great service to the community!)  OK, seriously, Bill did encourage me to write some more, and suggested that I check out Windows Live Writer.  I'm using it now to write this post, and I have to admit that I'm liking it quite a bit in just the little time I have used it.  It is a good, simple WYSIWYG editor with options to write your post in either "Normal" text editor look or "Web Layout" which makes it look like you are writing directly in the way it will display on your blog, but without the top and side bars.  There is also Web Preview so you can see exactly what it will look like when posted on your blog.  And perhaps my favorite feature is to Save Local Draft so I can work on it, craft my words, save it, and come back to it later and edit one more time before actually posting it to the site.  And, related to that, I can save drafts of multiple posts, so I can start topics that have been on my mind, and then come back to finish and post them later when I am ready.  In fact I just did that to prove it works.  I started a second post that I have been meaning to write for several months, and now I have the opening paragraph done.  So, if you were like me, and just used the built-in post editor on your blog, go check out Live Writer for yourself.  I think you'll like it!

And while I'm here, one more thing.  If you are in a position where you communicate to non-technical management regularly, you should go read this article on the concept of Technical Debt.  Apparently this phrase has been around for a while, but I just stumbled upon it today and I think it is going to be a very handy analogy to use.

So here's to the start of a great new year!  I look forward to more writing this year than last (and hopefully you look forward to reading it).

Cheers!