As you can imagine, Microsoft doesn’t develop a version of Windows Live Writer for Linux and I don’t know any tool for doing the same. Don’t get this wrong, there are a few of applications for blog posting, but every single one of them has an important drawback. Some don’t let you upload pictures, others doesn’t have spell checker or you have to type the HTML. Others simply doesn’t allow you to work with multiple accounts, or they let you manage different blogs, but only WordPress based, and so on…

Solution? Keep using Windows Live Writer. I’ve VirtualBox with Windows XP SP3 and I run it in seamless mode. I know it sounds a little bit strange using a virtual machine just for one program… but that wouldn’t be true. Just face it, sooner or later everyone needs to use some “only-windows” application. Did you ever tried to update your iPod Touch on a Linux box? Forget it, as far as I know it’s impossible… you need iTunes and wine is good, but no so great.

I started downloading the x86_64 version for my Core2Duo. I don’t know why on earth they hide the 64bits version. I had to browse through the whole FTP to get it. Fortunately that was the only trouble I had to solve.

The installation process was easy and painless. There was no problem with the boot-loader (actually, Fedora found my hackintosh!), and 20 minutes after my system was up and running. It was the first time my laptop could be suspended!

I’ve had some troubles with different applications (like Skype), but it was because I was trying to use 32 bits applications on my 64bits system without the appropriate 32bits libraries. It is really easy to solve… but you’ve to know where is the problem coming from.

Being honest, the only thing I’ve had to change was the size of the fonts, 10p is excessively huge for my 13” laptop screen.

At this very moment I’m writing this on OpenOffice -while listening music on Banshee- and I’ll publish it with Windows Live Writer running on Windows XP inside VirtualBox (which is incredibly fast by the way). Everything on my Fedora 10 without any problem. That’s what I like of Fedora, I do what I want without worries about “how” I want it.

Yesterday I saw a piece of news about the progress of the LinuxDNA group. I’m not using Linux right now, but I used to, and if you know anything about it, you know that GCC is everywhere. The kernel and the vast majority of all the GNU applications have been designed to be compiled with GCC. The LinuxDNA group has been working to bring the power of Intel C/C++ Compiler to Linux.

Recently they have been capable of compile the kernel in a Gentoo. According to their data, compiling the kernel with the Intel Compiler boosts up to 40% for certain parts and an average of 8.5%.

I don’t have an extensive knowledge about compilers, but it sounds to me like a good research without practical use. Don’t take this wrong, it’s an amazing work, I’m just saying that I don’t think this will make a difference in our machines performance.

We’re using GCC because it’s extremely portable. You can cross-compile whatever you want, and you can use it to compile all your system for a bunch of different architectures. With Intel Compiler we will boost our system around 8.5%, but only for those who run Intel processors… even AMD is out of the target!

In my opinion, we should wait until more performance date will be available and then, think if it’s worth.

Be that as it may, it’s a great research and another option to boost up our system