Microsoft Live Writer

This is a test blog for Microsoft Live Writer.

Just one thing leads to another. I was chatting with few friends on backup space on the Internet. He mentioned one, and I countered Microsoft’s Skydrive. The recent announcement of Microsoft’s online Office really impressed me, and they provide 25G of space! Compared with Google, which only gives 1G of space, Microsoft is so so generous.

Then someone talked about using the space Microsoft provides for backup space. There is some add-ons available to do that. That just made me so curious. So I found Microsoft Live Sync, and then Photo Gallery, and now I even have Live Writer on my computer.

Live Writer is a blog software. It just downloads my settings from Blogger. Well, I don’t know if it’s going to change any of my original settings or not. I’ll publish this one and then check.

It seems to me that most of the settings have been downloaded. I can add label to this post, set a publish date, preview, etc. However, some personal setting is lost. When the post is longer, I like to have a shorter preview on the homepage, and the provide a link for further reading. This is manually done, and I guess Live Writer is not smart enough to pick up everything.

A Bientot, Calgary

Tomorrow at the time when I'm typing now, I'll be in the vehicle heading for the airport.

A friend just came back to Taiwan from a 5-day vacation. He said that it was too short, that he could have stayed at the beach for one more week. I was about to say 6 weeks here turns out to be short as well, and I wish it could be just as long as time could be. It's interesting to see how things here are so different now, compared with December. Now the days are so long. The sky is bright at 5am, till after 10:30pm. Everything is so green and grows like crazy. It was so dark at 5pm in December, and the evening is so dark and long that it was almost unbearable.

So things have come to an end here. It's time to resume my life. Maybe there will be a new chapter here, and maybe not. But until then, a bientot, Calgary.

Attached photo is THE downtown view of Calgary for me.

Fort Macleod

This is the first trip out of town for a long long while, and should also be the last. Destination: Fort Macleod.

Fort Macleod is in southern Alberta. Fort Calgary was founded as a mid point between Edmonton and Fort Macleod. There is a lot of interesting history regarding North West Mounted Police, which became current Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Indians, and the negotiations between First Nations and Canada. Lots of artifacts there as well.

This structure is of much interest to me, and shows how the house in the prairie was built. Trees were scarce in the prairie, so people used to cut out grass and stack them as the main building material, including roof. That's why there is grass growing on top of the roof in the attached photo. It does not sound like a very reliable structure, as when it rains and the soil is soaked with water, it could be very muddy in the structure. I'm not sure how wind affects it, as I'm sure the weather could be windy and rainy. I guess people would live in constant fear of losing their belongings in the prairie.