One of the coolest things about the internet is the ability to create custom items that fit your tastes and personality. One of these sites that I really like is http://www.zazzle.com. Zazzle allows you to create shirts, hats, stamps, mugs, stickers, greeting cards, and a bunch of other items. You can customize each of these items with the colors, pictures, and text that you like. The best part is that if people buy the products you created then you get money for them.

Of course I would guess that while this is a great idea it probably opens the designer, and zazzle up to lawsuits based on copyright, and trademark violations. One of the coolest thing is that you can even design your own postage stamps based on an agreement that zazzle has with the US Postal Service. Since I wanted to get a shirt with my way to tell if you are a SOAholic, I created some shirts. You can see them here in my store.

I decided to download and evaluate the Windows Live Writer. I may also download and experiment with the SDK later although based on some projects I need to work on it may be some time. So far I like it. The interface is pretty good and it is definitely easy to write posts.

What I really like is that it shows how the entry will look when posted. That is a very useful feature and allows me to see exactly what my entry will look like prior to posting it which should save some entry time.

There are also several different views showing the web layout, web preview, and the background html code. That makes it very easy to edit and change items.

Since I have both an external and internal blog I would like the ability to write a post once and have it post to both blogs, but I haven't tried that yet. In any case, if you are looking for a blog editing and posting tool, give Live Writer a try.

I listened to a fascinating broadcast this morning on the topic of this entry (Login required). One key point that I took away from it is that developers would rather use a software package that is more difficult to use, but gives greater control. End users don’t want to follow this method, they want something that is easier to use and gives less control. The subject of this broadcast, David S. Platt, recently wrote a book titled Why Software Sucks...and What You Can Do About It.