Semagic

Semagic is a Windows client for the LiveJournal blogging platform. It can also be used to write posts for Blogger and Wordpress blogs.

Though it is free, it offers a lot of handy features, including support for multiple accounts, a spell-checker, or the possibility of directly uploading photos to popular image hosting services like Flickr, Picasa or ImageShack.us.

Semagic is highly appreciated by many LiveJournal bloggers especially thanks to its fully-featured text editor that allows composing and posting new entries to a journal in an easy and convenient manner, being a perfect replacement for the default LiveJournal web interface-based client. I like the fact that despite the complexity and the great number of features that this tool provides, it still manages to be simple, intuitive and effective. It allows users to view their posting history and edit existing entries, to manage their friends’ lists, to receive notifications about their LiveJournal friends’ activities, and many more. Furthermore, it offers additional editing operations that the default LiveJournal web interface-based client doesn’t include, such as WYSIWYG editing, pre-formatted drafts, macro shortcuts, and many more. Spell-checking is also possible, whether using the internal spellchecker or making use of the ones included in Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.

As you can see, Semagic is truly comprehensive. Considering that it is also an open-source tool, it simply leaves no room for complaints.