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One of the key features of Microsoft’s Windows Live Essentials suite is Writer. Writer gives bloggers the ability to post to their websites with ease. It supports Wordpress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, SharePoint, Community Server, and many other popular services. With Writer, you get an instant preview of what your post will look like, along with the ability to easily add photos and videos. It also lets you install plug-ins for added functionality.

Today, Online Tech Tips’ useful thing of the day involves Writer and how to bring it with you on the go. You see, to use writer, you have to install it as part of the Windows Live Essentials suite. However, this doesn’t really help someone who jumps from computer to computer. Enter your USB flash drive.

Here’s how to set it up (NOTE: To do this, you must be on a computer that has Writer installed)

1. Download Windows Live Writer Portable
2. Extract it to your flash drive
3. In your flash drive, navigate to the folder called WindowsLiveWriterPortable (might be located in a folder called WLWPortable3, depending on how you extracted it)
4. Open WindowsLiveWriterPortable.exe
5. When a pop-up tells you that the file was not found, it will ask you if you want to copy you local installation of the program
6. Select YES
7. Navigate to the Windows Live > Writer folder
8. Click OK
9. Go back to your flash drive and run WindowsLiveWriterPortable.exe (it should now work on any computer)

Microsoft has posted a new warning about an exploit that affects its Internet Explorer browser.  The zero-day vulnerability, which is already being exploited in the wild, allows for malicious users to install malware on a vulnerable machine.

According to CRN.com, the vulnerable “systems include Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, and Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7. However, Microsoft said that so far, Internet Explorer 8 and Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 4 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 are not affected.”

The exploit occurs when there is an invalid pointer reference.  This reference could allow for malicious users to install and launch malware when the object reference is deleted. Microsoft said that the current attacks appear to be targeted but they are currently working towards a fix.

For any user that is still using a legacy version of Internet Explorer, this is one more compelling reason to upgrade your version to IE 8.  By upgrading to IE 8, you are removing one more potential exploit that could allow malware to be installed on your machine.