I tend to use off-line blogging tools rather than the native writers supplied by the blog software. This is partly because I can take my time and save for later on my hard drive without worrying about being connected to the net and partly because I can trawl about while writing to link to my sources. I have been using wBloggar – a freeware application that has served me well. 
If it has a downside, it is that it does not have a WYSIWYG editor. The main input window uses direct coding. Not a problem in itself, but the WYSIWYG display is slow to load for some reason that I’ve never quite determined. Also, if you are using images, there is no ftp capability built in. Again, a minor niggle and as it is free, not worth complaining about. So, if you want to have a go at off-line blogging, wBloggar is worth a try. I’d give it seven or eight out of ten for ease of use and functions.
Since then, however, I’ve come across a shareware application – BlogJet. Not particularly cheap at nearly £30, but it has the two things wBloggar misses; WYSIWYG editing with the facility to go into the code if necessary and ftp is built in. The 
imaging facility also includes auto-thumbnail. Once the post is ready to upload, the images, including thumbnails are automatically uploaded to the blog’s image folder.
As with wBloggar, it works with all of the major blog platforms. You do need to look carefully at the instructions for your ftp path as it isn’t immediately obvious how to set it. The online instructions include a Flash demo – this helps, but, frankly, I’d rather have text and screenshots so that I can go back easily while I’m filling out the options. Flash tutorials are just a bit too clever, clever for my liking. When you are learning something new, you want time to stop and think without having to rewind an animation.
Like wBloggar, there is a spell checker. This one, however, includes British English along with American English, so you won’t have to keep telling it to ignore the spelling of words like “organise”, “neighbour” and “criticise”. The Americans do like their “zees” don’t they? 
Are there any niggles? Well, while it is well featured, not all of the font formatting is available from the toolbar. Colour, bold, italic and underline is your lot. Anything else and you have to go into the code window and manually code it. Drag and drop of images would be nice. As would the ability to edit things like alignment in the WYSIWYG window once the images have been inserted. Again, you can go into the code window and correct it, but it really should be available from the WYSIWYG window.
However, these are minor niggles and the application is still under development. You get 30 days to try it out. I’m on my fourth day and I’ve decided to shell out and buy it. I guess that means that I like it.