OK ... so on Craig's suggestion, I downloaded Windows Live Writer, a free blogging program that lets you do WYSIWYG entries and formats them for various blogging platforms (Typepad, Blogger, Wordpress, etc.).
I've had some troubles in the past with Typepad's various little eccentricities (photo sizing, etc), and I know Laura has as well. And I hate posting, going to read the post, finding typos and spacing glitches and whatnot, going back to the entry window, re-saving the changes, checking again, finding a comma missing, and on and on.
This is allowing me to see the post as it will appear on my blog even as I type it and insert the pics, sizing them by dragging and stretching (woohoo! no more using Typepad's craptastic photo sizing utility! ) and even giving them a cute lil border.
(What better way to test this than with a cute puppy pic? Say "hi" to Caesar.)
Another cool feature is that it remembers links - so if I just type Laura and then type V into the space for the url, it gives me a dropdown menu and sure enough, there's Vitamin Sea. VERY cool, because normally I have to open another tab, click on the link to bring it up, then copy and paste.
Although I'm typing this before I'm actually going to post it, of course - it's promising to let me to post exactly what I see here.
As much as I am loathe to say anything nice about Microsoft - this seems to work pretty sweet. I had to install the Windows.NET package (which I found here, along with the inevitable accompanying Service Pack to fix all that was wrong with it) in order to let Windows Live Writer work. But it seems like a good solution to a bunch of niggling little problems.
If you're a blogger, look into it.
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