I've installed the Notify module to see if its a good module to allow users to be notified of new content. There doesn't seem to be a 'default' setting that will apply to new user accounts. ;(

http://drupal.org/project/notify

I just installed Windows Live Writer and am trying it out. As far as Microsoft Applications go its pretty flexible, and supports a lot of types of blogs. Initially written for Windows Spaces (a competitor to MySpace), the editor is able to update Microsoft's blog sites, as well as many other types and api's (Blogger, Moveable Type, Live Journal, and others). Pretty much making this tool a universal blog updater.

For me the benefit is the ability to do spell checking, because as anyone that knows me knows... I can't spell to save my life.

I finally upgraded to Drupal 4.7.1, from 4.3.0, and let me tell you it was a battle. To upgrade, you need to do every upgrade between 4.3.0 to 4.7.1, which was 4.3.0, 4.4.0, 4.5.3, 4.6.3, 4.7.1. :-D Oh Joy.