I don't know if it's the Chinese Internet that makes Live Spaces slow, or if it's just Microsoft -- I vote for Microsoft! -- but writing and editing posts on the Spaces website has proven to be an excruciating task, so I looked around for software to ease my blogging pain. Right now I'm using Zoundry's Blog Writer, which, after you get through the non-straightforward way it has to be configured for Spaces, makes posting on Spaces quick and simple, with no slow-loading ActiveX controls to annoy me.