Some time ago, the SkyDrive website had been redesigned. New features and advancements are now integrated. However, this is only the beginning of a set of updates coming soon. On top of the planned SkyDrive clients for the mentioned systems, an integration of Windows Live Devices is planned.

Shortly, you will be able to use SkyDrive for accessing and viewing files synced to the web storage from any linked device. Added devices will show up in SkyDrive’s menu, below the “Groups” entry. We don’t know yet whether each device will be able to access SkyDrive’s 25GB storage, or if the current 5GB limit will still be used. The storage systems of Windows Live Mesh and SkyDrive might in fact be merged together soon.

This correlates with a statement made by Mike Torres, Group Program Manager for SkyDrive Devices and Roaming:

We know [the connection of SkyDrive and Mesh is one of the] top asks (and that we can improve the usability of the site) and we are hard at work on SkyDrive as we speak.

Concludingly, more big changes are on the way, targeting further “top asks” from the community. Which features would be top for you?

The Windows Live team has published an instant update for the web file storage Windows Live SkyDrive.

Omar Shanine, Group Program Manager, SkyDrive.com, announced:

Starting today, we are launching a new version of the SkyDrive website. We took advantage of modern browsers and HTML5 to make SkyDrive faster, easier to navigate, and more beautiful for viewing photos.

Some of the new features include:

Site

• New layout, look and feel, and site architecture
• SSL enabled on all authenticated pages
• Clean urls (removed most of the junk from the URLs)
• SkyDrive can now be pinned to your Windows 7 taskbar with jump lists (IE9)
• Header now says SkyDrive
• What’s new feed for docs and photos removed
• Upload file size limit now 100MB
• Moved to edge-to-edge layout to take advantage of larger screens
• Reduced size of header to give more room to your content

Photos

• Brand new photos experience
• HTML5 video playback
• Thumbnails generated for H.264 Video
• CSS3 Transitions for albums and 1-up view
• Photo album thumbnails now “pulse”
• Thumbnails generated for all photo sizes (previously limited to 5000px)
• Support for aspect ratio thumbnails (including panorama)

Docs

• Icons for PDF filetypes
• Recent documents includes more items
• Open in Office Client from SkyDrive now gives you the option to install Office 2010 trial using Click-to-Run technology
• Performance improvements to the Office Web Apps in IE9
• Details view now supports touch

Groups

SkyDrive groups now appear in the left nav giving you one click access to Group content.

In a future post, I will highlight some of the new features in the all-new Windows Live Skydrive, Wave 5 (16.0).

Thereby, we see three major points: Connecting to Social Media got stronger, future-proof steps toward Cloud Computing were made, and connected with these two, the Wave 4 updates for all Windows Live services and Essentials.

Wave 4

The first half of the year was dominated by Wave 4, the fourth development wave of the Windows Live services.

With this update, the Windows Live team focused efficiently on selected products: Messenger, Hotmail and Photo Gallery were much revamped and enhanced, Office Web Apps were developed from scratch.

Social Networking

Since the beginning of this year, Windows Live is active on Facebook and Twitter as well. In the meantime, many thousand fans use the provided offers to inform themselves or exchange Windows Live news.

With this focus, Windows Live reached out to more partners from the social networking sector, e.g. with Facebook and LinkedIn. The intended goal is not to be the best in all sectors, but to offer the best features in Microsoft’s central tasks. Partnerships are a way to shorten your ways on the web and to provide you with existing offers that you already use, now connected with Windows Live.

For instance, Windows Live Messenger 2011 puts the focus more on social networks. Using the new social networking view, you can follow all updates from your favorite services from one central location. In the new Windows Live Hotmail, the one click filter “News from social networks” helps you to remove clutter in your inbox.

Cloud Computing

In Photo Gallery and Movie Maker, it got much easier to share your fresh Photofused images, your slideshows or movies with your friends on social networks. Windows Live Skydrive gives you great flexibility — from numerous devices with Web access, you can upload and backup your data from wherever you are, share them with your friends, send them to collaborate with your colleagues or publish them to the public.

For the new year, Windows Live is again preparing various enhancements and news for you — Happy New Year!

Today, we are going to take a look at the first half of 2010, that is, from January to June.

• January 2010
  • Details and first photos about Messenger Wave 4 emerge.
  • You can now connect SkyDrive to Windows Explorer — using CloudStorageExplorer.
  • Hotmail Wave 4 will add Conversation view for messages.
• February 2010
  • The cloud system Windows Azure launches officially.
  • The social network Facebook launches its new home page layout.
  • Windows Live ID has an outage, causing that customers cannot sign in anywhere.
  • The Windows Live Messenger extension Messenger Plus! becomes silent at Yuna Software, its new owner, but eventually the silence is broken and we can move on to new pastures.
  • The Chinese website cnbeta.com discovers the design of Windows Live Writer 2011.
• March 2010
  • Google acquires the online image editor startup company Picnik.
  • The IT trade fair CeBIT 2010 takes place in Hanover, Germany.
  • The release roadmap for Windows Live Wave 4 surfaces.

• April 2010
  • Live.com changes to be Windows Live Home.
  • Office 2010 reaches RTM status, its development is finished.
  • Chris Jones talks about the future of Windows Live.
• May 2010
  • The search engine Google overhauls its interface.
  • Angus Logan showcases the Windows Live Messenger App for Apples iPhone smartphone.
  • mynetx.net takes an in-depth look at the new features in Hotmail Wave 4.
  • Messenger 2011 retires the existing “View webcam” feature and instead relies on Video calls, which are easier to maintain. Users’ reactions are overly negative and loud.
  • The complete feature list of Windows Live 2011 is published. Remarkable new features include Messenger’s Facebook Chat module as well as Photo Fuse and facial recognition in Photo Gallery.
  • On May 31, Windows Live Events is closing.
• June 2010
  • Office 2010 and Office Web Apps are released to the public. Office Web Apps allow to edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations right in your web browser.
  • The Windows Live Wave 4 public beta launches in 7 languages.

What was your personal highlight in the first half of 2010? I am curious to know!

Live Mail

Windows Live Mail now handles Gmail’s IMAP folders correctly, so Sent Mail and Trash get handled correctly. I’m sure you have noticed the new start-up splash screen, too.

Live Photo Gallery

The new SkyDrive icon has been integrated, and there are Quick Previews for edit actions.

Live Movie Maker

You can now take snapshots of a still frame in your project and save them as image files. Windows Live’s connection to flickr has been extended from only Photo Gallery in Beta 1 to Movie Maker too. This lets you upload videos from Movie Maker directly to your flickr Account.

Live Writer

Besides the obviously new splash screen, “Writer has significantly improved the quality of its spell-checking,” says Chris Jones, Vice President, Windows Live Engineering.

Update: Writer now also supports emoticons. Was about time, I think… Thanks to @MissDazee for the tip!

Live Messenger

The first thing you will notice is a new sign-in animation for Messenger. The application has been speeded up wherever you look, from the sign-in to interface animations. Furthermore, Messenger video chat now uses 30% less memory resources by delegating some work to your graphics card.

Perhaps the most important news for this Beta refresh is that you’re now able to chat with your Facebook friends directly from Messenger. This applies if you live in either the United States, Great Britain, France, Brazil, Germany or Russia. Chris Jones explains:

Many of you have been asking for Facebook chat, and it’s finally here. More than half of all Messenger customers also use Facebook. With the new Facebook chat integration, you now also have one place to chat with all your friends.

[Connecting Messenger to Facebook Chat] is a significant task. We’re connecting Messenger’s ~300 million customers (who are already connected to Yahoo! Messenger and Office Communicator) to Facebook’s ~500 million customers.

How can I connect Messenger with Facebook Chat?

I will explain you step-by-step in a minute.

Get the Beta refresh

Free download: Windows Live Essentials 2011 (Wave 4) Beta 2

Users of Windows Live Hotmail should prepare for a change in the coming weeks. As announced, the new version of Hotmail will be available for some 370 million users worldwide gradually. Then, Hotmail awaits you with numerous news: Microsoft has improved the spam filter and watches how you interact with your mail. With filters, you can find mails with attachments, images or videos faster.

For sending big photo albums, Hotmail will offer SkyDrive Web storage and integrating preview thumbnails into the messages. The recipient can then download the photos. With this, you can send up to 200 photos, each one up to 50 MB, per e-mail. Microsoft is also making it easier to use the own, proprietary formats. Office documents attached to an e-mail can be viewed on PC and Mac without installing the corresponding Office application or a viewer.

Microsoft has also improved the security: Each user can use single-use codes for signing in. This allows you to sign in at public computers, for example in an Internet café, without having to enter your login credentials. Your complete Hotmail session is SSL-encrypted, not just during the login phase.

In the past two years, Microsoft has spent more energy in making Windows Live Hotmail even better. The result proves that these efforts were not in vain. But—what does “better” mean? What is important for a modern e-mail service in 2010 and beyond?

Security

With considerable amounts of spam and phishing mails flooding your inbox each day, it is important that you stay secure. Trusting your mail provider is of essential importance. Hotmail now checks every link that you click within e-mail messages. Even before they reach your inbox, mails are scanned for potentially harmful contents. This is done by the Microsoft Smartscreen filter. When a message is filtered, you will get informed of the reason. Mail from trustworthy senders displays an icon so you can recognize them at first glance.

With the new Hotmail, you will also be able to run your complete session SSL-encrypted. Sign-in is possible not only with user name and password, but also with single-use codes that are delivered e.g. to your cell phone. This increases your account safety in public places, such as airports or Internet cafés.

Easy usage

Hotmail Highlights inform you about your friends and their messages to you, about social news, events and birthdays. One-click filters allow you to scan your Inbox for relevant items, and new Quick Views display messages with attachments, videos or photos.

Removing unwanted mail is about to get easier. Have you ever been irritated by the bunch of messages delivered to you by Social Networks—“John Doe wants to connect with you”? When you are in need to find a certain mail, even newsletters can get into your way easily. With the Sweep feature, you can sort out such mails with a single click, and only your really important correspondence is left over.

Viewing messages in conversations is an good way to read even older messages sent by the same sender—with a simple mouse-over. Unlike the same functionality in Google Mail, in Hotmail you can turn this feature on and off as you need.

Focusing on mail contents

Often, messages you receive request that you take an action. For example, a friend may send you a link to a video on YouTube. Or, you want to take a look at the vacation photos in the Flickr album that your sister has just sent you. With Active Views, you can now watch the video or browse the photo album right from your inbox. Hotmail is also partnering with other companies and services like LinkedIn to provide an interactive experience, letting you take actions inside the email they send.

Access from anywhere

Reading and sending mail from your cell phone is getting simpler, too. If your phone supports Exchange ActiveSync, you can now sync your mail, calendar and contacts with your inbox on the Web. You don’t have to miss the rich functionality of Hotmail on your phone anymore, such as filters, previews, HTML views, reading messages offline, or show/hide message headers.

Integrating your Office

Microsoft Office 2010 is now integrated into Hotmail via SkyDrive, for free. This lets you view and edit Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, OneNote notebooks and PowerPoint presentations. With versioning, you can access older versions of the same document, from the Web—wherever you are, anytime you want.

Hotmail—ready for the future

With these upcoming improvements in mind, my opinion about Hotmail is getting better gradually. I see that the Windows Live team has invested time to think about how e-mail is used these days. What do you think about the new Hotmail?

After going through the following how-to, you will be able to access your SkyDrive folders from a mapped network drive, e.g. drive “S:\\”.  You do not need any extra software to do this.

1. Open your browser, and navigate to http://skydrive.live.com/.
2. Sign in with your Windows Live ID.
3. Copy the UID part of the displayed URL, like: https://cid-1234567890abcdef.skydrive.live.com/ .
4. Leave SkyDrive open, and take note of one of your folder names.
5. Open Windows Explorer.
6. On the left sidebar, right-click on Network.  Choose Map network drive.
7. Enter the following URL: \\docs.live.net@SSL\\1234567890abcdef\\XYZ
8. Replace “XYZ” with the folder name you noted and that you want to map.
   Note: Replace “Documents” with “^2Documents”, and “Public” with “^2Public”.
9. Choose a drive letter, and submit the dialog.
10. You will be prompted for your Windows Live ID.  Sign in.
11. Then, you can access all the files and subfolders within your SkyDrive folder, including copying and pasting.  You can even open and edit files directly!

Combined with shared folders in Google Docs, the upload feature is a great way to collaborate on files with coworkers and external parties. Instead of using cumbersome email attachments, you can upload files to a folder and share it with coworkers, who can then access and edit the files from a single place. You can even have your sales team securely share contracts with external clients for review.

The new feature will roll out gradually over the coming weeks.  The uploaded files can be shared on a file or folder level with other users, just like the office documents created with Google Docs.  If you need more space than 1GB, Google will charge yearly $3.50 USD (3.00 EUR) per GB.

In my opinion, the Google Docs storage cannot compete with Windows Live SkyDrive’s 25GB nor with Dropbox’s 2GB.  What does Google eventually plan?

Cloud computing is currently a hyped phrase on the web.  Everybody plays with it and promises the moon.  In the end, it is about never having to install software anymore.  No problems with system crashes.  And your personal data aren’t stored on hard disks or USB sticks, but in the cloud.

Get more done on the Web

In the end, the ‘cloud’ is just the Internet.  There are tens of thousands of servers, and your data are stored somewhere on them.  In the cloud.  The idea by itself is great: Most of us are connected to the Web permanently anyways, so why not get everything working in the Internet, save your data there and launch programs from there?  That is the basic concept of cloud computing.  Get more done on the Web, less on your own computer.  That could make your home PC cheaper, as the real work is done by the Web instead.

Google Chrome OS

Google has just launched their own operating system for small computers, “netbooks”.  Chrome OS is free and is more or less just the browser, Google Chrome.  You can use it to go online—and that’s it.  You launch programs that are stored on the Web, and just do your whole work on the web.  Everything happens online.  Yet, Chrome OS cannot do everything that Windows can, but if you only want to accomplish certain tasks, such as writing letters, sending and receiving mail, surfing the Net or editing photos, you don’t need anything more—thus you can save money on hardware and software.

Writing letters on the Net

However, you don’t need a new operating system to participate at cloud computing.  Best example: Google docs & spreadsheets.  A free online text processor that cannot do everything that Microsoft Word can, but that is free.  Just enough for many things like writing letters or designing invitation cards.  You don’t have to install any software and you save your texts directly on the Net.  That’s cloud computing.

Editing photos on the Web

Even photo editing or graphics creation doesn’t require setting up software locally.  There are several web sites that can do the job nearly as good.  You can edit photos, optimize them, print them.  That’s also cloud computing.  There are many more examples.  If you are storing your photos at flickr or sharing your videos at YouTube, you are in fact using cloud computing.

Lots of advantages

Cloud computing is not necessarily completely new, only its name is relatively new—and most of us are already a part of it somehow.  There are many advantages.  You can access documents stored on the Web from anywhere, so you don’t have to take them with you.  And you can share them with work mates or friends easily—for example with Windows Live SkyDrive.  Collaboration is easy, even working on projects simultaneously.  And: you don’t have to install any software.

Concerned about your privacy?

What about your privacy?  Many people feel uncomfortable with storing everything on the Web—and that has its reasons.  Surely you can set up permissions and access rules, like who may view your photos or edit your texts.  But you cannot control it.  You should rather not store very private or sensitive data on the Web.  What might happen as well: You’re offline, there is no web connection.  You won’t be able to access your data.

Summarized: Cloud computing has its good and bad sides.  The solution: think about the advantages and disadvantages of storing specific data on your local disk—or, if they are not too private, easily on the Web.

More information

• Google Chrome OS
• Windows Azure
• Google docs & spreadsheets
• Snipshot—Edit pictures online
• flickr
• Windows Live SkyDrive

Now, compare this idea to the second popular idea: Cloud computing. Cloud computing is using multiple servers for accessing your data anywhere and anytime you need them. However, serving your files and data on many parallel locations requires much energy, as many servers need to be powered. For example, Windows Live SkyDrive is a cloud service—you don’t need to know which of the servers in Microsoft’s data center is actually holding your data and where they are located. They are just there when you need them.

Is the cloud green?

Ab Anfang September 2009 kannst du keine neuen Ereignisse mit Windows Live Events mehr erstellen. Du kannst deine vorhandenen Events immer noch bis 2010 bearbeiten, und wir ermuntern dich, deine Fotos und Dateien aus deinen existierenden Events vor diesem Zeitpunkt zu sichern.

So geht’s: Deine Fotos und Dateien sichern

Fotos sichern

1. Gehe zu http://events.live.com/ und melde dich mit deiner Windows Live ID an.
2. Klicke oben auf der Seite auf Ihre Ereignisse anzeigen.
3. Klicke auf das Ereignis, von dem du Fotos speichern möchtest, und wähle dann den Link Fotos auf der linken Seite des Ereignisses.
4. Wähle das Fotoalbum aus, das du sichern willst, und klicke dann oben auf der Seite auf den Link Mehr.
5. Im Menü, das sich unter Mehr öffnet, klicke auf Herunterladen, und dann auf Mit Fotogalerie herunterladen.
6. Wähle die Fotos aus, die du sichern willst, und klicke dann auf Herunterladen.

Dateien sichern

1. Klicke auf das Symbol SkyDrive auf der linken Seite eines Ereignisses.
2. Wähle den Ordner Dokumente.
3. Wähle eine Datei aus, die du herunterladen willst.
4. Klicke auf Herunterladen, und dann öffne die Datei oder speichere sie auf deinem Computer.

mynetx: Please tell me a bit about yourself. Is your life directly or indirectly involved with Windows Live?

Lance: I go by the name of Salem. I’m 22 right now, originally from South Africa (the country, not Southern Africa); however I am currently residing in the Cambridgeshire in the UK. My life doesn’t directly involve Windows Live actually—in fact, I consider myself rather new to the whole MSN/Windows Live community.

mynetx: New? Since when are you in the Live business? Tell me a bit about your history with it…

Lance: Okay, maybe not “New”; I just see myself as new to the whole community when I compare how long some people have been involved. I first started using MSN software in 2003 when I first moved to the UK from South Africa. As can be expected, the first MSN software application I used was MSN Messenger, that’s when I first became a regular user at least. I tried a couple of times before that back in South Africa to chat to my relatives in the UK, but due to terrible internet access (high cost and unreliable) I was only ever able to sign-in twice. (OK, maybe it wasn’t a South Africa-wide internet issue, maybe just our budget ISP. [laughes])

But yeah, I really got into it in 2003. Don’t ask me what version I used, I can’t remember if it was MSN Messenger 6.2 or 6.5, but somewhere around there. I applied to take part in MSN Messenger Beta testing (thinking I’d never get in) back in, I think, 2004. To my surprise, I got in…

mynetx: Do you think the Windows Live team cares for their users’ demands? Why?

Lance: I think people (Messenger users) can be very demanding. Well, Windows Live users can, too; but I’m saying Messenger users as it is by far the most used Windows Live product. Users can be very demanding: wanting things, and expecting to get a feature, just because they ask for it. Yet again, it can be kind of frustrating when specific suggestions/demands get made over and over and over again, and they are just dismissed by the developers.

I think it is easy for the casual users to demand things and not fully understanding the behind-the-scenes work that needs to be done to satisfy that demand.

mynetx: What might be the motivation behind dismissing user’s suggestions, especially when they are made really frequently (example: tabs)?

Lance: Haha, yes, tabs was one of the suggestions I was thinking about. I honestly don’t know, but I think the most likely reason would be, as I mentioned before, the scale of the work involved in getting it to work. However, considering that even a third-party developer (like Patchou) can get it working well enough in an add-on, surely Microsoft can get it working in their own software.

mynetx: Well, the Messenger Plus! creator, Patchou, is just one person and is able to implement it…

Lance: Yes, it is certainly possible. I think of the most frequent suggestions, tabs would be one of the easiest to reliably implement (compared to something like polygamy, the ability to sign-in to multiple accounts from one client).

mynetx: Use your fantasy: how do you think Messenger will look like within the next five years? What new features could it present?

Lance: Wow, really difficult question! I would like to see Silverlight/WPF used more. I mean it is Microsoft’s own technology, yet they are not using it.

mynetx: Like in the Twitter desktop client “blu”, you mean?

Lance: I have not heard of blu myself, will need to look it up!

mynetx:

Lance: I just mean, Messenger needs a total visual overhaul. I like the different look they introduced in the first beta of the renamed Messenger (from MSN to Windows Live), the orange one. I think many people complained at first about it because it was so “different” (people don’t like changes) so Microsoft reverted back to a GUI similar to previous versions.

View Full Album

mynetx: Wasn’t Wave 3 (2009) visually overhauled enough?

Lance: Apart from the new colors etc., there is not that much difference in Windows Live Messenger from MSN Messenger 6.x. Maybe I’m wanting to much but: think of the visual overhaul from Windows 9x to Windows XP, XP to Vista, and Vista to Windows 7—big changes, not these minor “tweaks” we are getting.

mynetx: I see… Apart from the user interface, what new features could Messenger present in five years?

Lance: Well… I don’t know what it could have, but I do know some things I’d like to see. Among the top items on my wish list are (in no particular order):

1. Official Polygamy Support — The ability to sign-in to multiple Messenger accounts from one Windows Live Messenger client, and have separate statuses/personal status messages/display names/display pictures for each account.
2. Tabs (although this can be done in add-ons like Messenger Plus! Live, so not that important to me).
3. Multi-party audio (or even better, video) chats.
4. The ability to export your whole WLM Contact List including the structure (groups, categories, favorites etc.). It’s a real pain when you try and migrate to a new account, as you can now only export and import the contacts, you then have to manually re-sort them in the new account.

mynetx: True, I have recently experienced the need for that, when I changed my Live ID.

Lance: It has taken me 2 years to migrate to a new account for this very reason. I just cant resort/rearrange them all; it’s a pain.

Oh, and “Bring back the MSN video carousel in the UK”, lol.

mynetx: I have always wondered that the “Video Carousel” was in 8.5? *-)

Lance: We had it in the UK when it was introduced in Windows Live Messenger, but it did not last long. It is gone now…

In fact I don’t even know if it made it past WLM 8’s beta.

mynetx: Any bugs that need fixing?

Lance: Yes, here is a “bug” I want fixed: Try adding a Yahoo! contact to your contact list (a localized one, not Yahoo.com) as a buddy. Messenger changes it to Yahoo.com even though you enter the localized one (in my case, Yahoo.co.uk). Thus, you cant add Yahoo! Messenger users who have a localized Yahoo address to your contact list. I have requested this a number of times, still not fixed.

Suggestion No. 2: Get rid of the bloody roll-over flash ads in the contact list! (That’s not a “feature” though.)

mynetx: Interoperability with other IM networks is a great field to improve, in my opinion. Yahoo looks like “hacked” into Messenger, instead of implemented correctly…

Lance: Yes, they need to add support for other Chat / instant messaging clients / protocols: Facebook Chat (as they have a stake in Facebook), definitely Jabber support please. Jabber is an open protocol, so an agreement should not be needed. I could then dump Google Talk for chatting to my MXit contacts.

mynetx: A propos Yahoo, what is your opinion on the final deal to use the Bing engine on Yahoo! websites, after all those never-ending ramblings about a cooperation, search deal, whatsoever?

Lance: Well, Microsoft needs to do something especially in search/online advertising, as Google is way ahead in market share.

mynetx: How does Bing relate?

Lance: I have tried Bing a few times. It is definitely much better than MSN Search/Windows Live Search/Live Search (whatever the last time was, lol). It also seems to be improving Microsoft’s market share. Though, I am wondering if this is because people like it, or if people are just “trying it out” as it is new—only time will tell.

mynetx: Mentioning the word “Butterfly”, what comes into your mind?

Lance: A colorful insect that flies!

mynetx: And adding “Windows Live…”?

Lance: Ahh, lol, I knew what you meant.

mynetx: What comes into your mind? What was so special about this group of exclusive people?

Lance: The Windows Live Butterfly program/group goes way back to the MSN days (hence the groups name being “Butterfly”). It was a group of beta testers who have “excelled” in Beta testing Windows Live products. Participants of the group were chosen by Microsoft and in some cases by those who were already butterflies from testers of Windows Live (and previously MSN) products/services. The group had a private discussion “area” on the Microsoft newsgroups. That’s just one of the benefits of being a member of the group. You can think of it as something similar to the MVP program, although only for MSN/Windows Live products, and lower down the hierarchy.

mynetx: Did you like being a butterfly?

Lance: I certainly did enjoy most of my time being a butterfly. It was a really good experience, not only testing, but also socializing and getting to know those with similar interests as yourself. As with any “cyber-community”, the group had its ups and downs but generally it was a good experience. It’s a shame to see the community go!

I think also what made the community so good was the way main person who managed it as he really helped things out.

mynetx: Let’s bring out a toast on Eric Chen!

Lance: Haha indeed.

mynetx: Please provide two positive and negative comments about any outstanding Windows Live product.

Lance: Hm… I choose Windows Live Mail.

Positives: Contact list/Address book synchronized with Live Messenger—that is my main reason for choosing it over other applications.

Negative: Slow (!), especially in IMAP mail downloading; furthermore it can only synchronize/use Contact list of one Windows Live ID even if you add a different Windows Live ID as account to Live Mail.

— Look how easy it was to think of negatives, and how hard it was to think of positives: it makes Live Mail not look good at all…

mynetx: OK, thanks for these.

Let’s talk a bit about your personal customs. Do you run Windows Live Messenger 24/7? Do you have some kind of a routine with Messenger and the other parts of Windows Live?

Lance: Yes, Windows Live Messenger is on 24/7—as long a PC is on it is running and signed in. Routine? Not really. I usually check if any people I chat to often are online (Messenger Plus! Live Desktop Contacts), see if I want to talk to them. I may then open Live Mail, but as it doesn’t auto-run on startup/login nor auto-run in system tray, I have to do this manually, so I often forget. However, as these are the Windows Live applications I use most, that is usually the order I would do things.

mynetx: Comparing your ideas we talked about before (like UI enhancements, tabs, multiple accounts per endpoint, more IM networks, etc), with Messenger’s current features, which of these might be added in the next release, Wave 4?

Lance: I think more IM network interoperability may be the most likely, especially as we heard rumblings about it for this version (although unconfirmed). Like I said also, Jabber could come as it is an open standard and wouldn’t need any agreements (as with other IMs like AIM).

I’d say UI change is next—but not likely. (Again, by UI change I mean a big change, not minor tweaks/changes.) Tabs would be next, and polygamy last, as I foresee this to be more work.

mynetx: Are you satisfied with the Windows Live services that are provided to you? Why?

Lance: Mostly yes. They just satisfy my communications needs, whether it be IM, social networking or e-mail. They are things I think that can be worked on (as mentioned earlier); but yes, overall I am satisfied.

mynetx: Will Windows Live be able to fill the position as overall Windows (and Office) add-on, especially when looking at Windows 7?

Lance: I think so, it is a good suite of applications for the average computer user. I think it would be better to be just integrated with Windows, but the European Union will not be happy.

mynetx: Windows Live and Office Live, along with cloud power in behind—is this the solution? Better than legacy software?

Lance: That depends on the market, in my opinion. In markets where a decent (that is, broadband) Internet connection is easily available/accessible, it is good; but otherwise it isn’t, no. I think people in Europe/the US forget about computer users in places without broadband Internet connections, not to mention those with no Internet at all.

mynetx: So, is the gap between industry lands (high-tech nations) and economically less strong areas increasing?

Lance: I don’t know whether it is increasing, but I don’t think it’s getting smaller. Take my home country for example, South Africa. Broadband Internet (ADSL) access has only become available to the general public (that is, not business) in the last 3-4 years. Here though (in the UK), it was already very common. Now, in South Africa citizens can get a broadband connection, but at a price: for example, they pay the ISP and phone line (as we do), but they also pay a charge for the phone line to be used for broadband/ADSL. So it costs at least three times as much there, plus they still have ridiculous caps/quotas making only basic net usage possible; whereas here, we are using it for much more. Just imagine cloud computing in places like that…

mynetx: To summarize: using cloud web applications is problematic for regions where no broadband web access is available.

Lance: Exactly! I’m all for it, but I wouldn’t want everything to go “to the cloud” soon as it will leave such nations behind.

mynetx: What is your favorite feature in Messenger?

Lance: Video chat is got to be.

mynetx: Why?

Lance: Being someone that lives in a different country than family and friends he grew up with, it’s good to be able to see and hear them.

mynetx: What was your first impression of Live Mesh? Could it be a new diverse method of file sharing among peers, or could it improve the current system at hand?

Lance: I loved it as soon as I tried it, and I am using it all the time now. It is what Windows Live Messenger Sharing Folders should have been. Well, apparently Mesh is intended to be more than just a file sharing service. I’m yet to see the others though, but it makes file sharing/synchronization available to the masses, for free.

mynetx: We can expect some Mesh love in Windows Live Wave 4, as it will play an important role in the upcoming “Windows Live Devices” service. How could it be connected tighter with the other services? What might we see?

Lance: No idea actually; though, I am excited and looking forward to see what they have planned.

mynetx: Me too. I will tell you as soon as I know more details…

Lance: It looks like Wave 4 will be a better release than Wave 3 (I honestly wasn’t happy with Wave 3 at all.)

mynetx: What was wrong or missing in Wave 3, the 2008-2009 release of Windows Live?

Lance: The beta ran extremely long to me—too long for what we saw as changes. Sure, Movie Maker joined Windows Live; but apart from that and minor visual changes, there wasn’t much. I don’t know, maybe I just expected too much.

mynetx: Do you wish Messenger would have a feature that a third-party IM software already has?

Lance: Well, I don’t use any other IM apps (apart from Google Talk, which is crap considering its features; the only reason I use it is for communicating with MXit people), so I don’t really know what other IM applications offer.

mynetx: Ahh, so you are a loyal Windows Live user?

Lance: (laughes) Not loyal; there is just no real need to use anything else. Most of my contacts are on WLM or Skype, but Skype doesn’t offer anything different that I want in Messenger.

mynetx: As Messenger user, I’m sure you’ve got a good tip that not everybody might know about yet—any tweak, counsel, suggestion, whatever comes into your mind.

Lance: One good tip is allowing two WLM instances to run at the same time. It is a registry setting that needs modifying; the only thing is it won’t auto sign-in to a second account (Live ID). [Read more about this tip soon.]

mynetx: How would you summarize your overall experience with Windows Live in a brief sentence?

Lance: Windows Live services help me keep in touch and share my views/stories.

mynetx: Lance, I found it very interesting to talk with you about all of this!

Lance: I enjoyed it too; thanks for thinking of me as some to interview and for taking the time to do so.

Thanks to thirteen23 labs, Alto Voltaje Design, Bram Vandeperre, Messenger Stuff, BuddyFuse and LiveSino for the images.

Windows Live Events

We’ll be retiring Windows Live Events and allow you instead to plan and manage social events all in one place through Windows Live Calendar. […] In 2010, we’ll retire Windows Live Events entirely. At that time, you will no longer be able to get to any of your old events, and you won’t be able to download and save old event photos and videos.

How-to: Back up your existing Events and associated data

Saving photos

1. Go to http://events.live.com/ and sign in with your Windows Live ID.
2. Click View your events at the top of the page.
3. Click the event you want to save photos from. and then click the Photos link on the left side of the event page.
4. Select the photo album that you want to save, and then click More at the top of the page.
5. In the More dropdown menu, click Download, and then click Download with Photo Gallery.
6. Select the photos that you want to save, and then click Download.

Saving files

1. Click the SkyDrive link on the left side of each event page.
2. Select the Documents folder.
3. Click the specific file that you want to download.
4. Click Download, and then open the file or save it to your computer.