Wave 5, being the code name for the upcoming Windows Live version, is being developed at Microsoft right now—simultaneously with Windows 8. That is no coincidence. In the future, Windows and the Live services will cooperate even tighter.

For one year, Windows Live has been part of Microsoft’s Windows division. This shows how important the Web and data in the cloud are for Windows 8. According to a report by the news service WinBeta, Windows Live Wave 5 is currently in Milestone 2 stage, and parts that are already done are being integrated in Windows 8. More news about the cloud features in Windows 8 are sure to come out next week on the Worldwide Partner Conference. And then, there’s still the BUILD conference in September 2011 (formerly known as PDC).

Especially with synchronizing and storing data in the cloud using your Windows Live ID, Windows 8 will work for you. According to the current plans, features from SkyDrive and Windows Live Mesh are going to be built right into the operating system. I am looking forward which additional new Windows Live services are presented soon.

After Tuesday’s mass protests, Internet access in Egypt has been partially restored on Wednesday February 2. It is still unclear whether the government is responsible for this – or whether the providers reactivated it based on their own decision. In Cairo, web access worked via an Egyptian server, as AFP reporters reported. The Reuters news agency talks about functioning web access in Alexandria, too.

The first websites to be accessible again from outside were the biggest providers in Egypt, namely Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat. Shortly after these, the websites of Orascom Telecom and the Egyptian stock exchange went online as well.

Husni Mubarak’s regime had locked out Internet access at around 10:34pm last Thursday for around 85 million Egyptian citizens, in order to prevent mass protests. At the same time, the connections wiring Egypt to the Internet had been blocked.

Even previously, websites like Twitter, Facebook and Google’s e-mail service Gmail had not been accessible. This is obviously still the case: According to multiple reports, services like Twitter only work when being used via proxy servers. Additionally, Google set up a service taking Twitter messages by phone. To make use, the message has to be spoken as voice mail to the international phone numbers +1.650.419.41966 or +39 06 2.207.294 or +97.316.199.855. The messages are then instantly published on Twitter using the “egypt” hashtag. They can be received via the same phone numbers or listened to via twitter.com/speak2tweet. According to Google’s announcement, the service has been created by a small expert group of Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company that has been bought by Google last week.

Here is a quick tip which should improve your internet connection. Let’s start:

1. Open the Run command prompt by pressing Windows + R, then type gpedit.msc.
2. Click OK to confirm (be sure to have Administrator rights).
3. In the new window, click in the left column the folder Administrative Templates.
4. Then in the same column choose che sub-folder Network and then QoS Packet Scheduler (screenshot 1).
5. Now double-click in the right column on the file Limit reservable bandwidth.
6. A new window with properties will appear (screenshot 2).
7. Check the Enabled radio button and set in the Options box below the value Bandwidth limit (%) to 0.
8. Click Apply to confirm your changes.
9. To see benefits you must restart the computer.

Screenshot 1:

Screenshot 2:

WebMatrix contains a local webserver — IIS Developer Express. This server does not require any admin rights and runs in Windows XP as well —, an SQL server and ASP.NET. At launch, several demo projecs are available that make use of the new C#-based template language Razor. Similar to PHP, JSP or the old ASP, it allows to mix the programming and the HTML code and get started without long preparations. Thereby, predefined helper classes make routine tasks easier.

With a “web gallery”, WebMatrix installs applications like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla or DotNetNuke and automatically fetches required components like PHP or MySQL. It makes use of the independent Web Platform Installer which is now available in version 3.0. Importing your own web projects is possible, for instance to extend them with a server-side component. You can continue the projects created in WebMatrix within Visual Studio. With deployment, Microsoft wants to help you as the developer by listing hosters that natively support WebMatrix projects.

The basic Web technologies that individuals and companies need to develop powerful services must be available for free, with no royalties. Amazon.com, for example, grew into a huge online bookstore, then music store, then store for all kinds of goods because it had open, free access to the technical standards on which the Web operates.

On the contrary, sites like Facebook or LinkedIn are just the opposite. They care about getting loads of data from their users, which in turn “becomes a central platform—a closed silo of content, and one that does not give you full control over your information in it.”

Apple’s iTunes software drives a similar path. “Not using open standards creates closed worlds,” Tim Berners-Lee explains. iTunes “identifies songs and videos using URIs that are open. But instead of ‘http:’ the addresses begin with ‘itunes:,’ which is proprietary. You can access an ‘itunes:’ link only using Apple’s proprietary iTunes program.”

Truly there is a point in Tim’s opinion. You cannot bookmark content in a Smartphone app. You cannot tweet a Skype call (‘skype:call…’) — simply because you are no longer on the Web, but in a closed communication universe.

In my opinion too, a disturbing fact.

In June, with releasing Windows Live Essentials Wave 4 beta, Microsoft had merged two similar programs for data sync, namely Windows Live Sync and Live Mesh beta. The result, Windows Live Sync beta, will be called Windows Live Mesh and get released along with the other Live Essentials Wave 4 Final.

The software synchronizes files and folders among different computers and stores data in the web. Furthermore, Microsoft offers SkyDrive web storage for photos and simple collaboration for Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents via Office Web Apps.

Since June, the Windows Live team has gathered feedback from some 240,000 users. Concluding the ideas from these users, Live Mesh will soon also synchronize hidden files and be able to generate reports telling you which files are missing in synchronizing folders.

Allison O’Mahony, Principal Program Manager Lead, Devices & Roaming at Windows Live, explains:

We’ve made several performance updates to Windows Live Mesh in response to your requests that will provide noticeable improvements to your experience. We worked on cutting the application load time in half and made syncing large numbers of folders and adding multiple devices to a sync folder faster. We’ve optimized both memory and CPU usage during sync activity as well as decreased CPU consumption by as much as 30% when Windows Live Mesh is idle.

We hope you enjoy these changes and take the time to install the new Windows Live Mesh along with the rest of Windows Live Essentials 2011 once it is released from the beta.

Google doodles are animated very rarely. The first animated doodle was published only few weeks ago. Usually, the reason for the animation can be discovered quite easily. For instance, on Pac Man’s anniversary, you could play the classic Arcade game on Google’s home page. Today’s doodle however has no guessable message. When you move the cursor, the diverse small circles are messed up like hell, and when you don’t move it, they will revert to the Google logo.

Stefan Keuchel, Press Officer Google Germany, only made a short statement:

Today’s doodle is really exceptional: http://www.google.de/ it is looking forward to some exciting things… stay tuned .

However, he clearly stated that it has nothing to do with Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s keynote at the IFA trade fair nor with Google’s twelveth birthday soon.

Order in the mess: Doodle for announcing a social network?

Therefore, it might be the easiest guess to bring the connection of many different points to a big whole with the awaited announcement for a new social network by Google. As Google only had few success with Orkut up to now, rumors stack that Google will do a second try and will launch a competitive product to Facebook.

However, it might also well be an announcement regarding the finish of Chrome OS development. The cloud computing OS will be shipped on first netbooks starting this fall. According to Keuchel, in few days the Google doodle secret is going to be lifted. Until then, make an educated guess!

Since 1:40PM (GMT+1), websites with a .de domain are not accessible. The name resolution will currently only work if your DNS server has a cached copy of the corresponding entries. Until now, there is no information as to when the problem will be resolved.

In total, all six DNS servers operated by Denic reply with wrong information. If you want to resolve a .de address with them, you will get a reply that there is no such entry.

Within the last minutes, numerours tweets about the problem have flodded the microblogging service Twitter. Servers of various providers have crashed because of the massive increase of requests.

Update: It seems that DENIC fixed the problem. Where the fault was? Stay tuned.

• Open the Messenger status website at http://status.messenger.msn.com/Status.aspx . If you see a green check there, that means that the Messenger service is running, and you can continue with the next step. If the service is not running properly, check back later, until it is running. Continue with the next step then.
• Delete the Windows Live Messenger proxy settings.
  • Start Messenger.
  • Open the menu next to your display name, and click Options.
  • In the left column, choose Connection.
  • At Connection settings, click the button Advanced settings.
  • Delete the SOCKS entries.
  • Click OK, then again OK.
  • After you have deleted the proxy settings, retry to sign in to Messenger. If it still doesn’t work, continue with the next step.

• If you are using Windows Vista, disable the auto-tuning feature.
  • Click Start, All Programs, Accessories.
  • Right-click the entry Command Prompt, and choose Run as administrator.
  • When Windows prompts for your consent, click Continue.
  • Now enter the following line in the command prompt, and press Enter:
    netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
  • Note: using this command, you are disabling the Windows auto-tuning feature.
  • Now retry to sign in to Messenger.
  • If it still doesn’t work, re-enable the auto-tuning feature by repeating the preceding steps, yet typing this line instead:
    netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=normal
• If you are using Windows Vista and a router (e.g. made by Linksys, Netgear, D-Link) to connect to the Internet, visit your manufacturer’s website to check for updates to your router’s firmware.

If these steps do not resolve your problem with Windows Live Messenger error code 81000306, please refer to http://support.live.com/ to get further support.

Source: http://messengermaximal.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!40F43EC9BA81D814!5276.entry

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

Frozen project, it seems. Dead project? Let’s look at an old post in the My.live.com Windows Live Space, written August 07, 2008 (!):

We’ll start planning for our next update to My.Live.com, aiming for a minor update in the Fall. Right now, most of our time is being devoted to another project that we’ll have more information about in the coming months.

Microsoft MVP and IT geek Jamie Thomson wonders as well:

If anyone knows what this “other project” that we were promised some news on “in the coming months” actually is please get in touch because I would love to know!

So, will my.live.com ever be resurrected?

Check it out for free: http://webim.live.sg/
What do you think?

Within the dialog, the 5 most widespread browsers will be offered for download. The list will get updated and can hold up to 12 entries. The browsers are sorted according to their market share.

OEM partners will be able to choose which default browser to ship with a computer. They can even disable Internet Explorer completely.

The agreement is valid for 5 years, according to the European Commission. That means that future versions of Windows must contain such a browser ballot screen as well.

1. Open the Windows Live account center at https://account.live.com/ChangePassword.aspx.
2. If prompted, sign in using your Windows Live ID (e-mail address) and your existing password.
3. Make especially sure that you are seeing the Extended Validation certificate information (the name “Microsoft Corporation (US)”) in your browser address bar, as well as that the address starts with “https://login.live.com/”.

   

4. After sign-in, you should see the following page:

   

5. Before typing your new password, again make sure that the connection is encrypted properly. If you are using Internet Explorer, the address bar should look like this:

   

6. Enter your current password once, and your desired new password twice. While you type, watch the password strength indicator. The greener it is, the safer is your password. Wondering how to create a strong password? I will talk about this topic in an upcoming post.
7. To get reminded every 72 days to change your password, check the corresponding check box.
8. Finally, click Save, and don’t forget to sign out properly so nobody can take over your account.

Invisible additional info

Whether Word, Excel or PowerPoint—the innocent icons don’t tell what is inside them. Normally it is documents like texts. And they contain much additional info. That can be comments, but also revision notes. However, there is surely information which is not suitable for the public.

Awkward potential

In business it is truly important to be careful. When several collaborators work on a document, send it back and forth via e-mail and make corrections, such a document can contain inflammable matters. The problem: when you hide the comments and annotations, they are no longer visible at first sight. And that is exactly what is dangerous. Because, when you send such a document to a customer, for example via mail, resourceful users can make the data visible again anytime. And that’s what can get awkward.

Remove personal data

But private computer users should know, too, that their documents contain a massive amount of data, data that might not be suitable for everybody. That can be data like a counter how often a document was edited—and by whom it was edited last. People who save the texts, spreadsheets or presentations normally and distribute them, is likely to distribute their indiscreet data as well. But: you can change that. The latest Office version can remove all personal data.

Useful feature in Office 2007

Office 2007 has a really useful feature, called “Inspect document”. The feature checks whether there is any hidden information. If yes, these data can be removed from the document with a single click. Only after having done this, you should send the document to other people via e-mail. Older Office and Word versions cannot do this, sadly.

Free tool

However, Microsoft offers a free tool to remove hidden data in Office documents. “Office Add-in: Remove Hidden Data” is the name of this useful extension. Once installed, it can “clean” any document with a single click. Important thing, you should really take a closer look at this, especially when distributing documents, sending them via mail or publishing them on the Web.

Indiscreet photos

Photos can be really indiscreet as well. Not only concerning the motive, that is sure. When you take photos with your digital camera nowadays, you have to be aware that there is a massive amount of data hidden in the photos, data that we normally don’t see. For example, let’s take a photo that I just took of a nice espresso machine. Looks great—and nobody knows what I used to take the photo. Nobody? As if! The photo contains many hidden data. And you can make these data visible. And behold: The photo has been taken with an iPhone. Even the used aperture, time and date date hidden within the photo.

EXIF data

This information hidden in the photo are also known as EXIF data. They can be extraordinarily useful, for instance for hobby photographers, as they can find out easily what aperture and exposure time they used to take a photo. If colleagues extract these data from a photo, that could get uncomfortable. For example, when you are discovered to be skiving off work because your colleagues found a party photo being taken just while you were ill.

JPG & PNG Stripper

Generally, it is very easy to make these EXIF data visible, for example in Windows: Just select the photo and click on details in Windows Explorer, and info like creation time, aperture, exposure time, camera type and much more are shown. The Mac can show these data easily as well. If you want to remove your data from your photos, for example because you want to publish the photos on the Web, you can remove the additional data from the photos. Just use special programs like JPG stripper, and you’re done. The photos are retained. Only the additional data are removed from the photos. If you don’t want everybody to see the additional info, you should always do this. In any case, it is more discreet.

More information

• Office Add-in: Remove Hidden Data
• JPG & PNG Stripper for Windows
• Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF)