Windows Live

Live Mesh Service Update for Mac, Mobile, Live Desktop (April 27, 2009)

The Live Mesh team is pleased to announce that our next update to Live Mesh for Mac and Windows Mobile is now available. We have also updated the Live Desktop.  This release continues to tune performance and brings a few tweaks to the user experience, see details below. Our next update to the Windows software will be coming in the next few weeks.

Features

• The last location used in the folder synchronization dialog is now saved.
• Live Mesh News will displays the date and time for all news events.

Fixes

• Improved the update experience 
• Device status (online/offline) now properly displayed on the Live Desktop 
• News now correctly displays the year.

For those of you keeping track, we’ve also moved Mac, Mobile and Live Desktop to a single version numbering scheme.  The new version is 0.9.4014.3

Source- Live Mesh Team Blog

Live Search:Active Answers give you flight status

Air travel is always a hassle.  Picking someone up — is the flight on time? Going on a flight — have the terminal and gate changed? You can now check all of this quickly and easily on Live Search.

Live Search is becoming more than just a place to get information — it is also a place you can do things.  We are simplifying key tasks with Active Answers, a new method of retrieving up-to-the-minute data from the Web. To help with your air travel information needs, our first Active Answer release is for flight status. You can type in a specific flight number into the search box (for example, Alaska 328), and Live Search will provide detailed status information on a particular flight, including terminal and gate information.

You can also do a generic query, flight status, and we’ll display interactive boxes on the results page for the user to fill in. Pretty Cool!  

Look for more Active Answers soon, brought to you by Microsoft Research and Live Search.   

Source- Live Search Blog

Learn about the new Messenger Web Tookit at Mix09!

We are really excited to let you know we will have, not one, not two, but THREE sessions featuring the Messenger web platform at the Mix09 conference this week in Las Vegas (http://2009.visitmix.com/).
At Mix, we will be introducing the new Messenger Web Toolkit, covered in the following sessions:

• <3 the New Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit for Social Websites
  • Session T26F Wednesday March 18 11:30am-12:45pm
  • Steve Gordon and Keiji Kanazawa, Microsoft
• A Shot of Windows Live Messenger and a Pint of Microsoft Siliverlight
  • Session T84M Thursday March 19 10:55am-11:15am
  • Jordan Snyder, Effective UI
• Five Killer Scenarios for the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit
  • Session T75M Thursday March 19 11:20am-11:40am
  • Chris Parker, Microsoft

See more details about the sesssions here: https://content.visitmix.com/2009/Sessions/.
We hope to see you at Mix, and if you won’t be there, stay tuned at http://dev.live.com/messenger and this space for exciting announcements!

Source- MSDN Blog

Download Windows Live ID Sign-in Assistant 6.5 (Beta)

The Windows Live™ ID Sign-in Assistant 6.5 (Beta) installs the Windows Live ID online provider for Windows® 7. By making it possible to link a Windows Live ID to a Windows 7 user account, this online provider helps enable Windows 7 applications to deliver great features like sharing documents, pictures, music, and video.
Benefits
Through the online provider, the Sign-in Assistant helps a Windows 7 application running on one computer identify and communicate with other computers that are associated with the same Windows Live ID. Just by linking your Windows Live ID to the user account on each Windows 7 computer you own, you enable those computers to identify each other and work together more easily than has been possible in the past.

Download Here

Windows Live Messenger and other Essentials updated

Over the next four weeks, whether you’re still running Messenger 2008 (versions 8.1 or 8.5), or you just installed Messenger 2009 in the last few months, you’ll see a prompt encouraging you to upgrade to the latest version of Messenger.

For those who have not yet tried Messenger 2009, this update brings you improved video and audio calls, a new way to see your favorite people at the top of the list, display pictures that can change with your mood, and a fast and easy new way to share photos, among other things.

We’ve also made a few smaller improvements to this release (Build 14.0.8064.0206), so even if you already installed the new Messenger 2009 as recently as January 2009, you should consider getting the update. The latest version includes a lot of behind-the-scenes improvements that you may not notice if you already have Messenger 2009, but that will help Messenger and the other Windows Live Essentials programs all run a little more smoothly.

If you see the above prompts and accept the upgrade, the installer will begin upgrading Messenger, and will give you the option to add other programs that are part of the Windows Live Essentials suite. Click each program to get more info before you decide which ones you want, but they’re all great additions to your Windows PC, and they’re all free. If you already have versions of any of these programs (Windows Live Mail, Photo Gallery, Family Safety, Writer, Movie Maker (beta), or Toolbar), they’ll be automatically upgraded to their latest versions along with Messenger, so that all the Essentials can work together properly.

Source- Windows Live Wire Blog

Windows Live Messenger updated

The latest version of Windows Live Messenger (14.0.8064.0206) is now available for free download here.

Over the next month, if you’re still running versions 8.1 or 8.5, you’ll get a prompt encouraging you to upgrade to the latest version of Windows Live Messenger. If you accept the optional upgrade, the installer will launch and start your free upgrade.

Here is what the notification will look like.

After clicking the notification you will be prompted to install the upgrade.

We’ve also made improvements to the latest release so even if you have downloaded Windows Live Messenger 2009 in the past month, you will still receive the upgrade prompt.  To check if you have the most recent version go to the Help menu and click ‘About Messenger’.  The latest release is Version 2009 (Build 14.0.8064.0206).  If you are running a different version, you will soon be asked to upgrade, or you can go, download and install the latest version on your own.

Source- Windows Live Messenger Blog

New features coming to Windows Live Hotmail

The Hotmail team has posted that they are adding some new features to Windows Live Hotmail. Here is what the blogpost reads-

It’s that time again! The Hotmail team has been hard at work since our last release in the fall, and we’ve got a bunch of new features coming out… and we’re rolling them out now! Your Hotmail account has seen a number of awesome changes in the past few months - we’ve introduced a great new look and we’ve made everything faster and easier to use. The new stuff we’ve added came from the feedback you sent in, and we hope you like what you see so far.

If you haven’t seen any changes yet, you will soon! Until then, here’s a quick preview of just a few things to expect: ¹

More room for messages. We’ve moved the banner ad from the top of the screen to the side so you can see more messages listed in your inbox.

Ever growing storage. Our storage grows with you – You start with 5 GB of storage, and it automatically increases as you need it. So you don’t have to worry about whether to keep a message or delete it. ²

Info at your fingertips. Making plans with friends and family is easy. When you’re writing a message, it’s just one click to add local maps, direction, movie times, and more. We’re trying this out in the US and the UK to get feedback for now, but more places are on the way.

A little more social. Open your Hotmail to the Today page to see what’s new with the people you know, like the latest stuff they’ve posted on blogs, Twitter or Flikr.

A new way to get Hotmail on your phone. POP3 technology is available to Hotmail users in a bunch of countries for free now, so it’s easy to add Hotmail to the e-mail program on your phone. Check out this blog to find out more.

More style. Choose from more themes (and some that change based on things like time of day or weather) and edit your email signature in HTML.

Live Search: Instant Answers in your IE8 search box!

IE8 users can now get Live Search instant answers, including financial information, weather conditions, movie show times, calculations, equations, conversions, and definitions directly in the IE8 search box.

To see the stock quote answer in action, type MSFT in the search box; you’ll get the current stock information, plus the performance graph supplied by Comstock. If you want details, just click on the image and you’ll go to moneycentral.msn.com for more info.

To see the latest weather forecast, type weather in the search box and you’ll get the weather icon, current temp, as well as the predicted high and low temps from Foreca.

Want to try a few of your own? Use the queries below (in bold)  to see more:

• 2+2 (calculations)
• x*5=7 (equations)
• 71 degrees F in C (conversions)
• define alert (definitions )
• bella bottega (show time info for a theater )
• The Uninvited (show time info for a movie)

Instant answers are available by default with IE8 when you’re using Live Search in the U.S.

Source- Live Search Blog