Windows Live webmasters tools now out of beta and new tools released

Today the Live Search team brought the Windows Live Webmasters out of the beta version and have even released some of the new tools for it.Here is what the live search team blog reads-

Today we are bringing our Webmaster Tools out of beta and releasing several new features that help webmasters see how Live Search crawls and indexes your sites. As a website owner, you can use these tools to improve your results on Live Search when a someone is looking for your site. The new Webmaster tools give you more data about referring links, identify issues Live Search encountered when crawling your site, and help you improve the overall indexing of your site. For the full story about this release, see the Webmaster Center Blog.

You can check out the new tools at http://webmaster.live.com/. And for questions, be sure to visit the Live Search Webmaster forums.

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Windows Live Wave 3 is coming

The Windows Live Wave 3 is coming and with it comes the new versions of Microsoft’s Live products along with some of the new product releases.According to the sources the Windows Live Wave 3 is expected to be released by the end of summer means somewhere around September.

As we have already reported the Windows Live product page and the search page both have been changed.

Let us discuss on some of the new things added in Windows Live Wave 3

New unified header

The new header would be added to the online services of Windows Live.One thing to note is that they have removed the ORB from the header,and the search box has also been made smaller and also according to the information available the users would be able to customize the header images.

Here is the one image of header that I found while searching-

The header seems interesting isn’t it.The header image did give ‘wow’ feeling.

Windows Live Messenger

As we know that the Windows Live messenger 9 is already currently in testing stage.Though the Windows Live Messenger M1 has already been leaked and most of the people would be using it still their is some more goodies to come for all the messenger lovers.According to the sources they are going to change the design of the Windows Live messenger 9.Still the new features expected in Windows Live Messenger 9 are editing,polygamy and ofcourse multiple logins.

Windows Live Photo Gallery

The coming version of Windows Live Photogallery would be surely awesome with some good features coming in it.One of the confirmed feature is the face reorganization.Here is the image that we were able to find on the net-

(image courtesy manicho )

In the new Windows Live Photogallery we could add tags to the faces, really interesting indeed!!

Windows Live Frameit

With FrameIt, you can set up photo collections to stream into your digital photo frame or any of your RSS enabled devices.We have already blogged about it earlier and the beta version of Windows Live Frameit  has already been released.If you haven’t seen it yet, give it a try at http://frameit.live.com.

Windows Live Hotmail

The information about Windows Live Hotmail is very less though we could expect an integration with Windows Live SkyDrive (service virtual disk with a capacity of 5GB that, who knows, may also be increased, although the chances of it happen to be low) and would also bring a  new feature, called People, although the information about this release is very less.

We are also expecting integration of Windows Live Calender in Windows Live mail though the information about it is very less.

To sum up the Windows Live Wave 3 would be really awesome with many surprises in it.We would be keeping you updated about anything we find about Windows Live Wave 3.

Live Search cashback offers double rewards for limited time

Microsoft is going a step further with their Live Search cashback offer. They are doubling the rewards just in time as part of their back to school deal.
Here is an excerpt from Microsoft PressPass:
For a limited time starting today, Microsoft is offering big savings to consumers, in some cases up to double the cashback rewards on millions of products from hundreds of participating retailers, during back-to-school Deal Days at Live Search cashback.
After the holiday season, back-to-school is the most important shopping season of the year. However, a recent survey from Deloitte found that during this back-to-school shopping season, 71 percent of households plan on spending less on back-to-school items than they have in previous years. With consumers feeling financial strain from higher gas and food prices, Live Search cashback is offering back-to-school shoppers extra savings to stretch their dollars further.
So what are you waiting for? Visit Live Search cashback
View: Live Search cashback
Source: Microsoft Press Release

Live Mesh may emerge as Microsoft ‘cloud’ platform

Originally positioned as a Web-based service for synchronizing files and data folders across different devices, Microsoft’s Live Mesh is poised to emerge as a cloud-based development environment at the company’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in October. According to the agenda for the PDC, Microsoft plans to provide a clearer view into how developers can build APIs to leverage Live Mesh — which the company is calling a "cloud services and client platform" — to connect applications and services across various devices.
This is a slightly new positioning for Live Mesh, which Microsoft introduced in April as a folder-sharing and synchronization service. While the company introduced a developer component for the platform so that applications could be created for it, Live Mesh was mainly presented as a consumer service for helping people synchronize different file folders and other data across different devices by putting them on the "mesh." 
Source The Inq

Windows Live site has been updated

Their was rumors that the Windows Live site was going to be updated today and finally the site has been updated.The new theme of the site is clear,elegant and is also showing some of the blog posts by the popular author and it resembles like the Microsoft Windows page as we have reported earlier here

Just take a look at the Windows Live Site here

Try the New Windows Live Translator Widget

To help extend the reach and availability of technical content across global languages and markets, Server & Tools Online (the group that manages the global MSDN, TechNet, Expression, and CodePlex sites) will be leveraging the latest translation technology from the Windows Live and Microsoft Research teams.

The Windows Live Translator is a web app that can translate English web pages or snippets of text into any one of these supported languages: German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, and Netherlands Dutch.

The Translator Add-in can be added to any web page and makes it really easy for visitors to quickly translate the page into any one of the same supported languages. The translation is conveniently displayed side-by-side with the original page so that both original and translated languages are available to the reader. There are also other display options available to try out.

I have added the add-in to the header of my blog (see above). The add-in senses the language setting of your browser and offer translations in that language.

Going forward, we will be using this technology to translate valuable content from MSDN and TechNet Magazine, community-generated content from applications like Forums and Blogs, documentation from the MSDN and TechNet libraries, and more.

Source- Technet Blog

Windows Mobile misses annual shipment target

Microsoft sold more than 18 million Windows Mobile software licenses in its recently completed fiscal year — about 2 million short of its widely publicized 20 million-unit target — the senior vice president in charge of the business acknowledged this afternoon.

However, Microsoft was still able to increase Windows Mobile’s overall share of the worldwide mobile-phone operating system market, despite increased competition from Apple’s iPhone, Research in Motion’s BlackBerry and others, said Andy Lees, senior vice president of the Redmond company’s Mobile Communications Business, in an interview.

Lees, a veteran Microsoft executive who moved from the Server & Tools unit in February, attributed the lower-than-projected Windows Mobile sales to some devices coming to market slightly later than previously expected. He declined to say which ones.

“That would be unfair to the OEMs,” he said, using the common abbreviation for original equipment manufacturers, or phone makers. “The OEMs give us predictions as to when they’ll ship the devices, and I don’t want to put them in the dunk tank, if that’s a phrase, by implying that they didn’t stay on time. That’s confidential conversations that we have.”

Source-seattlepi.com

Live Mesh: Next Update Announced

The Live Mesh Team just announced their next update, on their forum:

The Live Mesh team is pleased to announce the release of our next update, available later today. We are making Live Mesh available to more people and we’ve greatly streamlined the sign-up process. We’ve also made a number of general performance improvements. See below for the details, and thank you for using Live Mesh.

Version numbers
Live Mesh software: 0.9.3103.9
Live Desktop: 0.9.3103.9

Fixes

• Raised the limit on the total number of customers we’ll allow to access the Live Mesh Tech Preview.
• Expanded availability: you can sign up directly, with no waiting list, if your country/region is the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, or New Zealand.
• Removed the limit on the number of Live Mesh invitations you have. Invite friends and family members to the Live Mesh Tech Preview.
• For our customers in countries/regions other than those above, we’ve greatly simplified the waiting list process. You no longer need to sign up through Microsoft Connect. You can sign in with you Windows Live ID on http://www.mesh.com/, click Sign Up, and you’ll automatically be notified once Live Mesh is available in your country/region.
• Improved the performance of peer-to-peer synchronization.
• General performance improvements.