Microsoft Introduces Updated Windows Live Services

Microsoft has announced the next generation of Windows Live, an integrated set of online services.The new generation of Windows Live includes updated experiences for photo sharing, e-mail, instant messaging, as well as integration with multiple third-party sites. The release also includes Windows Live Essentials, free downloadable software that enhances consumers' Windows experience by helping them simplify and enjoy digital content scattered across their PC, phone and on Web sites.

To help make it simple for the more than 460 million Windows Live customers to keep their friends up to date, Microsoft is collaborating with companies including Flickr, LinkedIn Corp., Pandora Media Inc., Photobucket Inc., Twitter, WordPress and Yelp Inc. to integrate activities on third-party sites into Windows Live through a new profile and What's New feed.

The new Windows Live also gives consumers the added convenience of having a central place to organize and manage information. As Windows Live customers share photos, update their profiles and write reviews, these activities will automatically publish to their Windows Live network.

"Microsoft's Windows Live is an exciting new platform that enables new experiences for both Photobucket and Microsoft users that would not otherwise be possible," said Alex Welch, president of Photobucket. "Online photo sharing is an important part of people's everyday lives and, as the leading stand-alone photo and video-sharing Web site, Photobucket is thrilled to be teaming up with Windows Live to make this experience even easier for users."

In addition to partnering with leading Web companies, Microsoft announced alliances with HP and China Telecom Corporation Ltd. to deliver Windows Live services to more people across the globe. HP will distribute Windows Live Photo Gallery with its consumer printers, including Photosmart and Deskjet lines, starting next year. The combined offer provides HP customers with Windows Live Photo Gallery, an end-to-end photo management and printing solution.

Microsoft has increased online storage from 5 GB to 25 GB. Also IM includes a "what's new" feed with updates from contacts across the Web, drag-and-drop photo sharing in the conversation window, a favorites list to designate the most important contacts, and group IM to chat simultaneously with up to 20 people at the same time.

Windows Live Hotmail is now much faster and has 80 percent more effective spam filtering compared with previous versions of Hotmail. Upcoming changes include the ability to bring multiple e-mail accounts together, the ability to put multiple e-mail addresses onto almost any device, increased storage, and a revamped calendar that makes it easier to share calendars with others, subscribe to multiple calendars and use your calendar with Microsoft Outlook.

Windows Live Groups, a place for groups to collaborate online, includes a shared calendar, shared storage, a shared e-mail address, and shared instant messaging.

All of these services work with Windows Live Essentials, a suite of applications for communication and sharing that also works with leading e-mail, photo and blogging services worldwide.

This next generation of Windows Live, available at http://www.windowslive.com, will begin rolling out to customers in the U.S. over the coming weeks and will be made available globally in 54 countries and in 48 languages by early 2009.

Tip for people who use notepad to write down any info on a day to day basis...

In Notepad

* Open a notepad and type '.LOG' (CASE SENSITIVE) as the first line of the file.

* Save and close the file .

* Double-click the file to open it and notice that Notepad appends the current date and time to the end of the file and places the cursor on the next line.

* Type your notes and then save and close the file.

Each time you open the file, Notepad repeats the process, appending the time and date to the end of the file and placing the cursor below it.
It simply serves as a virtual diary !

Try this !!!.......Amazing

Did you know that the flight number of the plane that had hit WTC ....on 9th September was Q33N ....Open your MS Word in ur computer and type flight number ie Q33N n increase font size to 72 , change font to Wingdings. U will be amazed.

FIFA 09

The game is a massive 6GB installation on the PC, after which I had to please the EA DRM gods, first by entering the license key and then in the form of online activation. After successfully installing and activating the game, getting it to start was anything but easy, and it took several tries before the game authenticated and validated the installation online. All this happened without any messages or visual cues on the screen; the only way to get the game running was to repeatedly hit the FIFA 09 icon till the game actually ran – not the best way to start.

Having played FIFA 09 on the PS3 and well as the Xbox360, I was expecting something similar on the PC, if not better. However, as soon as I fired up the PC version, I was bitterly surprised to see that the game interface and controls are like the PS2 port of this year. This means no custom formation or team tactics at the team management screen. In my experience, the only way to use custom formations was to first create one at the main screen and then use it at the team management screen. The similarities with the PS2 port further extended to the actual matches, as I discovered the controls are also significantly different, which all but nullified my past experience and familiarity with the game on the current generation of consoles.

Speed up the Start Menu

The default speed of the Start Menu is pretty slow, but you can fix that by editing a Registry Key. Fire up the Registry Editor and navigate to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ MenuShowDelay

By default, the value is 400. Change this to a smaller value, such as 0, to speed it up.

Speed up the Start Menu (Part two)

If your confounded by the slow speed of the Start Menu, even after using the tip above, then you might try the following: Navigate to Display Properties then Appearance then Advanced and turn off the option titled Show menu shadow . You will get much better overall performance.

Add album art to any music folder

One of the coolest new features in Windows XP is its album thumbnail generator, which automatically places the appropriate album cover art on the folder to which you are copying music (generally in WMA format). But what about those people that have already copied their CDs to the hard drive using MP3 format? You can download album cover art from sites such as cdnow.com or amguide.com, and then use the new Windows XP folder customize feature to display the proper image for each folder. But this takes time--you have to manually edit the folder properties for every single folder--and you will lose customizations if you have to reinstall the OS. There's an excellent fix, however.

When you download the album cover art from the Web, just save the images as folder.jpg each time and place them in the appropriate folder. Then, Windows XP will automatically use that image as the thumbnail for that folder and, best of all, will use that image in Windows Media Player for Windows XP (MPXP) if you choose to display album cover art instead of a visualization. And the folder customization is automatic, so it survives an OS reinstallation as well. Your music folders never looked so good!


Album cover art makes music folder thumbnails look better than ever!