Going Mobile with MSN, Windows Live, and Live Search

With summer here, most of us are on the go more than ever.  We’re starting to see some fairly cool ways to use MSN, Windows Live, and Live Search on your mobile phone when you’re out and about.  I’ll be the first to admit it would be nice to resolve the issue of all these different brand names, but looking past that, the stuff you can do on your mobile phone now is quite amazing.

To get started and find out more about everything you can do, just go to http://mobile.msn.com on your PC.  About midway down the left side of the page, you’ll see a set of icons you can flip through that shows you everything you can do:

 

 

When you’re ready to give it a try, just key in your mobile phone number in the space provided on the upper right corner (shown here) and you’ll get a link sent to your phone.

 

 

 

 

If you have a mobile phone that runs Windows Mobile software, or if you have one of a select group of Nokia phones, you can also download additional software that gives you even more capability.  You can learn more and send a link to your phone to get the software by clicking here. 

 

Windows Live Tags: clubhouse, Mobile, how-to, Windows Mobile, Nokia, MSN, Live Search

Thanks, BillG!

As you probably have heard, today is Bill Gates’s (or BillG is he’s known internally) last full-time day at Microsoft.  I only ever met him once at a small meeting years ago when we were discussing some of the early XML and BizTalk work.  When I started working with computers as a kid in the early 80’s I barely new anything about Microsoft, but used their product (the BASIC programming language on my Commodore computers) every day.  So in a way, I have Bill to thank for getting me hooked on computers in those early years.

After I started working for a software company in the early 90’s, Microsoft was definitely a force in the industry.  I still remember being a beta tester for Chicago (the codename for Windows 95), and how excited the whole industry was when that launched.  I was even more excited when I got the chance to come work for Microsoft in 1997 and have enjoyed all the time I’ve spent here in the company Bill started way back in 1975.

So thank you, Bill, and best wishes as you go on to do great things at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

You can see more about BillG’s past, present, and future here:

Bill Gates: Looking Back, Moving Ahead

Technorati Tags: bill gates,microsoft

Blurring Work & Home with Outlook Connector

At work, I practically live in Microsoft Outlook.  I’m always using it to deal with e-mail, schedule meetings, check my calendar, find a contact’s phone number, and manage my "to-do" list.  If you’re like me, however, you also want to sneak in a little time now and then to check your personal e-mail.  You could always do that with firing up a web browser and going out to your mail service’s website, but I’ve found what I think is a better way if you use Hotmail.

Outlook Connector is a great free add-in to Microsoft Outlook that let’s you more easily and effectively manage your personal e-mail, contacts and calendar from right inside Outlook.  Here is how it looks after you get it installed:

So now I can just continue to live in Outlook while at work, but with quick click check in on what’s going on with my home e-mail account, look up a personal contact, or even check my home calendar.  As the lines blur between work and home, it’s a great way to keep balance in your life.

 

Windows Live Tags: clubhouse, how-to, Outlook Connector, Hotmail, Challenge: Balance

Great New Channel 10 Series: ShutterSpeed

One of the things I really like about working at Microsoft is you can always find a lot of passionate people that are excited to share that passion with others.  One great example of how all this energy is "channeled" (no pun intended) is Channel 10 — an on-line place for technology enthusiasts.

Some of the stuff they post is a little too "out there" for typical consumers like you and me, but the vast majority of what they post I find very interesting and educational.  The latest example is a new series about digital photography that they’ve started called ShutterSpeed.  They have done two episodes so far and both are great.  I plan to blog about them as they come on-line to make sure everyone in the Windows Live community knows about what they’re doing.  Many of these episodes feature bits and pieces of Windows Live, especially Windows Live Photo Gallery.

Episode 1: online video storage, photo editing tools, principles of photography, what to look for in a digital camera

• Episode 2:  Photosynth, top photo locations, pro photo tools, geotagging, meta data, Windows Live Photo Gallery demo

Windows Live Tags: clubhouse, how-to, Photo Gallery

Windows Live Events in 55 Seconds

Lately I’ve been browsing around YouTube quite a bit.  If you search on "Windows Live" on YouTube, you’ll get over 5,000 results.  Wow!  I’m planning to continue to check out all the stuff up there and see what we can do to include the best videos as part of our broader Windows Live consumer community.

Some of the videos I’ve found up there are created by Microsoft for various events, programs, and initiatives.  One of these is the Microsoft Live@EDU program designed to offer Microsoft Windows Live and Office Live products and services out to students.  They’ve created great short video clips that talk about and show different parts of our products.  So when I was thinking about what to post to describe Windows Live Events, I decided to let their video do the talking for me, featuring Karen Luk, a program manager on the Windows Live team.

Karen’s Video about Windows Live Events:

Pretty cool, huh?  You can see more of their videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MicrosoftLiveAtEdu.  And you can learn more about Windows Live Events at http://www.windowslive.com/events/overview.html. 

– Marcus

Windows Live Tags: clubhouse, how-to, Events, Challenge: Events

My Indispensable Connection Hub

Different people have different ways they stay connected.  Going back into history, staying connected meant talking face-to-face. Then it became writing letters and cards.  Next, radio and the telephone were the "connection utilities" of choice.  Now it’s instant messaging, texting on mobile phones, posting on social networking sites, blogging and twittering. 

I’ve yet to get bit by the twittering bug, but I confess I’m staying connected in pretty much every other way that’s possible.  I’ve even been known to send my parents handwritten cards every so often.  But I find my main connection "hub" is Windows Live Messenger.  You can see a screen grab of my main Messenger window from a few days ago shown on the right. 

One of the reasons I say it’s my "hub" is it gives me so much information about people I’m connected to right in one spot.  I can see personal status messages next to people where they’re telling me what they are doing, how they are feeling, or even what music they are listening to at the time.  I can see who’s on-line on their PC and who’s on their mobile device.  I can even see gleams (those little ‘s) next to some people that tells me they have recently updated something in their profile or on their Windows Live Space.  Clicking on the ID with the gleam next to it gives me a bit more information about what’s new with that person:

Finally, Messenger becomes a jumping off point for me to go into Spaces, launch Mail, or (of course) start a conversation with someone including voice and video if I want.  It’s definitely critical to the way I stay connected.

Windows Live Tags: clubhouse, Messenger, Mail, Spaces, story, Challenge: Connections