Outer Space: Blog

My Cybertwin

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 23:19:49 GMT

I just thought I would give this a try. It's pretty funny actually, and of course, just like me!

Get on your Soapbox

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 23:50:59 GMT

You may not have heard of it yet, but MSN has had a YouTube equivalent service for a few months now, and today it finally took the sign-up process out of the way of their Beta Soapbox video sharing service.

Just like YouTube, you can upload your own videos, tag them and share them with friends etc., but the videos load very quickly and can be of a much higher quality than you may be used to on YouTube.

http://soapbox.msn.com/

Take a look around. It's pretty cool, and there are already a large number of videos uploaded.

Here's what the team had to say about it:

1) Always be watching

Soapbox allows users to browse and watch videos at the same time. This is huge and it makes browsing Soapbox videos a joy.

2) Amazing video quality

A lot of independent bloggers are giving us feedback on the quality of our video and saying that is amongst the best (or the best) of all the user video services.

3) Go full screen without restarting the video

How many times have you been watching a funny video that you wanted to share with an office mate, so you click full screen and then you have to download and restart the video ALL OVER AGAIN?!? Not with Soapbox. Go full screen with a single click of a button.

4) Beautiful embedded player

We put a lot of thought and effort in designing this player. We wanted to make something that a user would be proud to have on your blog. (Also, for some cool undocumented features check out the team blog – link is also on the bottom of the Soapbox page).

5) RSS feeds for everything!

Get an RSS feed for a tag, a search, a users videos, anything.

November 27th 2006

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 19:56:35 GMT

Well, I never thought I would say I appreciated Humvees until today. At around 3pm on Monday November 27th, it started to snow. Just a little at first, but then it came down faster and faster and started to cover everything in sight. I had meetings at work until 5pm, but I left as soon as I could after that - around 5:20pm. I had 10 miles to travel home. It took 3.5 hours.

From the start, it was a standstill on the roads leaving Redmond and for most of the time I made great progress at 1 to 2 miles per hour as the volume of traffic, the icy roads and lack of visibility through the snow storm kept everyone at low speeds.

I don't have a particularly good car for this kind of weather. It's basically a sports car with low profile tyres and rear wheel drive. At least being a manual (stick shift) I was able to keep it in 1st gear most of the way home. However, it's not grippy in the snow and ice and at the first hill downwards, I slid a little way, luckily nowhere near other cars. I took the main roads all the way, and then came across a jam of people trying to get up a short hill eastbound with traffic lights at the top. Once you stop on a hill like that, 2 wheel drive cars just couldn't get going again and just slid around. I managed to avoid that hill by cutting right, going for a while, then left and left again to take the same hill from the south side which was less steep and continuously moving.

A little farther on, still doing an average of 2mph, and still on main roads, I needed to get over one more major hill before reaching the next main road home. I decided to chance it, since any alternatives were much worse, and being a main road, I was hoping that most of the ice and snow had been swept away by other vehicles.

Well, I made it most of the way, but about three quarters of the way up, the car lost traction and couldn't make any forward progress at all. The back end started sliding out towards the other side of the road and I just had to stop and try to get lined up again and take another run at it. All the while there was a line of traffic behind me, just as I had been behind a line of traffic ahead of me, which was now way over the other side of the hill.

By this time, 2.5 hours had passed, and I was about 4 miles from home. I was seriously considering letting the car back down the hill into the grass bank to the right and park it there. I was holding up too much traffic and would have to walk home.

Just at that point, coming the other way, was a Humvee, the kind that looks a little like a Land Rover with no rear cover. It had huge winter tyres with thick tread and chains on every one of the 4 wheels driven by the engine. The driver stopped as he lined up with me on the other side and asked if I needed help. Yes! Thank you! I couldn't believe my luck. At just the point I would have had to spend another couple of hours walking home, here was someone in the only practical car for this weather, offering to tow me up the hill. Well after a few minutes involving the locating of the tow hook, which is stowed in the boot (trunk) and needed to be screwed in, we were soon making progress up the hill and just at the brow we stopped and he unhooked me, turned around and left after profuse thanks from me.

I then proceeded to make my way over the rest of the hill and back down, where I then sat for 45 minutes not moving at all behind another line of traffic. Apparently the same thing as I had been doing, had been occuring on this side of the hill where other cars unable to make it up the hill, had just been abandoned and caused a hold up on the other side of the road and cars and SUVs that could make it had to go around them.

After 3.5 hours I finally got home. I was so relieved and the car was covered in a thick layer of snow. It was so nice to be home, and I was thankful I didn't have further to go, otherwise it might have resulted in a night in the car.

Online Search and Calculator?

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:41:01 GMT

You're going to think I am biased, but really, have you tried making http://www.live.com your home page for Search (instead of your no doubt current favorite http://www.google.com)?

The search results are more relevant, it's just come out of Beta, and seems just as easy to use with more custom options than Google. There is a blog entry available on MSDN that lists the enhancements to the new Live.com Search service.

However, the thing that surprised me recently, was that the Live.com search page, can also be used as a Calculator. In fact you can enter quite complex mathematical equations and it knows what to do with them.

Just to experiment, I tried entering “25 * 5 + 45 / 78 - x + 9.2 = 56.7769231” in the search box of Google and Live, and I was amazed by the results, Google gave me “your search did not match any document”, but Live Search gave me “25*5+45/78- x+9.2=56.7769231 : x=78”.

Live executed that mathematical equation and gave me the value of X. Pretty good I thought.

I'm hoping that eventually, it will also generate graphs on command e.g. y = x² + 2x − 3, but it doesn't do it yet, and sometimes, just entering an equation into a search box would get tricky without some kind of ability to draw brackets etc. Still, you have to start somewhere I guess.

Gone Phishing?

Sun, 20 Aug 2006 02:17:54 GMT

No, it's not a mispelling. I really did mean "Phishing". Phishing has become the commonly used term for an email or website which pretends to be something it's not, in an effort to obtain personal information from the unsuspecting user. Some of the more common ones tend to be emails that look like they come from eBay or PayPal stating that your account information needs updating, otherwise your account will be shut down. These emails have a link which tends to look like the real thing and take you to a site which looks like the one that belongs to the company in question, but in fact, it's just a scam, and it's not actually their site at all.
Well Microsoft Windows Live has a few safeguards available to help the unwary user spot the scam before they get to the point of entering any personal information into the Phisher's site.
One of the more recent ones is the Windows Live Toolbar, which is now out of beta and available at http://toolbar.live.com. The product was released July 24th along with integration to Windows Live Gallery . There are a number of new search enhancements inside the Windows Live Toolbar’s latest 3.0 release.

Wordwheeling of past search terms & suggesting similar search terms in the Toolbar text box so that you can more quickly and precisely find what you’re looking for.

Custom buttons to extend your search across 3^rd party provided search / content buttons in the Toolbar (all custom buttons are available from the community at the Windows Live Gallery beta site: http://gallery.live.com ) Custom buttons let you personalize the toolbar with buttons about topics and Web sites you care about.

Smart Menu enables immediate access to information about things you select on any Web page. Whenever you highlight text that Smart Menu understands, a menu bar automatically displays near the highlighted text, providing you shortcuts to access maps, weather, stocks or web calling through Windows Live Messenger.

Mapping buttons – Maps picks up multiple addresses on any Web page and lets you simultaneously map them all out on Windows Live Local.

Onfolio - Easily save, organize and share your online research with Onfolio. Capture copies of pictures, text or Web pages to your PC for reliable access later. Organize your Web research and publish it in emails, blogs and documents. Search through your clippings anytime with Windows Desktop Search.

OneCare Advisor - Increase your protection against Web fraud and financial scams with Microsoft Phishing Filter. Our improved blocking technology helps prevent accidental sharing of personal information. Get free basic virus scanning on-demand.

You can download and install from http://toolbar.live.com.
I did this today, and was disappointed to find that I was asked to Reboot after installation, since it takes my laptop a good 10 minutes to be ready to use after starting up, and it's a real pain to have to reboot after all that has already taken place.
However, after rebooting, the installation process continues, and begins to convert your Internet Explorer Favorites into Live Favorites. This just means that if you want to, you can store your Favorites online tied to your Windows Live ID (your login name), so that they are available to you from any other computer you care to log into.
Then, if you have the Microsoft Office Outlook email applicaiton installed, it will add the toolbar and search into it.
Then it installs the Popup blocker, but will disable the new Windows Live Popup Blocker if you happen to have already enabled the one that comes with Internet Explorer. You can change this later if you wish, but they appear to do pretty much the same thing.
Close to the end of the installation process, which takes around 5 minutes in all (if you don't count reboot time), you're asked if you would like to participate in the customer feedback process, where it will collect anonymous data about usage of the toolbar. This is actually a good idea, since although it collects information about how you use it, Microsoft isn't able to find out who used it in that way. So it seems really invasive, but it could really be anyone to them.
Finally, you can say yes to being a Phish Detective, which is great. I've always wanted to be a detective, but I'm no Magnum P.I. so I have to be content with reporting to Microsoft, any suspicious website I come across, so that everyone can be forewarned should they click on the same link I did, some time in the future.
Now, I will give it a try for a while, and see what happens.

Live Spaces are Live

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 17:27:04 GMT

Well it's finally here. The promised switch to the Live.com version of Spaces. Originally it was spaces.msn.com and now it's spaces.live.com.

Along with the change in the website address, is a major overhaul in the look and feel of the Spaces application. We can now add a public list of Friends to our Space, which then enables you to navigate to their Spaces or Profiles etc. There are new tools for the visitors and the owner too.

You can even add Gadgets, of the sort you might know from http://www.live.com which should by now, be your home page

More details about the changes today can be found on The Space Craft - the Space maintained by the team who brought this to you.

Origami Unfolds

Thu, 09 Mar 2006 19:25:55 GMT

Well, it's officially launched now, and it's pretty much as I expected. A small tablet PC with a host of wireless and media features.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/262289_msftorigami09.html

On the Microsoft Ultra Mobile PC (the official name of the products being produced) website the functionality is explained, including WiFi networking, Blue Tooth, touch-screen, TV, MP3 player, Games, Movie Player and Hard drive for storage. It will run Windows Live Messenger, Mail, Internet Explorer etc., just like any other regular PC, but with plans to make it no more than 1 Pound in weight, and a 7" display, it will easily replace that laptop you only use for viewing Ebay or answering email too.

The price range, of between $500 and $1000 looks good too. I may wait for the later versions to come out but Samsung is committed to producing one by April this year. The early models are going to have some problems too, like battery life, being around 3 hours at first, but later models are bound to resolve this over time. The inclusion of 2 USB ports means that you don't have to use the screen to enter text when you're not travelling, you can easily attach an external Keyboard.

Looks like a great idea for Christmas this year!

Here's a link to an interview with the architect for the project: http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=169962

John Tokash also has an entry in his blog all about the UMPC: http://blog.tokash.org/2006/03/08/channel-9-origamiumpc-video-is-up/ along with a video on MSN Video.

Origami Project

Fri, 03 Mar 2006 01:24:45 GMT

A lot of buzz has recently been generated by references to the new Microsoft Origami project. It seems to be a nice self-contained tablet computer about the size of a paperback book.

I've seen hardware like this before, but either the market wasn't ready for it, or the software and operating systems were clunky, or the screens were too small, or used too much power etc. However, the timing of this indicates that maybe, finally, the stars are aligning and all the parts are in the right place to make this a success. Let's see what you think.

http://www.origamiproject.com/2

http://youtube.com/watch?v=CJQpUenJCq0

It will be interesting to see this project unfold...

Philosophy of Life

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 01:38:51 GMT

I came across this little gem today, and thought I would share this rather unique way of looking at what's important in your life as you live it.

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee...

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full.

They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar.

He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full.

They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.

Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full.

The students responded with a unanimous "yes".

The professor then produced 2 cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, filling the empty spaces between the sand particles.

The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, " I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things-your beliefs, your family, your children, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions - things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car.

The sand is everything else - the small stuff. "If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first - the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.

The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."

Is your Space slow? Remove the Media Player Powertoy.

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 23:03:42 GMT

Based on some early investigations where some people's MSN Space was running really slowly whenever they tried to open a photo album, or leave a comment, or almost anything that required an action on a Space, we have discovered that removing the Media Player powertoy from your Space will improve matters in most cases.

The problem is not related to the servers delivering the content, but something about the Media Player toy which is making your computer work hard whenever it has to render it and remove it when moving onto another page.

I have just temporarily removed it from my Space here, and it appears to have resolved the problem.

I will put it back on my Space, when the Spaces team have had a chance to find out why it causes this problem, but I thought I would share the workaround with you.

Live Contacts

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 19:28:56 GMT

You may already have seen that a major update of MSN Spaces took place yesterday, and all the new features are listed on this site.

My favorite feature though is Live Contacts, not least because I helped it come to fruition.

Basically, you can go to your Profile through your Space, and update your Personal and Business contact information. Then you can invite your friends to subscribe to changes.

If they subscribe, then in their online Address Book, such as that shown in Hotmail or in Messenger, there is a link created between your Profile, and their Contact record about you.

Whenever you change your details, such as a new phone number, then anyone subscribing to your changes, will see them in their own Contact record about you - automatically.

You still have control of course, of who can see your Profile, so you can easily make sure only your friends can subscribe to changes. Basically, if they can't access or see your Profile, then they can't subscribe to changes to it either.

This link has more information: http://spaces.msn.com/thespacecraft/blog/cns!8AA773FE0A12B9E3!3891.entry

Stitching your best Group Photo together

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 23:47:24 GMT

Came across this piece of news today and had to share.

Have you ever spent time taking 6 or 7 photos, just trying to get everyone's faces turned correctly and smiling correctly? Ever wish you could take the best parts of each photo and glue them together? Well now apparently, you can with something new from Microsoft Research, called "Group Shot".

MSR's Group Shot helps you create a perfect group photo out a series of group photos. With Group Shot you can select your favorite parts in each shot of the series and Group Shot will automatically build a composite image.

It's free, and available to the public to try: http://research.microsoft.com/projects/GroupShot/

In time for Christmas? UPS says yes, no matter how late!

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 18:18:43 GMT

Not feeling 100% well yesterday, I went to bed and turned the light off around 10pm last night. All was quiet. It was getting foggy outside despite being a relatively clear night, so the moonlight was washing through the air, reflected off the tiny water droplets, giving the ground a strange white hue. It looked almost like daylight out there.

I drifted off to an uneasy sleep, since the common cold soreness I was getting, was tickling the back of my throat, making me want to cough every minute or so. This eventually subsided and I was fully asleep by 11pm I'm certain.

An hour later, at 12:07am, the dog barked, and I was roused to the sound of a truck engine idling nearby. Since we live on a country road, this is highly unusual, so I was naturally concerned and jumped out of bed to look out through the blinds to the driveway at the front of the house.

There, in the semi-twilight still bathed by the whiteness of the moon and the fog, was a large dark brown UPS van, clearly trying to turn around at the top of the drive.

The poor guy had actually delivered a package from JC Penney at midnight to our house!

Watching him finally get the van turned around and drive off, I was relieved it wasn't something more sinister, and with heart still racing I returned to bed. It took another hour or so to get to sleep, and of course the dog was jumpy and kept growling from time to time by way of warning.

So, I write this with mixed feelings this morning. Wonderful service by UPS. Amazing dedication by that driver. I will definitely use UPS for urgent packages in the future. However, surely both the driver and myself deserve to sleep undisturbed after midnight?

Thanks guys, but can you please let your drivers take the night off from house to house deliveries after say, 10pm?

Is Google your Friend?

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 21:58:30 GMT

I'm not one to blast competitors, but I am all for fair competition where the consumer is able to make fully informed decisions. There are times when I use http://search.msn.com and if I don't find it there, I do use http://www.google.com, but recently I came across a good reason to use Google as infrequently as possible, on this site: http://www.rinf.com/news/nov05/googlefacts.html. Take a look. It lists the following interesting points:

1. Google's immortal cookie:
Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines ; Google set the standard because no one bothered to challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read and record your unique ID number.

2. Google records everything they can:
For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet IP address, the time and date, your search terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly, Google is customizing results based on your IP number. This is referred to in the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."

3. Google retains all data indefinitely:
Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all the user information they collect and save.

4. Google won't say why they need this data:
Inquiries to Google about their privacy policies are ignored. When the New York Times (2002-11-28) asked Sergey Brin about whether Google ever gets subpoenaed for this information, he had no comment.

5. Google hires spooks:
Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency. Google wants to hire more people with security clearances, so that they can peddle their corporate assets to the spooks in Washington.

6. Google's toolbar is spyware:
With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page you surf, and yes, it reads your cookie too. Their privacy policy confesses this, but that's only because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy policy failed to explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access to your hard disk every time you connect to Google (which is many times a day). Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google. Any software that updates automatically presents a massive security risk.

7. Google's cache copy is illegal:
Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws to the Internet, Google's cache copy appears to be illegal. The only way a webmaster can avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a "noarchive" meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache, but webmasters don't. Many webmasters have deleted questionable material from their sites, only to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's cache. The cache copy should be "opt-in" for webmasters, not "opt-out."

8. Google is not your friend:
By now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites. Webmasters cannot avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming they want to increase traffic to their site. If they try to take advantage of some of the known weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms, they may find themselves penalized by Google, and their traffic disappears. There are no detailed, published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time Google doesn't even answer email from webmasters.

9. Google is a privacy time bomb:
With 200 million searches per day, most from outside the U.S., Google amounts to a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Those newly-commissioned data-mining bureaucrats in Washington can only dream about the sort of slick efficiency that Google has already achieved.

Your choice of course :-)

Here's a collection of Google Watching articles: http://www.google-watch.org/

Got Photos?

Wed, 09 Nov 2005 20:25:40 GMT

Quite a few posts ago, I displayed some photos I took of the general feeling of panic and extra security checks going on in London when the second (and thankfully flawed) bombing attack took place during the summer.

Well, it seems that I, along with many others, could have made some money from my photos!

I have just come across this site, which I also saw reviewed in Wired Magazine, and they will accept Mobile Phone Photos and any other photos you submit, of anything you consider either newsworthy, or providing additional views or evidence of events and actions around the world. Just like a newspaper photographer, even your mobile phone photos can be submitted and used by newspapers and television anywhere in the world.

So, I recommend you sign up on http://www.scoopt.com and if you find yourself near to the action, don't forget to snap a few photos with your mobile phone, and submit them to the site. You could get anything from $50 upwards for your photos if they manage to find a buyer for you. Unless you feel like peddling the photo yourself, this company will provide a valuable service for even the grainiest photo, so you don't have much to lose by just sending them your views of the news.

What is live.com for exactly?

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 22:39:38 GMT

If you are used to having your home page as http://www.msn.com or even http://my.msn.com then you are probably happy with the programmed content provided to you by MSN which is personalized content presented in a very magazine-like manner. You can think of it as a TV and you get to hold the remote to select what content you want to see on there, but you are still only provided with a limited choice of what the TV company wants to provide to you, when they want to provide it.

http://www.live.com however is more like the DVR (Tivo) of the online information world. This site, in addition to pulling in your Windows Live Mail inbox (previously known as Hotmail Kahuna) lets you set up Searches and RSS feeds which are automatically refreshed whenever you view the site. You get to choose what is going to be on the site, and you are in control.

http://my.msn.com - the programmed feed

http://www.live.com - your personal window on the world

Have a look around http://www.live.com - I think you will love the control you have over it. It's really nice to be able to add regular searches and have the results updated every time you visit. This is definitely going to be my home page from now on.

How do I convert from start.com to live.com?

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 22:22:43 GMT

If you have already been using http://www.start.com and have populated various sections with RSS feeds and gadgets, you probably don't want to have to search and enter those again on your new http://www.live.com site.

There is a way of exporting from one and importing to the other, all of your stuff under My Web.

On your Start.com page, if you click on the Advanced link at the bottom of the page (it looks like it's part of Search but isn't), you will see an option to Import an OPML file, and immediately below that, an option to Export your feed subscriptions to an OPML file.

If you click on the link, you will get a new window with the XML containing your feed information. Select File, Save As and save it as an OPML file.

You can then either send it to friends or yourself at home etc., and then on the live.com page, you can click on the Advanced Options link and Import the OPML file you created earlier. Voila! All of those feeds are now selectable under the "My Web" menu on the left, for you to drag and drop onto the page where you want them.

Don't forget to Sign In first though, otherwise all your settings won't necessarily be remembered.

What is Windows Live?

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 22:16:47 GMT

I don't usually simply quote other sites when making an entry in my blog, but the following quote (from Microsoft Presspass) says it all. I'll be trying it all out over the next few months, as I hope you will too, and I'll be sure to tell you what I find. :

Windows Live

Windows Live™ is a set of personal Internet services and software designed to bring together in one place all of the relationships, information and interests people care about most, with more safety and security features across their PC, devices and the Web. Some Windows Live services entered an early beta phase on Nov. 1, 2005; these and future beta updates can be found at http://ideas.live.com.

Microsoft’s research shows that people increasingly are spending more time online, but many are frustrated with the fragmented nature of their Internet experience. Windows Live is designed for people who want to easily manage and create their information, interests and relationships, saving them time and effort and allowing them to better manage their life and their world. Designed to put the individual in control by offering complete choice and customization, Windows Live looks to seamlessly bring together the information, relationships and interests they care about along the following four pillars.

Find and Discover Information

Windows Live will provide individuals with the tools to easily find and organize important information, no matter where it is:

•

Live.com. The Windows Live home page, http://www.Live.com, is a software-powered service that enables consumers to build a fully personalized home page that automatically delivers the information they want, no matter who published it, so they can stay on top of the news, blogs, RSS feeds and other information they really care about. Live.com will become the place to seamlessly access other Windows Live services and will serve as a great place to experience Windows Live Search. Live.com will deliver a new, innovative, search-driven experience that will make it an effective place to perform Internet searches. It includes features such as searching for RSS feeds (news, for example), and allows a user to easily add these feeds directly to the page as well as saving persistent searches. Live.com will also be a platform for third-party developers to build and deliver customized services, called “gadgets,” to customers. Live.com is available in beta form at http://www.live.com, and more information can be found at http://ideas.live.com. Windows Live will be offered alongside MSN, which will be the destination for compelling programmed content experiences to consumers. Windows Live services will be available on MSN, and the trusted content from MSN.com can be consumed by people using Live.com, should they choose to make it a part of their personal online experience. Microsoft expects many customers will use both MSN.com and Live.com, which will be made easy via a seamless experience.

•

Windows Live Search. With expected delivery in 2006, Windows Live Search will deliver powerful and personal search services that help consumers find what they are looking for on the Web, their desktop, their mobile device or in their local geographic area, such as instant answers, documents, pictures, multimedia content, local information and immersive maps. Windows Live Search will be a core element of the overall Windows Live experience, powering compelling scenarios across the Windows Live services.

Enhance and Deepen Relationships

Windows Live will provide users with a set of new and more meaningful ways to communicate and share with the people they care about:

•	Windows Live™ Mail. Windows Live Mail is Microsoft’s new, global Web mail service, built from the ground up to be faster, safer and simpler while delivering powerful new customer scenarios. Currently in limited beta testing, Windows Live Mail will continue to evolve through customer feedback, scaling to more customers over the coming months. MSN® Hotmail® customers will be able to use Windows Live Mail with their existing Hotmail ID. People can sign up to join the Windows Live Mail beta at http://ideas.live.com.
•	Windows Live™ Messenger. Windows Live Messenger builds on MSN Messenger to help people develop even deeper connections with the people they care about through a variety of experiences — from communication to sharing. Future enhancements will enable people to place PC-based calling through Windows Live Messenger (this feature will be provided through third-party commercial relationships). Windows Live Messenger will also allow users to more easily share files such as their personal pictures and documents with their contacts. People can learn more about the Windows Live Messenger beta in the coming months at http://ideas.live.com.
•	Windows Live™ Favorites is a service that enables individuals to access their Microsoft Internet Explorer and MSN Explorer favorites from any PC that’s online. The service is currently in beta form at http://ideas.live.com.
•	Windows Live for mobile devices. People do not always have easy access to a PC, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be able to access their important communications or information via Windows Live services. Microsoft is working to ensure that Windows Live services including Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Messenger and more are available through mobile devices — from rich experiences on Microsoft Windows Mobile®-powered devices to basic Internet-enabled phones.

Explore and Find New Interests

Windows Live will deliver new ways for customers to discover and explore:

•

Social Networking. Social Networking features for Windows Live will be based on the people whom customers know rather than strangers who may visit their blog or Web site. Social Networking in Windows Live will be centered on a customer’s unified contact list, enabling the user to find and connect with people who have similar interests, but may be new to his or her social circle. Customers will be able to choose and control who has access to discover and connect with them.

•

Windows Live Spaces. Microsoft will continue to invest in services that help people express themselves, and find, connect and nurture deeper relationships with others around the world. MSN Spaces will transition to Windows Live Spaces as Microsoft adds new features to the service next year.

Protection and Performance

Windows Live will offer consumers a set of tools and services to help keep their computing experience safer:

•	Windows Live™ Safety Center. Helping protect customers is important to Microsoft. The Windows Live Safety Center is a free, Web-based, on-demand service that will enable customers to scan their PC for viruses and clean their PC, as well as perform other tasks to help protect their PC and Windows Live services. Windows Live Safety Center is currently in beta form and can be accessed through http://ideas.live.com.
•	Windows OneCare™ Live. Customers will be able to take the health of their PC to the next level with Windows OneCare Live, a robust subscription service that not only helps protect your PC from viruses and spyware, but also helps ensure that it continues to run well by keeping it up to date and helping make sure the system is maintained regularly. Windows OneCare Live will also manage backups to help give customers peace of mind that they won’t lose the information, photos, music, documents or other files on their PC that are important to them. Windows OneCare Live is currently in managed beta testing, and people can nominate themselves participate at http://ideas.live.com.
•	Integrated protection. Beyond the Windows Live Safety Center and Windows OneCare Live, Microsoft is also making many more investments to help protect customers as they use Windows Live services, such as the Microsoft Phishing Filter, currently available for the MSN Search Toolbar and which will be available in the future for Windows Live Search customers, Smartscreen spam and phishing filtering for Windows Live Mail, and much more.

Are you Insured? What defines an accident anyway?

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 01:58:53 GMT

If you have listened to the news on the radio over the past few days, you couldn't help but hear about the plight of poor 60 year old Ethel Adams, who was innocently driving down the road last March in her little Hyundai, when a truck suddenly appeared on the same side of the road coming the other way, and hit her car head-on, crushing it, and nearly killing Ethel.

Ethel spent the following 9 days in a coma and a further 5 months in hospital and a nursing home recovering from her injuries, generating over $500,000 in medical bills, and continues to receive physical therapy in the hope that she will walk again.

Apparently, another driver by the name of Michael R. Testa was in a rage with his girlfriend and was responsible for ramming his girlfriend's truck from behind whilst she was driving, forcing it onto the other side of the road, whereupon it hit Ethel's car coming the other way.

Michael Testa was not insured, which is of course, against the law, but the fact remains.

So, in these cases, the victim rather than the person causing the crash, has to claim on their own insurance. We carry a special "Uninsured Driver" coverage on our driving insurance policies (by Law) for just this kind of thing.

Ethel was insured through Farmers Insurance. A very well known and hitherto, respected insurance company.

Farmers Insurance refused to pay. In their view, the crash was caused by a deliberate act, and therefore was not an accident. They only pay out in the event of an accident.

What a cruel and unfeeling time to play with symantics and refuse to pay! As we all know, insurance companies in general, will do anything they can to get out of paying out. You can be paying in for years and get nothing in return. They are one of the unique industries who actually hope you will never use their product.

In my view, the initial ramming may have been deliberate, but the crash was not deliberate, not matter who started the process. If you think this way, then you could start going all the way back to Michael's birth, and ask if that was planned or accidental eh? Given his apparent IQ level, you might wonder!

This might be the scenario in that case: Dear Farmers Insurance - please pay up, since Michael's birth was an accident, and he caused the crash :-) (I don't know of course, this is just conjecture).

Anyway, you may be happy to learn that Farmers Insurance were forced to pay up in the end. Today, the Insurance Commissioner, Mike Kreidler told them to pay, so they paid.

What a shame they had to be forced to pay out, but we wish Ethel a speedy recovery and live in hope, whilst we pay our insurance premiums, that we may never be in the same situation.

Farmers Insurance though, is definitely not going to see a penny from me.

Media Player Powertoy and My Music

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 21:14:37 GMT

Well, I added the Media Player Powertoy over there on the left side of my Space, with the intention of having one of my compositions available to play, but found out that the location of my tracks, is storing them as ASF files, and the current version of the Spaces Media Player is restricting me from playing ASF and ASX files. It supports all the other audio/video file extensions, but not those, for some security concerns.

This is the music I wanted you to hear. These are my own compositions, made mostly for dancing and working out, and I'd welcome comments:

http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?songs=423248&T=5548

A little birdie told me though, that the Spaces site will support them in the next release later this year, so I will leave the media player up there on my Space, until the next release supports my files!

(Copyright Stuff: You can freely listen to these tracks for your own enjoyment (or otherwise), but please don't use them for any commercial project without contacting me)

UPDATE - October 7th: Jazzman93612 provided me with the tricks I needed to make my music available directly from the media player here on my Space! Just click on the Play button in the Media Player and listen to the tracks. Thanks Jazzman!

Microsoft Realigns for huge growth in the years ahead

Wed, 21 Sep 2005 00:10:11 GMT

Today, Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer announced a reorganization of the internal groups within the company, to help create more synergy between the packaged platform software and the online services, whilst moving some key leaders around with them to build stronger connections and added value to the constituent parts.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?siteid=mktw&dist=nwhpm&guid=%7B93D9BD4F%2D2D18%2D40A7%2D8E12%2DFF1F88F7BF68%7D

Personally, I see some great ways to cut costs here by reducing some of the duplication of efforts in some areas, and add value to Microsoft products with fully integrated online and offline experiences, that take advantage of all the great things coming in the next year, with Xbox 360, Windows Vista, Office 12, Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 and Microsoft Expression.

Those of you who have played on the Xbox in a local or networked way, will know what it is like to open up to Xbox Live and play the same games with people across the internet, and to experience the complete shift in game play and excitement as a result. Well, think of the same thing happening with desktop and mobile software and applications which work just fine on their own, but once they are opened up to a fully Live experience online, in a connected, team, or social way, the possibilities are endless and very much more varied and exciting.

This is the world that Microsoft is creating over the next year, and it is a very exciting place to be, both from the inside and for our customers.

Where are we going Bill Gates?

Thu, 19 May 2005 20:46:56 GMT

As part of a new series of communications entitled the “New World of Work", Bill Gates discusses issues that are important to Microsoft customers and the computer industry.

In today's article, Bill discusses the Microsoft vision for the next generation of tools and solutions for information workers, including the significant investments Microsoft is making to build on the Microsoft Office system.

Bill talks about unification of services, information overload, automation of routine tasks, adaptive systems and applications designed to take care of those things we do every day, as well searching, and productivity in general.

Bookmark the page: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail/, as it promises to be an enlightening series on where Microsoft is going and how it is designing systems, architecture and applications to support this world of information and communication that we all live in.

You can even add this site to your RSS aggregator page, such as MyMSN and see the new articles as they are posted on the site.

Can you Re-order your Albums or Photos? Yes!

Fri, 13 May 2005 21:13:42 GMT

I've seen a few items of feedback coming into the team from customers who want to change the order that the photos are in, or even want to change the order that the Albums are in, when displayed on their Space.

This functionality is there, but it's hard to spot. It actually relies on the Drag-n-Drop process with the mouse pointer.

Re-ordering the Albums

After clicking on Edit Your Space, take a look at the Photo albums listed and click (and hold the mouse button down) on any one of them.

You will see that while you have the mouse button down, you can literally hold onto the Album. Move the mouse pointer towards the top of the list, and a space will open up in the list for the album you have picked up.

Doing this, you can re-order your albums easily, and make a different one come up for visitors the next time you Save changes (the top one in the list is always already showing photos when the visitor comes to your Space).

Re-ordering Photos within an Album

As with re-ordering of Albums, you can re-order photos when in Edit mode.

Click on any listed Photo Album on your Space, and you will see the photos from it, scrolling in the display above. Then click on the Edit link above the display.

You will be taken to a page which displays all of the pictures in the album in their current order.

To move one photo from it's current position to another, simply click and hold over the photo, and move it to a position between two other photos (or at the beginning), and then release the mouse button.

You will see the photo moved to the new position instantly. Don't forget to Save and Close though.

You can use the same click to highlight a single photo, or hold down the Ctrl key whilst clicking on Photos to select more than one at a time. If you wish, then you can Delete them using the link at the top.

Oh, and by the way, I am really looking forward to the Xbox 360 (and I got married last week - yay!)

Ed Baig of USA Today reviews MSN Spaces

Thu, 14 Apr 2005 22:59:19 GMT

In today's Cyberspeak column in USA Today available online, Ed Baig takes a look at and compares the features of the Yahoo360 service (still invite only) and the MSN Spaces service recently out of Beta mode.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/edwardbaig/2005-04-13-spaces-360_x.htm

I applaud Ed's fair approach to the comparison, and am pleased to see that he values the MSN Spaces service for it's simplicity and ease of use. The notification via MSN Messenger of changes to your friends' Spaces is by far the coolest feature and probably responsible for the huge increase in the number of Spaces being created since the site graduated from Beta with the latest release of MSN Messenger.

Don't worry though, I happen to know that the Spaces team are working on even more cool features and integration with other services which will actually reduce the amount of work you have to do. Watch this space (or any other MSN Space)....

WiFi - Wireless Networking at Home, and Passwords

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 22:39:10 GMT

The moment, Microsoft had a hardware offering in the area of wireless networks, I went ahead and quickly bought one of their first Wireless Routers (Hub) to set up my own home WiFi network. It was running at the 802.11b speed, which is up to 11 mega bits per second (11 Mbps), which was fine for me at the time. When they brought out a 802.11g version (54 Mbps), I quickly replaced my first one with this one. Sadly now Microsoft doesn't sell this kind of hardware anymore, but since it's a standard IEEE frequency and protocol, I can easily add other manufacturer's wireless networking adaptors to it without problems.

This meant that I could use my laptop anywhere in the house, and I didn't have to trail a long wire around the house, if I wanted to work outside in the sunshine. It also meant that my son didn't have to trail a wire from the Hub I had originally connected to the Cable Modem, to his bedroom. He could now access the internet from his bedroom, and we could play Local Area Network (LAN) games more easily. So we now had a Wireless LAN, and it was so much tidier around the house!

I also bought a couple of Xbox Wireless Adaptors for the two Xboxes (my son's and mine), so that we could also play on Xbox Live, or play System Link games like Halo 2 without cheating and looking at the split screen view of where your opponent is. The Xbox adaptors needed 802.11g, so that it was fast enough to host games, so all was well.

Finally, with the Tivo Series 2, I no longer needed a telephone line for it to get it's daily schedule update, since it too can use a regular USB wireless network adaptor - Yay! Unfortunately, it only runs to the 802.11b speed, which is fine, but means that I need to keep my network running at the compatible mixed standard of 802.11b/g which is slightly slower I hear.

I also have a AV transmitter/receiver system sending audio and video from my Tivo in the Living room to the TV in the bedroom. I did notice some interference on that TV, whenever my laptop accessed the network and I was sitting in the bedroom, since on the 802.11g band, they both operate at 2.4 ghz frequency, which was somewhat irritating.

Another reason I still hold onto my 900 Mhz cordless phone, rather than upgrading it to the newer ones, is that they too run into the 2.4 Ghz range, and I don't want yet another thing interfering with my bedroom TV or wireless network (WLAN). I'll get a 5.8 Ghz cordless phone system when they get a bit cheaper.

Anyway, a few weeks after I installed my WLAN, I got an email from my neighbor. He works for the same company, so we know each other well, and his house is about 200 feet away from mine. His email showed a screenshot from his computer. When he started it up, it showed him the available wireless networks - and yes, it included mine. Had he chosen to, he could have simply connected to my network, and used it to access the internet, access any shared printers, or shared folders I had on any computer or device attached to my network.

As you can imagine, I was disturbed by this reminder, and promptly went into the Hub Management software that came with the hardware, and added a network access password.

Unfortunately, it has to consist of a set number of letters, and those letters could only be between A and F if I recall correctly. Not something I could easily remember, but I did come up with something that would take a while to guess.

Of course then, the major pain, was going around every device/computer that utilized the wireless network, and entering the password there. The Tivo, the Xboxes, the laptop, my son's computer, even my PDA!

Still, a lesson learned that I hope you take from me. Make sure you change the password of the Hub Management software too. It comes with "password" or "admin" from the factory, so it wouldn't take long for someone to change it if they had access. Then add a connection password so that people simply walking past your home with a PDA can't connect and use your network to download suspect material, or copy your files.

(This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights)

Spyware - Is your computer slowing down?

Thu, 06 Jan 2005 21:09:46 GMT

Do you see popups on your screen even when you're not browsing the web? Do you see popups that are not blocked by the popup blocker in your internet browser? Does your home page setting keep being reset? Are there extra buttons and options in your browser that weren't there before? Is your computer slower than it used to be?

I got all these symptoms for a while, and some of them were due to just visiting regular legitimate web sites, which automatically run scripts to install these things on your computer, and some of them are as a result of some free application I installed.

For example, be careful if you decide to install Messenger Plus. The free version's installation process is very cleverly thought out, so that you instinctively say Yes to install their Sponsor's software, when all you think you are doing is accepting the terms of use. Look out for that one. A few of my friends have, almost out of habit, simply accepted this without reading the prompt carefully, and got more than they bargained for. If you accept the sponsor's software, it's all adware which seems to be everywhere, including in your browser, and can take a while to get rid of. Sure, it's a legitimate way of paying for free software, but it's your choice, and may be more than you're willing to pay, even if it doesn't involve money. In fact, although this add-on to MSN Messenger adds some cool features, it's almost not worth the risk anyway, since a couple of the spyware/adware removal tools I've used, simply identify the entire application as adware, and uninstall it automatically for you.

Spyware itself is something that software companies have been known to use to gather data about customers. Usually something like what sites they visit, how often etc., in order to generate trend reports, add relevant advertising to the page you're on, and/or help them build a better product that they know customers will like. However, it's still spying on you, and I would rather simply tell them if they asked, instead of being tracked like that, especially as this stuff also slows down my computer and interferes with settings I make.

So, I took the advice of the Microsoft Security site a few weeks ago (which has a video too), and installed their recommended Anti-Spyware tools at the time, which were Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE and Spybot Search and Destroy (S&D), which combined, seemed to catch most things, but not necessarily all. They each have their own updated library of adware/spyware, so occasionally they miss one. I have also been using Spykiller with some success. Spykiller runs once per day on startup of the computer, and often finds two or three new additions to my hard drive that I did not ask for when browsing the internet. I've even used the one from Giant Software. There are many anti-spyware applications out there, and some are better than others, but not one of them can claim to cover all there is. It usually takes a combination to trap and remove these things from your computer.

However, you may have heard that Microsoft acquired the Giant Anti-Spyware application recently, and have just begun making it available to customers (free!), as Microsoft Windows Anti-Spyware (Beta). There is an overview on the site, and it certainly seems to cover everything I need, so I'm going to install it and try it out for a while and see if it catches everything. The product is basically the one from Giant, and I would recommend that one to anyone, since it really helped clean up some stuff from my home computer. I'll let you know if I find that Spykiller is still finding things after the Microsoft product has been running for a while!

(This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights)