Hack MSN Spaces: Today

Friends list problem

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:11:20 GMT

I am unable to modify/delete anyone on my friends list and get an error, 'Unable to update friend information'. Is it just me or anyone else getting a similar error?

10 Services To Send Text Messages From The Web

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:09:56 GMT

Sometimes you need to send a text message, but you forgot your phone, or you have poor cell reception, so what can you do? Or you just prefer the comfort of the full keyboard to the crammed one on your phone? No problem, we’ve got 10 sites to help you get started with staying in constant contact with your friends, families and even your customers.

Bloove.com - Get your phone contacts on the Bloove site, and then log in and manage them as well as send them text messages directly from the site.

ClearSMS.com - A professional SMSing service for businesses to send out mass messages to their customers to alert them about specials and sales. All messages are assigned a value in credits an you purchase more as needed.

GizmoSMS.com - GizmoSMS lets you send texts to users in over 50 countries an a slew of carriers inside each of those. While it is free to use, it does not allow space for identifying yourself except inside the body of the text.

Group2Call.com - Allows you to import your contacts, break them up into groups and send all the free texts you want to them. Also offers the chance to broadcast voice messages, but you have a limited supply of those.

Jaxtr.com - This one requires the person you wish to text to have the widget (like the one pictured above) installed on their blog or social networking profile, but if it’s there, you can text the member if they live in one of any 38 countries.

OhDontForget.com - Not only can you text people, you can schedule them for later delivery.

SMSGupShup.com - A system to allow you to send one text message to a number and they will then resend it out to every member that belongs to your group, up to 5,000 people in size.

Swaggle.mobi - A service for small groups to SMS each other at once; accessible via iPhone as well as by the web.

Yahoo Mobile - Yahoo Mobile lets you send and receive phone text messages; you will not be charged for sending the SMS; but the recipient might be charged the standard messaging rates for receiving or replying.

Yellowpipe - Mainly a web host, but they happen to offer a quick and easy SMS feature when you just have to get out a text quickly. They do allow you to enter a return number.

Source: Mashable

Spaces maps working again...

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:30:12 GMT

Spaces maps suffered a database problem and unfortunately all the data was corrupted and it could not be repaired. I am going to try to get a new hosting service so that this does not happen again. Bluehost where it is hosted did try to help but they really weren't much help.

The service is back up again and the only way we could do it was to reset the stats and do a clean start. I apologize for any inconvenience caused. Hopefully it will not occur again.

I have been really busy with a few things and now a days I get less time for spaces but I will try to put up a few tutorials in the coming days.. till then let me know how spaces maps is working for you and any feedback is welcome.

On an another note, I will try answering the messages and emails that you have sent me in the past two weeks.

Good day!

- Dev

Talking about Your feedback = Changes to Windows Live Spaces

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 08:57:13 GMT

Your feedback = Changes to Windows Live Spaces

First, thanks again for all of your feedback. There's nothing like receiving comments and ideas directly from some of our 115 million monthly Spaces users worldwide.
Based on what we've heard from you, here's the latest round of changes we've made:

You now have the ability to remove updates from specific people in the what's new area of your Spaces home page.

At the bottom of your (signed-in) Spaces home page, you now have an “Options” link.

Clicking “Options” will take you to a “What’s new Options” page where you can choose who of your Spaces friends and Messenger contacts show up on your home page.

We've added back your list descriptions for all lists when they are displayed in the narrow column
The font for custom lists is no longer bold by default
We changed the Sponsored Results module to reflect the transition of our partnership with Kanoodle
We've made some additional smaller changes which you won’t see but which will further improve the Spaces service

We hope you enjoy these changes. As always, keep the feedback coming. We are listening.
- Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live
Technorati Tags: Windows Live Spaces,Windows Live

Spaces maps broken

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:01:35 GMT

www.spacesmaps.com is broken and it is being fixed. I will update you in the coming week when its working again.
Sorry :(

The best video to watch when things are rough in your life...

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:54:54 GMT

This is not related to spaces but it is an absolute must see. Never give up!

Link to original video

Friends List hits 1000

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:26:01 GMT

My friends lists has hit 1000 friends and Live Spaces does not permit me to add anymore friends. Therefore anyone on my friends lists whose space is set to private will have to be removed (sorry :) in order to make space for future public space friend requests.

Regards,

Dev

All the spaces updates in the past week

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:01:31 GMT

Matt had listed all the spaces updates before but I did not have much time to blog/translate it then.. here are the list of the updates that have hit spaces from the Spaces team itself. I will try replying to all your comments and messages when I get the time in the coming days.. stay tuned.

At the end of last week, we released some new features for Spaces and Windows Live Events. Here's the low-down:
New in Windows Live Spaces
Friends of your friends
When you're signed in and you visit another person's space, you can easily see the friends you have in common.

Multiple photo modules
More than 8 million photos are uploaded to Windows Live a day, so we figured you might like to have more ways to showcase your photos on your space. Now you can! Just add more than one photo album to your space from the Customize page.

Additional markets and additional storage for Windows Live SkyDrive
In addition to the US, UK, and India, SkyDrive is now available to users in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Finland, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, and Turkey.
In addition, SkyDrive users will also have more room for storing files because the limit is being raised from 1GB to 5GB. So now you have five times the space you had before — that’s 5GB of free online storage for your favorite documents, pictures, and other files. SkyDrive is a great way to make sure your files are available to you from any computer, without having to carry them around on a flash drive. It is really useful for sharing files that may be too big to send in e-mail.
For Spaces users in the countries above, you will see a link on your Spaces home page which will allow you to upload files directly from Spaces to Windows Live SkyDrive. Just click on the Share Files link at the top of the Spaces home page.

You can also learn more by visiting the SkyDrive team blog.
New in Windows Live Events
We added new features to Events to make it more personal. When you create an event on Windows Live, your own name and e-mail address appears on the invitation instead of the automatically generated e-mail address. In addition, any public events you organize will show up in your Windows Live profile and Events homepage so your friends and Messenger contacts will know when and where it's happening.

As always, let us know your thoughts and keep sending us your feedback. We are listening.
-Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live
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Updates on Spaces

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:22:10 GMT

In the past week(s) there have been a few updates on spaces.

Common friend
List descriptions removed
Updated spaces on the spaces community page have a more detailed description (when not signed in)

While I was in London I had suggested the common friends list indicator and am happy that it has been implemented finally weather or not it was due to my suggestion or not. The funny thing is when you are signed into your space and preview your space (i.e. not in edit mode) you can see that you have all your friends as common friends.

I don't like the way the description of lists have been taken off when you put the lists on the side columns. I think it should be up to the space owner to decide wether to remove the descriptions or not. The links have also become bold making it look ugly.

The third one wont make much difference but it can help you discover random spaces.

Do you know of any more? What do you think about this updates? Please comment....

Happy Valentine's Day!

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 03:11:57 GMT

One-Click Jailbreak for iPhone 1.1.3 Firmware

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:46:09 GMT

Lifehacker has a nice entry on how to unlock your iPhone and use it on any network you want.

Click here to read it.

MVP 2008

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 07:36:14 GMT

I got an email a few days back telling me I have been awarded the 2008 MVP award by Microsoft for my work on Windows Live Spaces. I had got the same award last year as well.

More info on the MVP awards...

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) are exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who are awarded for voluntarily sharing their high quality, real world expertise in offline and online technical communities. Microsoft MVPs are a highly select group of experts that represents the technical community's best and brightest, and they share a deep commitment to community and a willingness to help others.

I might be going to Seattle again for the MVP conference. :D

2008 kicking in...

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 15:57:12 GMT

Split Personality

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:18:37 GMT

- hi - hi

- I have a split personality!

- I have one too! (wtf!)

Diwali and a Happy New Year

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 17:56:28 GMT

On the 9th of Nov. it was Diwali in India. It is one of the most celebrate and important festivals here and it's called the festival of lights. It is followed by the celebration of the New Year.

According to the Hindu calender, it is the start of the New Year today and the year is 2064. Although the Hindu calender is not followed much it is still kept in mind for festivals and other traditional ectivities.

Below are a few wpics of the fireworks I blasted yesterday an today.

Problem resolved : .Gif images

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 12:46:32 GMT

Many of you who had .gif images and banners complained that the transparent regions came up as ugly background after the recent spaces update. The problem has been resolved and you can put your shiny bling bling banners back up!

Now you can link your Windows Live IDs together

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 13:54:47 GMT

Now you can link your Windows Live IDs together

We know that many of you have multiple Windows Live IDs and managing and switching between them is not that easy. That is why we are so happy to tell you that Windows Live now offers a Linked Windows Live ID service. The service allows you to link your Windows Live accounts together and easily switch between them.
Jeff Steinbok, a member of our Spaces development team, talked about it in detail on his personal space.
Enjoy and keep the feedback coming.
- Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live Spaces
Quote
Windows Live Linked IDs Shipped

Got multiple Windows Live accounts? Sick and tired of having to log out and back in again to switch between them? Well, no more! You can now link your Windows Live IDs together so you can switch identities in one click from the menu on the top right of most Windows Live pages.

To set this up, go to https://account.live.com and look for the section called Linked Windows Live IDs. There's a link there to manage your linked IDs and if you click that, you'll get a screen where you can add IDs.

Once you have this done, Sign Out, and then Sign In Again. When you go to sites like Windows Live Spaces and Windows Live Events, you can click on the top-right of the Windows Live header bar (click on the down arrow next to your name) and you'll be able to instantly switch to any of your linked IDs.

A few quick security notes:

Your linked LiveIDs are only as secure as your weakest password. So, if you have one account with a strong password and one with a weak one, someone can log into the weak one and then switch accounts to the strong one.
If one of your accounts is set to have you change your password regularly, or if one of the sites you visit requires a strong password, it will require that you change your password on each linked account.

This is a really cool feature that took coordination from a lot of teams to get done. I'm thrilled to see the last piece ship so that users can now take advantage of this.

Technorati tags: Windows Live ID, Windows Live Linked ID, Linked ID, Windows Live, Microsoft

More information on the new Spaces home page and What's new section

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 13:54:10 GMT

More information on the new Spaces home page and What's new section

As you know, last week we had a big release that included updates to the “What’s New” section of your Spaces home page which now makes it easy to catch-up on recent activity from your Spaces friends and Messenger contacts in a single view. Rob Dolin, one of our team members, added a bunch of detail about What’s New on his personal space. Enjoy—

-Chris Keating
Product Manager, Windows Live
Quote
Windows Live Spaces home improvements: What's New details, recent Photo comments, and more

As many of my blog visitors know, I work on the Windows Live team with a particular focus on helping people find, connect, and keep in touch with their friends. I’m really excited to share that we just completed the launch of our latest release of Windows Live Spaces including significant updates to the Spaces home / What’s New signed-in experience.

What's New
The “What’s New” module now includes details on recent updates from your (two-way) WL Spaces “friends” and WL Messenger contacts. The type of information in the details is:

Photos – album title and thumbnails of up to five recently added photos
Files – folder title and icons of up to five recently added files; you can hover to see the file name as a tooltip
Blog entry – blog entry title and a text snippet from the
Lists – list title and the number of items in the list
Profile updates – a list of profile fields that were updated
New friend – when a friend (or messenger contact) of yours adds a new friend, you see the new friend’s display name and a link to invite them to be your friend (if they’re not already your friend)

The What's New module shows up to ~25 items, but you can also click the "What's New" module header to view a full What's New page with ~100 items.
Other Features
Some other changes that we’ve made to the Spaces home include:

Upcoming birthdays are also in the What’s New module.
Recent comments now includes comments on your photos and guestbook and the module was moved above the fold
Invites to new Windows Live Events now show-up in the “Welcome module”
There’s a link to our Community page in the top right
New features are highlighted at the bottom of the middle column

My Favorite :)
My personal favorite part about the Windows Live “What’s New” info is that ALL of my friends' updates show up. It’s automatic and deterministic. What I mean by this is that it’s “automatic” in that I don’t need to go through and subscribe to every single one of my friends’ feeds, they just show-up. When I add a new friend, the friend’s content updates start showing-up and when I remove a friend, their updates stop showing-up. Similarly, it’s deterministic in that I can be confident that when I upload photos, when friends view their What’s New, they’ll see the photos. (Up to 5 updates per friend, up to 100 updates total.)
A note about privacy
On the flip side, if you don't want your content updates to show-up, you can turn them off by going to Options | Space Settings and then un-checking the box: "Show information from my Windows Live space on my contact card, and use gleam to indicate there's something new." As it says, this will also turn-off your "gleams" in Windows Live Messenger. Also, the only people who get your updates are those who are Friends or Messenger contacts AND who can view your space, so if you limit who can view your content, you'll also be limiting who will get your items in their What's New. Finally, since your updates come from your two-way Windows Live Spaces friends and your Messenger contacts, if you don't want a particular individual to get your updates in their What's New, you can remove them as a friend and/or Messenger contact. At the bottom of the What's New module, there are links to both "Manage friends" for removing and also "Invite friends" for adding.
Thanks to the team
Since joining the Spaces team about a year and a half ago, I've been lucky to have the opportunity to work on the Spaces home experience with some very talented people and credit for the latest features goes not only to our front-end team including Deepa, Khalid, Duane, Tony, Jason, Mike, Kirsten, Todd, and Penny; but there have been some great folks working on the back-end team that have also helped to make the latest improvements to the Spaces home a reality including Dare, Paul, Inder, Diego, Tony, and Joyce.
For a bit of Spaces history, going back to the launch of MSN Spaces and its "gleams" integration with MSN Messenger, it's been almost 21 dog years of features and improvements to help our users catch-up with their friends. The most recent evolution of the Spaces home / What's New has included:

Addition of "What's New" module in November 2006: http://thespacecraft.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!8AA773FE0A12B9E3!28783.entry
New Spaces home page in April 2007: http://thespacecraft.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!8AA773FE0A12B9E3!34590.entry
Redesigned Spaces home page in July 2007: http://thespacecraft.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!8AA773FE0A12B9E3!37301.entry

I hope you enjoy the latest improvements to the Spaces home experience and I actively welcome your feedback and suggestions for future improvements. Please leave a comment. Thanks very much--
--Rob
Technorati Tags: Windows Live , Windows Live Spaces , Spaces home , What's new , Social Networking , Microsoft

Introducing Windows Live Events and new Windows Live Spaces updates

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 13:25:05 GMT

Introducing Windows Live Events and new Windows Live Spaces updates

Today we released Windows Live Events, as well as some Spaces updates. Now planning get-togethers, keeping in touch with friends and family, and sharing photos are much easier. Plus, we’ve added some of the top feature requests you’ve sent in to us over the past few months.
You can read about Events and the other updates below, and, as always, keep the feedback coming. We are listening!
-Chris Keating and Jay Fluegel
Product Managers, Windows Live

Easily create a great-looking website for your next event
To offer you more ways to connect and share memories with the people you care about most, the team that brought you Spaces would love to hear your feedback on Windows Live Events, our new, free social event planning service. With Events you can easily:

Plan that next baby shower, birthday party, or family reunion
Create a great-looking event invitation and website using one of over 100 fantastic templates
Invite anyone with an e-mail address and track who’s coming
Make your event unique with familiar customization features - choosing a friendly web address (like http://kates1stbirthday.events.live.com), using custom colors, fonts, and background images, or adding modules and Windows Live web gadgets
Let guests and organizers share photos and stories before and after the event

Click on Events from the new navigation and then click Create event to get started!

Share photos and stories after the party’s over
Ever notice that your guests take more and better pictures at your parties than you do because you’re focused on everyone having a good time?   And, if you remember to even ask, there is a mad scramble afterwards to try to collect everyone’s photos over e-mail. Well, we want to make that A LOT easier with features like:

Photo album creation by the event organizer AND any of the guests
Stunning full-screen photo slideshows
Ordering prints through our partner, HP Snapfish
One-click download of a photo album into Windows Live Photo Gallery

After the event, return to the event website and click Add album in the Photos module to share those photos!
In addition to making it easy for everyone to share photos after the party, Windows Live Events allows guests to share memories in other ways, including a discussion board, guestbook, and sharing videos you upload to Soapbox on MSN Video or other popular video sharing sites.

Works great with other Windows Live services

Like Spaces, Events works really well with Windows Live services you’re already familiar with. For example, while an invitation can be sent to any e-mail address, click Invite guests from the event website and quickly invite individuals and groups from your same contact list that’s available in Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, and Spaces.

What’s new in What’s new
In today’s release, we also added some new features to the Spaces home page.

What’s new now shows more details about what your friends and Messenger contacts are doing online, including adding photos, files, new blog entries, profile updates, lists, and friends.
Comments on your space now also includes photos and guestbook comments, in addition to blog comments.

For additional information on the new spaces home page, Rob Dolin, a Spaces Program Manager, has a detailed post on the new features here.
Do more with your photos

With this release, we’ve made it easier to share photos using Spaces.

Here’s how:

Let your friends know about new photos you’ve added to your space. Click Send a link and you’ll get a formatted e-mail with links to your album – just add your friends and family to the “To:” line and click Send.

Put your photos and albums on other websites. Click Embed and then copy the web address or embed code and paste it into the appropriate location on the other site.
Blog about your own or other people’s photos. Click Blog it and a new blog entry is created automatically with the photo already in the entry. Just add your thoughts and click Publish entry.
No more downloading an entire album of photos one by one. Download all the photos in an album by clicking Download and then selecting Download album.
Share photos from your space on Facebook (only in some markets where Facebook is available)
For those wall-worthy shots, you can order prints online from HP Snapfish in 9 new markets including Australia, Belgium, France, Italy, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.

Control who can see your albums
Want Mom to see the pictures from your hiking trip, but not the shots from your friend's birthday? No problem! Now you can choose who can see which albums on your space.

Just go to an album and click Edit album. You’ll see what the current permissions are for that album. To change them, click Change permissions. (By default, all albums are set to use the same permissions as your space.)

Add photos to your blog entries
You can now add and resize photos directly in your blog entries to make a richer experience for readers.

Note: If you want more options for editing your Spaces blog entries, download Windows Live Writer. It’s free, and it makes it easy to compose, edit, preview, and post entries to Windows Live Spaces.

Getting around Spaces – the new navigation
With this release, we removed the buttons for What’s new and Your space, and added additional links at the top of each page to make it easier to get to your Spaces home page and your space, as well as additional pages within your space.

We also added an icon on the right hand side of the navigation that links to the Spaces community page where you can find some of the most popular spaces and search for people that have similar interests.

Recent activity in your profile
Have you ever wanted a quick overview of what one of your friends has been up to recently? With our new and improved profile you can see the most recent updates to a space:

Recent activity shows recent blog posts, new photo albums, updates to lists, new files, and more.
Friends and Profile lets you see who is in this person’s social network and quickly browse to their friends enhanced profile pages.

You can get to the new profile page for any space you have permission to view by clicking on “Profile” in the new navigation bar.
Print your blog entries for your personal keepsakes
You now have the ability to select from your Spaces blog entries and print them. We’ve partnered with HP, and the printouts look great.
Just go to any blog entry and click Print. Select the entries you want to print – the entries are automatically compiled into a document for easy printing.

Go crazy with customization
Customizing your space should be quick and fun – at least that’s what we heard in the feedback from the last release. Here’s what’s new:

There are more ways to get into customize mode. Just click the icon at the top of any module to get into customize mode.
It’s faster to add modules, or change templates, themes, layouts, and colors. Just click Customize and select the action you want to take.
It’s easier to find modules or gadgets to add to your space. Click Customize and then click Add modules —you’ll see all of them at a glance.

Posted with Windows Live Writer
Technorati tags: Windows Live Events, Events, Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft, Windows Live, Social Networking

Plan your party, soiree, or casual gathering using Windows Live Events

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 13:23:40 GMT

Just in time to help you plan a Halloween party or your next holiday gathering, Windows Live Events went live today!

Whether you’re meeting friends for drinks downtown, getting together for a football game, or hosting a formal soiree, Windows Live Events makes it easy to organize just about any kind of gathering. With Events, you can quickly create a customized event website and send e-mail invitations to all your friends. There are more than 100 great templates that make it easy to add colors, fonts, and background images to your site.

Once the invites are out, you and your guests will come back to see who is coming, what they can bring, and how to get to the party.
But I think the coolest thing about Events is that you can use it as an online scrapbook for memories of the event. Your guests can go to the website before and after the party to post comments, tell stories, and share photos. Typically I’m too busy serving snacks or making drinks to remember to take photos at my own party, so the photo-sharing part of Events is great for me. Read more about Windows Live Events on the Space Craft blog.

Events is one in a series of new and updated Windows Live services rolling out between now and the end of this year.
Windows Live Spaces also released several new features today, including improved photo sharing and a new Spaces home page. For more details on the many other improvements just added to Spaces, check out the Space Craft blog.
Keep watching Windows Live Wire for more info on all the Windows Live updates as they come out. And remember to try out Windows Live Events when planning your next get-together!

Kirsten B.
Windows Live team

Technorati Tags: Spaces , Windows Live , Events , invitations , social network

Source: Windows Live Wire

Updated: The 'What's new' page

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 23:55:04 GMT

There seems to be an update made to the What's new page on Live Spaces a few minutes back.

More information is given to you about the recent activities of your friends rather than just telling you how long back they updated. Also the comments have more detail to them.

You could see the upcoming birthdays of your contacts but now there is a link under it to share your birthday and also plan events/Birthday parties. At the moment when I click on the Plan a party link the page refreshes and nothing else happens. I guess they are still implementing the events feature or there must be a few bugs left to iron out.

Check out your what's new page and have a look at it yourself. I think it is a positive step forward and it is also more facebook like. There are many more updates coming soon and some of which I know about although I am not at liberty to say which.

Stay tuned and enjoy the Live spaces experience.. it is getting better and better but there is always room for more improvement! ;)

Okay its nearly 4 am.. time to go to bed!

Update:

The update to Live Spaces seems to have be rolled back. It might have been released by error or there were too many bugs and therefore rolled back. Anyways.. everything is back to as it was.. dammit should have taken a screen shot!

Update:

On http://mmadrigal.spaces.live.com I found the screen shots of the new update. He has done a comparison of Facebook home page and the Spaces What's New page.

What I like most about is that comments are shown in a seperate coloumn on spaces while on facebook everything is cluttered. Also at all times display pictures of your friends are shown so it is relate with along with the hovering contact cards while on facebook your friends are just links.

Facebook:

Live Spaces:

Wanted: Web application and site developer

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 14:14:54 GMT

I want to create a new project for the Live Spaces community. My first one was www.spacesmaps.com but this time it is going to be something different...

Therefore I require the assistance of someone who is familiar with MySQL , PHP and a bit of website design. Please contact me for more details, send me a message or leave a comment.

Thanks..

Dev

In Dubai

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 09:52:57 GMT

I have been in Dubai for the past one month and have finally got a studio apartment sorted! :)

Now that I have got my net and computer up and running, looking forward to blog more this month...

Anyone from Dubai on Spaces?

Real Live Moms

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 13:51:54 GMT

The Spaces team appreciates their Moms!

We want to show everyone just how much we appreciate our moms, so we created the Real Live Moms website, where moms can get tips and tricks on how to use Spaces and other Windows Live products and services.

At Real Live Moms, moms can learn how easy and fun it is to set up their own Windows Live space and share baby photos and videos with family and friends, write a blog, create lists of their favorite things, and more!

Moms can also get ideas by viewing other moms' spaces and see how many amazing things they can do with a personal website. And with Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger, moms can stay connected to their friends, family, and other moms.

Here are just some of the things moms (and other people) can do on Real Live Moms:

Find local parks (for the kids) and day spas (for mom) using Live Search Maps
Learn how to easily share photos
Read helpful parenting tips
Design and print free mom business cards
Find fun mom-centric gadgets to add to your space

So if you’re a mom, visit Real Live Moms and try Spaces, Hotmail, and Messenger. And if you’re not a mom, tell your own mom and the rest of the moms in your life about it. It’s a great way to share interests, experiences, and encouragement with friends, family, and other moms.

New and easy ways to share photos and do more with Windows Live Spaces

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 15:49:03 GMT

New and easy ways to share photos and do more with Windows Live Spaces

This morning we announced the launch of a new suite of products to help you stay connected to the people that you choose and help keep you protected with free online safety and security tools.
There are two new products in this suite that I’d like to focus on because they make sharing and posting photos and ideas to Spaces much easier: Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Writer.
Windows Live Photo Gallery beta
Windows Live Photo Gallery is a software application that helps you organize, sort, edit, and share all of your photos and videos. Photo Gallery used to be called Windows Photo Gallery and was previously only available on Windows Vista OS., but with this release, Photo Gallery works on both Windows XP and Vista and is available in 31 languages and 56 countries.

There are several new photo and video features in Windows Live Photo Gallery – here are some highlights:

Add photos directly to Spaces
Getting photos from your computer to your space is now much easier. Just choose the photos you want to share with your friends and family, and then select Publish on Windows Live Spaces from the Publish button.

You can then add those photos to a new album or add them to an existing album on your space. You also have the option to upload high-resolution photos that are optimized for printing.
Add captions and titles
Now it’s easier to put your photos in context for your friends and family because you can add captions and titles to your photos before you upload them to your space.

Create awe-inspiring panoramas
With just a few clicks you can “stitch” together multiple images to easily create a panorama which shows off your photographic skills to your friends and family. Take a look at how a few images come together into one:

Check out the Windows Live Photo Gallery team blog for more juicy details about these and all of the other new features available in this beta release.

Windows Live Writer beta 3
We’re also releasing the next beta version of Windows Live Writer. With this new version of Writer, it’s easier to insert videos into your blog entries, either from Soapbox by MSN Video or from any other video website.

There are many other new features in this release: justified text alignment, XHTML support, printing, and other features you’ve asked for. You can read all about them on Writer Zone, the official space for Windows Live Writer.
We look forward to hearing your feedback on these two products as well as the other Windows Live products. Install and start using them and let us know what you think.
- Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live Spaces

New photo features available on Spaces

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 15:47:48 GMT

New photo features available today on Spaces

We added two new photo features to Spaces
High resolution photo upload
Now you can share high resolution photos on Spaces. When you upload your photos, select Optimize photos for printing. When you upload higher resolution photos, your photo albums look even better than before, especially when viewing them in full screen mode.

Note: the uploading process may take longer than before because high resolution photos are significantly larger in file size.
Photo printing by HP Snapfish
We’re also announcing a partnership with HP Snapfish to offer photo printing for Spaces. Photo printing is available right now in the US and we’ll be rolling out this feature to other markets in the future.
To create a print, visit a Spaces photos album and click Order prints.

Select the photos you want to print from that specific album, and then click Next.

You will then be taken to the HP Snapfish website to order your prints. After you create a HP Snapfish username, you can order prints of your selected Spaces photos as well as additional photo items such as calendars, coffee mugs, posters, and greeting cards.
We hope you enjoy these new Spaces photos features. As always, keep your feedback coming. We are listening.
-Chris Keating
Product Manager, Windows Live Spaces

Taking time off!

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 13:21:35 GMT

Hi everyone,

I know there has been no updates recently and many tutorials are out of date. This is due to the fact that I am on a vacation.

After the graduation I was in Dubai and India, right now I am back in Dubai and celebrated my birthday on the 27th of the previous month.

Been busy and also have been feeling unwell but I am better now and looking forward to start a new life with better oppurtunties and meet new intersting people too!!

So come back in a couple of weeks time and this blog will be up and running again!!

p.s. will try to get back to all the hundereds of comments/emails/messages. I know the new update hasn't been smooth but it will sort out soon..

Live Spaces update

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 10:49:59 GMT

A new Live Spaces update seems to be underway. As far as I have seen it is mostly a UI update. I can't access my space right now, it is really slow..

An update has been made for..

The Spaces Dashboard // Your Home page
The Windows Live Header
The Navigation (links) along with a few new links such as tools in the header
Updated Spaces module
A send a Message , Add as Friend link on the profile.

I hate what has happened to my banner / sandbox. It seems due to the update, the hide border option of the HTML Sandbox seems to have messed up>>

The blog module comes in preview mode even when you are in the edit mode. The add | manage blog entries link come up only when I go to customize and click on something like. change layout, add a module, etc etc.

I guess the changes are underway and the bugs will be sorted out. The new updates are not even visible on my other space(s).. strange!

Update:

The spaces Home page or dashboard is now 'What's New' on the nav-bar in your header.
Your dashboard also displays upcoming birthdays of your contacts if they have filled in their birthday details.
The dashboard comments on your blog feature also displays which blog entry the comment has been made.

Over all the changes are positive and good but a lot needs to be ironed out. I think these updates are for UK and US spaces only. not really sure...

Any other changes or bugs you noticed? Comment below...

Graduation

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 03:13:05 GMT

I have finished my studies at the Newcastle University and have passed out with (Beng) Honours in Naval Architecture. It wouldn't have been possible without my Parents and all the people who came into my life for good or for the worse.

I had a great time in England and will continue to visit it. I have also finished my contract work with Microsoft which I did for an year (remotely).

There wont be many updates as I am currently on a holiday. Please do send the emails coming though, I will try to answer as many as possible.

Have a great summer all!!

pssst... anyone want to hire me?

SOS | Live Earth | 7.7.07

Sat, 07 Jul 2007 01:18:54 GMT

-= THE CONCERTS FOR A CLIMATE IN CRISIS =-

Watch Live Earth Live... click here!

Live Earth is a 24-hour, 7-continent concert series taking place on 7/7/07 that will bring together more than 100 music artists and 2 billion people to trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis.

Live Earth will reach this worldwide audience through an unprecedented global media architecture covering all media platforms - TV, radio, Internet and wireless channels.

Live Earth concerts will be broadcast to a live worldwide audience by MSN at www.LiveEarth.MSN.com.

Official Live Earth blog: http://liveearth.spaces.live.com/

Official Live Earth UK blog : http://liveearthuk.spaces.live.com/

Help Help!

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 18:26:38 GMT

Every week I will be publishing all the messages and emails I receive from those you ask for my help on anything related from Spaces to Gadgets. This will be useful for other people and help answer their (similar) problems and questions. I will of course remove your name, email and spaces address if you are concerned about your privacy, if you don't mind me publishing your details, Please let me know.

Any feedback and suggestions welcome.. please comment below>>