Windows Live!

I spotted this over at NeoWin and will be giving it a whirl sometime soon. Very cool concept, I am just not sure how efficient it is. The homepage is located here.

Now Microsoft just needs to do something like this for Live SkyDrive and I will be a happy camper.

I'm back in Michigan for a week so hopefully I'll be posting more again. I have a lot to catch up on.

After an install or an upgrade of Windows Live OneCare, the antivirus and spyware component may not start properly. Users are shown a red action item entitled: "Urgent, Contact Help Center - OneCare virus and spyware protection encountered a problem and cannot start".

This tool will attempt to repair the virus and spyware protection component of OneCare on this computer.

I'm having trouble keeping up with all the releases today! If you go here, you can grab all the latest Live goodies, which are now thankfully organized in a sane and consistent manner.

Windows Live Family Safety
Windows Live Mail
Windows Live Messenger 8.5
Windows Live Photo Gallery
Windows Live Writer (the little app that could - it is amazing to see how far this program has come from the original releases)

8 new/changed Windows Live categories available to WSUS servers soon
Windows Live
Messenger Installation and Upgrades
Photo Gallery Installation and Upgrades
Mail Installation and Upgrades
Writer Installation and Upgrades
OneCare Family Safety Installation
Sign-in Assistant Installation and Upgrades
Toolbar Installation and Upgrades

Read more about it here for more details.

Use this link here.
Originally spotted here.
Note to Microsoft: This should be easier to find on your websites.

You could almost consider it a functional product demo for Silverlight, but it does give Windows Live Search a pretty and interactive frontend. Try it out here.

Big changes have been rolled out for Live Folders. It has a new name, and is now available in the US, UK and India. The team has also launched a blog site. You can revisit recently viewed folders, drag and drop files, and thumbnails are generated for image files.

All in all, a good upgrade. You can't complain about 500MB of online storage either.

Check out what I am talking about here.

500 MB worth of online storage for free that you can share to the world, or a group of friends, or just with yourself, based on folder access rights. For now, it is limited to the United States.

Previously this had been a very limited and closed beta, but they have opened the flood gates again for a little while to add more users to the service.

Check it out here.
The team blog site is located here.

Grab it from here. Unless you don't have .NET Framework 2.0, you will want the light version. The only difference between the full and light version is that the full version contains the .NET Framework 2.0.

2007 has been crazy busy but it is a good busy. Some bad things have happened already but I am hoping it isn't the shape of things to come.

#1. I spent New Years Eve chasing a mouse in the house with the cats which there are a few differing accounts on what actually happened:

My wife recounts that night like this:

"I have to say, bar none, this was THE best way to wake up to 2007. I'm still laughing at the girlish screams coming from behind the closed closet door, trying to imagine Aaron dancing about with this mouse jumping at his feet."

Here is the actual account of the events, which I've edited for her:

"I have to say, bar none, this was THE best way to wake up to 2007. I'm still in awe of the warrior battle cries coming from behind the closed closet door, trying to imagine Aaron crushing this mouse jumping at his feet. "

#2. I've been on the road a lot working on Vista training, Citrix training and in March, Exchange 2007 training.

#3. Somewhat related to #2, a coworker passed on a promo code for the 71-236 (70-236) beta Exchange 2007 Configuration certification test, which I took last Friday, while sandwiched between 2 onsites. I have been doing a lot of Exchange 2007 labs on my laptop lately so I am hoping that I passed the test. It means one less certification test to take when the final version comes out.

#4. The cats chewed through the the air pump for the fish tank which promptly emptied the 20 gallon tank into our living room. The fish didn't make it but thankfully the carpet did.

#5. We're working on adopting a white Maine Coon cat in the upcoming weeks.

#6. My mom broke her foot due to years of being on prednizone (most likely) so she is on a different medicine for her Lupus which makes her severely immunosuppressed which is not good with 2 grandkids around.

#7. Lots of other stuff I am sure I am forgetting.

I have to get in touch with my friends that host the server this site runs on so they can yank the hard drive that died. Although the drive isn't on the same IDE interface as the rest of the site, due to the dead drive throwing errors left and right, the rest of the system is a bit lagged.

We have a replacement drive so I'm hoping it can be a simple swap and go. Normally I don't run sites on PATA drives, but I can deal with the failure rates for the cost savings advantage. It is a good way of testing your disaster recovery skills and plans. It is also a good way of testing your backup methods. I'm just thankful they let the site run up there.

I like "raw" web links when I go to websites so I was a bit annoyed that the exit tracking feature I enabled a few months ago would make a callback to the blog instead of just giving the end user the proper link. I can see where this can be important for web commerce sites, but I don't make any money off this site, so I'd rather have unmangled links.

I've always been a fan of Google for their search engine but in this case, on a Windows Smartphone, getting directions, traffic information and location information is much better with Windows Live Search for Mobile than Google Maps. It makes sense because the same company that wrote the OS for the Smartphone is also providing the service and client.

Unfortunately Google Maps is pretty clunky under the IBM JAVA client, and if you go to here with your Smartphone, you can download the Windows Live Search native client, which can directly interface with a GPS unit and other nice features.

Gizmondo has a much better writeup located here which tipped me off to the Windows Mobile native client.

Now I just have to save up for a Sirf-3 Bluetooth GPS unit.

Stuff like this happens with Beta software though, unfortunately, from time to time.

If you un-install Office Outlook Connector for Live, you will also damage your Windows Live Messenger 8.x install, it seems. I haven't tried it on more than one machine so far but if you install WLM first, then install the Outlook Connector, then uninstall Outlook Connector, your Windows Live Messenger will be non-functional.

I'll be filing a bug when I get some free time tonight.

I guess I have a soft spot for the v1 of Gallery (website) over the newer fancier v2. I've installed, hosted, configured, and maintained a lot of Gallery installation for friends as favors, and Gallery v1 is simply less of a system hog overall. I still follow v2 development closely but I have my primary gallery on version 1.

You can read about the new version of Gallery here.

The detailed list of changes is located here.

Due to the massive CSS and layout changes, it is highly recommended that you backup up your gallery before upgrading. Of course, anytime you do a software upgrade, you should always have a known good backup beforehand.