Jamie's space: Windows Live

10 more secrets of Windows Live

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:15:30 GMT

My last post 10 hidden secrets of Windows Live was quite well received so I thought I would write another one. Here are 10 more time-and-money-saving tips from Windows Live.

If you're like me then you've spent a lot of time over the last few years having instant messenger conversations with people and that means a lot of typing. Why not give your fingers a rest and communicate as god intended - by talking. If you're computer is equipped with a microphone and a speaker then simply hit the 'Call a contact' button in your conversation window and talk talk talk away. Its cheaper than a phone call.

In the clubhouse: Messenger

At the top of this blog post I linked to my previous blog post 10 hidden secrets of Windows Live. Ordinarily that would involve going out to the internet to find the URL but with Windows Live Writer there's no need to do that. All you need to do is simply select the text that you want turn into a link, hit the hyperlink button on the toolbar, and from the "Link To" box select 'Previous Post...' at which point you'll see a list of all your previous posts. Just pick the one you want. Its ridiculously easy!

In the clubhouse: Writer

Hotmail has got a very good and very simple search feature. Simply type your search term into the search box in the Windows Live header bar and hit enter [or click the green 'Mail' button]. Any emails containing the search term will be returned for you. Simple as that!

In the clubhouse: Hotmail

Received an interesting email that you want to talk about on your Windows Live Space? Hit the 'Blog' button in Windows Live Mail and have the blog entry pre-prepared for you right inside your Space.

In the clubhouse: Spaces, Mail

Even with the proliferation of photo sharing services such as Flickr, Smugmug, Photobucket and Windows Live Spaces still the most popular way of showing someone else your photos is to email them. This invariably makes emails rather hefty but Windows Live Mail is here to help. By sending a photo email the photos will be uploaded to your Live Space and the email will contain a thumbnail and a link to the photo on your Space. You can even put frames around your photos or make one of many other assorted amendments. Jazz them up a bit!

In the clubhouse: Mail, Spaces

You can configure Windows Live Mail to automatically log you on to Windows Live Messenger when you open it up. Just go to Tools-->Options and you'll find the option on the 'General' tab. No point in emailing someone when you can just send them an instant message instead, right?

In the clubhouse: Mail, Messenger

Wouldn't it be cool if people could send you instant messages even if they weren't Live Messenger users? Well now they can using the Messenger IM control. Using the wizard you can generate a small piece of code that can be embedded into any web page that then allows any visitor to that website to IM you. All from a web browser. You can see in the picture on the right that I've embedded the IM control into my work blog.
This one is seriously cool. Go check it out.

In the clubhouse: Messenger

Did you know that your Windows Live ID can log you in to many more web sites and services than just Microsoft ones. All of the sites shown on the right allow you to login using your Windows Live ID. Click on any of the logos to go to the site and login.

In the clubhouse: Windows Live ID

If you don't like switching windows to do different things then you'll be glad to know that many Windows Live products can be controlled from within Windows Live Mail. Did you know for instance that you can set your Messenger status from within Windows Live Mail?

In the clubhouse: Mail, Messenger

Do you ever wish you could have the same list of Favorites on any computer? Well now you can, just install Windows Live Toolbar and use the 'Sync Favorites' function to sync your list of favorites between all your devices and to http://favorites.live.com as well.

In the clubhouse: Toolbar, Favorites

As before let me know in the comments how many of those you knew about. Or if you don't want to tell me, leave a comment anyway - my blog can never have enough comments. And if you have 10 Windows Live secrets of your own, blog about them and tag it 10 secrets.

-Jamie

In the clubhouse: Toolbar, Mail, Messenger, Spaces, Favorites, Windows Live ID, Hotmail, Writer, Clubhouse, How-to, 10 secrets

10 hidden secrets of Windows Live

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:08:38 GMT

Some things you might not know about Windows Live

1	If you use multiple Windows Live IDs then you can link them together so that you can easily swap between them using the dropdown list in the top right-hand corner of every online Windows Live service. Go to https://account.live.com/managelinks.aspx to set them up. Windows Live Tags: Windows Live ID

2	If you receive instant messages when you are offline then you can pick them up in Windows Live Mail and reply to them via email Windows Live Tags: Mail, Messenger

3	If you choose to keep a history of your Live Messenger conversations then you can see a record of all your conversations with one of your buddies all in the same place. Go to Tools-->Options-->Messages and check the box next to 'Automatically keep a history of my conversations'. Windows Live Tags: Messenger

4	If the 5GB storage limit on SkyDrive isn't enough for you simply sign-up for multiple Windows Live IDs and set your primary Windows Live ID up as an Editor to those other SkyDrives. Voila. Effectively infinite storage, just make sure that all your accounts stay active. Windows Live Tags: SkyDrive, Windows Live ID

5	Live Writer makes it easy to advertise your blog to the world by letting you add tags that automatically tell blog search engines what your posts are about. Windows Live Tags: Writer

6	Even better, you can tell Windows Live Writer to tell all the blog search engines about your post as soon as you publish it using the "Ping Servers" feature. Go to Tools-->Options-->Ping Servers to configure. Windows Live Tags: Writer

7	Using Windows Live Photo Gallery you can stitch multiple photos together to make a great multi-megapixal panoramic image like the one I've done here looking northwards from the top of the Empire State Building (click on the image for a larger version). Windows Live Tags: Photo Gallery

8	You can see all of the comments on someone's Live Spaces blog in one place by going to the blog summary and clicking on the comments link for each blog. For example see all comments on my blog by going here. Windows Live Tags: Spaces

9	You can search the web using Live Search, preview the results, and share the search results with your friends all from within Windows Live Messenger. Just select 'Search' from the activities menu. Windows Live Tags: Messenger

10	Writing a blog entry? Why not see what the blog entry will look like BEFORE you publish it. All from within Windows Live Writer. Just hit the F12 button for a web preview. Windows Live Tags: Writer

How many of those did you know about? Let me know in the comments (but be honest now).

Do you have any tips to share of your own? Again, put 'em in the comments. Better still, do you have 10 of them? If so blog about them on your Space and tag it 10 secrets.

-Jamie

Windows Live Tags: clubhouse, how-to, Spaces, Messenger, Photo Gallery, Writer, SkyDrive, Mail, Windows Live ID, 10 secrets

"Loving Outlook Connector"

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:44:01 GMT

Those aren't my words, they're the words of my fiancee Helen who yesterday installed the Outlook Connector that can:

Read and send your Office Live Mail/Windows Live Hotmail e-mail messages.
Manage your Live Mail Contacts.
Use advanced options for blocking junk e-mail messages.
Manage multiple e-mail accounts in one place.
Manage, share, and synchronize your calendar in Hotmail from Outlook.
Access your Tasks and Notes.

I'm often sending things Helen's way to get her to try them and usually she drops them either through exasperation or boredom. With Outlook Connector though its different, she actually likes this one. I asked her for a soundbite and she came back with "a neat and easy way to share and manage my personal email with the same effectiveness as I manage my professional email using Outlook functionality, superb!"

Yep, she definitely likes this one :)

One minor downside was that she has Outlook 2003 which only allows you to view view multiple calendars side-by-side. Outlook 2007 allows you to overlay them which is a much better experience.

-Jamie

Windows Live Tags: clubhouse, windows live, story, Live Calendar, Hotmail, Live Contacts, Outlook Connector

The first vertical service in Windows Live wave 3 rears its head

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:15:52 GMT

Back in November 2007 I wrote a blog entry called "Windows Live's vertical offerings" where I said:

I am interested to see what will constitute Windows Live wave 3. Microsoft's success is built upon providing platforms and that is exactly what Windows Live now is - its a platform. A platform for what though? Well clearly Microsoft want third parties to build upon that platform but I wouldn't mind betting that Microsoft themselves will be providing their own applications on top of this myriad of services and that's what I think wave 3 will be all about. This is what I like to refer to as vertical offerings on the horizontal platform.

Another way to think of Windows Live as it is today is that it forms an infrastructure on which other applications can be built. I use the term "vertical offerings" to refer to applications that are built using this infrastructure that have a specific purpose in mind and today we saw the first incarnation of one such application with the preview release of Windows Live FrameIt (as usual Liveside have all the details).

FrameIt allows us to specify stuff to be displayed on a digital photo frame. What I find really compelling about this idea isn't that we can display a carousel of digital photos in our living room (we've been able to do that for years) but that we can display other content as well. For example, I can have the morning's news headlines presented to me which I can read while I'm eating my cornflakes whilst in the evening the photo frame can show the evening's TV listings. There are a lot of form factors other than digital photo frames that could leverage FrameIt, Epigraph is one obvious example. Photo frames are just the start.

Like Liveside I suspect that Microsoft will be partnering with hardware manufacturers to produce digital photo frames that specifically leverage FrameIt and those I expect those to be with us before too long.

-Jamie

Windows Live Tags: clubhouse, windows live, frameit, story, Epigraph

Big month for Windows Live

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:53:46 GMT

August is shaping up to be a big month for Windows Live judging by stuff I've picked up from around the web. I happen to know that there is a new product release coming on 4th August; Mary-Jo Foley hinted yesterday that a new private beta for Windows Live wave 3 is due very soon, Windows-Live-senior-tech-product-manager-marketeer-cum-evangelist-type-guy Angus Logan said in an overnight Twitter "we have some stuff FINALLY being made available next week"; and to top it all the $300m marketing blitz that was promised for Windows Live should soon be seeing the light of day.

Something else that has hit the webwaves overnight is a new podcast from Windows Live community manager Marcus Schmidt. Read what Marcus has to say about it on his blog entry Podcast: What is Windows Live. I've told Marcus that he needs to make this available as a podcast feed so that we can subscribe to it through our iPods and Zunes so hopefully we'll see that soon.

-Jamie

Update: Marcus has made a podcast feed available: http://marcussc.web.officelive.com/Documents/winlivemp3feed.xml

One storage volume per LiveID

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:26:46 GMT

I have heard a lot of talk lately coming out of Microsoft that they want to unify all their Live services into one cohesive whole. In other words, there are less seperate properties like Spaces, Hotmail, Office Live Workspaces etc... and instead you are just a user of Windows Live.

The upcoming change to the Windows Live header that Liveside talked about is a pointer to this.

Great, go for it. I can't wait to see it.

Another way that they can unify all their services is to provide one single amount of storage per Live ID. Currently my Live ID gives me access to the following cloud storage sinks:

10GB on Hotmail
5GB on Skydrive
5GB on Mesh
5GB on Office Live Workspaces

That's a total of 25GB of storage in the cloud. Instead of segregating that storage over different properties would it not make sense to just give me a single 25GB cloud storage space which is then shared between all the different properties? I would then want to know how much was being used by each of the properties so I can envisage something like this:

That makes much more sense to people that have been brought up on Windows. I have a desktop computer that has a finite amount of total space on it but I'm not limited to only using a certain amount of it for (say) Excel files. Should the same not be true of the cloud as well?

Can we have this Microsoft? Will it make a difference if I ask really nicely?

-Jamie

P.S. I submitted this idea to http://feedback.live.com and if you agree you should do the same. I also added it to my feedback lista.

Some agreement on Windows Live URLs

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:10:13 GMT

Some inane waffle for a Friday evening….

Back in March I posted a blog entry of constructive criticism entitled What's with Windows Live URLs? where I bemoaned the lack of consistency and intuitiveness in Windows Live URLs. I wasn’t sure at the time whether it was worth posting about because to most it probably seems incredibly insignificant but I think its very important and I got some positive replies which made me think that perhaps I wasn’t complaining about nothing.

Today I saw a comment from Simon Willison on Robert Scoble’s Friendfeed feed that went like this:

I heard this exact same argument all the time when I was working at Yahoo! - the secret weapon is the hundreds of millions of Yahoo! Mail users. It's no good just saying you have the users; you need to execute well as well. I have yet to see evidence of Microsoft executing effectively on the web. It's 2008 and they still don't even know how to design a decent URL!

I feel slightly justified!

-Jamie

"Microsoft is the ONLY company that enables one to TAKE THEIR DATA with them"

Sun, 18 May 2008 09:01:42 GMT

Those aren't my words. They are the words of Marc Canter who wrote them in a recent blog entry. Most people reading this probably don't know who Marc is but those who closely follow issues around social networks, data portability and such like will probably know Marc as a vociferously proponent of open standards, data portability and open source software. For someone of Marc's stature to say that is quite a big deal. I suspect there's some people in Redmond jumping up and and down in glee while reading that.

This is kinda the point that I made in my blog entry Set me free back in February when I said this:

Microsoft's provision [of] a free and secure method of allowing anyone to get your contact data if you let them without divulging your username/password doesn't strike me as being "anti-data-portability".

I know I'm rather biased in matters like these because I'll hold my hands up and say I'm an unashamed Microsoft fan but its nice to see someone like Marc coming out and saying something positive about Microsoft's efforts in this area. I'm looking forward to him publishing his Data Portability matrix.

-Jamie

Windows Live Tags: clubhouse, contacts, story, Windows Live Contacts

Windows Live for Windows Mobile

Fri, 16 May 2008 18:49:46 GMT

As Brandon LeBlanc noted a couple of days ago Windows Live for Windows Mobile is now available. In fact, its supposedly been available for a long time but sometime back in April I browsed to http://wl.windowsmobile.com and was told that the download site was down until 5th May. I went back on 5th May and was told it was down until 15th May. Still...at least its there now.

Before I installed I was worried about how the various features were going to manifest themselves. I already sync my mail and contacts from my company's Exchange server and I was worried that my work and personal mail were going to get mixed in together. No such worries - WL for Windows Mobile creates a completely separate email account for your personal mail - good news.

As for contacts, well I was too scared to sync those. I'm pretty sure that contacts from both work and my personal life would get mixed in together so initially I chose to not sync contacts from my personal account. Thinking about it though mixing them in together could be advantageous - I quite like the idea of a single unified contacts store that incorporates my work contacts and my personal contacts. If anyone has any experiences to share in this area let me know.

Not all is rosy however. After installing WL for Windows Mobile for the first time and then shutting down I wasn't able to get back into the phone so I had to do a hard reset (check manual for details) which meant that I lost all my data (ultimately not a problem because everything is synced elsewhere - but a minor annoyance) and all of my installed programs (again only an irritation because I can reinstall everything). I hoped it was an isolated problem but unfortunately not because when I came to reinstall it exactly the same thing happened. Grrrr... My phone is a Vodafone v1615 by the way, otherwise known as an HTC Kaiser, HTC TyTN II, AT&T Tilt and by various other names too.

I submitted a ticket to http://support.live.com about this and they were as useless as ever; the response basically being "Not our fault guv, get in touch with Vodafone!!!" Ta very much!!!

Has anyone else out there experienced this problem with the kaiser?

-Jamie

Windows Live takes a 180degree about turn with APP adoption

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:55:38 GMT

[This blog entry might be a bit techie. Bear with me.]

Take a read of the following two quotes:

"...we [Microsoft] couldn't figure out how to use APP without putting an unacceptable implementation and performance burden on both our customers and ourselves. So we felt we had no other option [but to invent Web3S]. But Web3S is a tactical not a strategic choice. If it turns out there is a better option then we'll adopt it." - Taken from APP and Dare, The Sitting Duck by Yaron Goland, 15th June 2007

"Microsoft is making a large investment in unifying our developer platform protocols for services on the open, standards-based Atom format (RFC 4287) and the Atom Publishing Protocol " - Taken from David Treadwell on New and Updated Windows Live Platform Services, 27th February 2008

N.B. APP stands for Atom Publishing Protocol

So back in June Microsoft said a resounding "No" to APP yet just over 8 months later they decide that actually yes, APP is the basket into which all their eggs are being placed. I have nothing against people changing their minds about decisions like this, I do it all the time in my day job, but at the time of writing that hasn't really been any explanation as to the rationale for that decision nor what pains the Windows Live team went through in making it. I keep hoping that Yaron will elucidate on this but he hasn't done as yet.

I have said before that protocol standardisation is a good thing but I can't help but be perturbed by some of the issues that Yaron raised in his blog entry, mainly around the use of optimistic concurrency when merging data. The problem scenario that Yaron describes (where 2 updates to the same entity can result in an erroneous race condition) is a very real one and I would like to know how the Windows Live folks are going to prevent that problem from occuring.

Here's hoping!

-Jamie

What's with Windows Live URLs?

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:45:58 GMT

In my day job as a software developer nerd one discipline that I constantly strive to drill into my teammates is the value of consistency. When products or services look and behave like their related products and services that users have experienced before then it makes those services simpler, easier to understand, it engenders a sense of cohesiveness and generally makes for a better user experience. Consistency generally makes software development easier as well as it promotes reuse of code and processes.

Microsoft Office is a good example of this. Great pains are obviously taken in ensuring that menu options are consistent across all products in all products in the Office suite. Windows Live services are another good example. All of the online services (well, nearly all) leverage a consistent look and feel through the use of the Windows Live header.

Consistency in URLs is very very important because it makes them easier to remember. With that in mind then I wonder why the same discipline that I talked about above isn't fully employed across the domains of the various Windows Live services. Sure they all end with "Live.com" but that's generally where consistency ends. Let me try and explain what I mean by that.

Live Spaces

My main touchpoint with Windows Live services is that which you are reading from right now; my Live Space. Let's take a look at its domain part of my Live Space URLs:

http://jamiethomson.spaces.live.com

I like that. You know instantly that this is someone's Live Space and the "jamiethomson" part of it (which I chose) uniquely identifies whose space it is. [N.B. I could have chosen some cryptic, some might say cooler, identifier than a simple concatenation of my first name and last name but I'm a fan of being as descriptive and explicit as possible.] I like that the URL follows a self-explanatory convention of http://unique-identifier.service-name.live.com; I'm not sure if self-explanatory URLs is a tenet of the RESTful movement but if it isn't it should be.

Zune Social

OK, moving on. On Zune Social the URL of my profile is:

http://social.zune.net/member/jamiethomson

Again, I quite like this. I have been given the option of choosing my Zune tag (I picked the same identifier as I already used for my Live Space) and from looking at the URL you instantly know that "jamiethomson" is a member of Zune Social (whatever that may be). Again, its self-explanatory. Its not exactly consistent with my Live Space (if it was then http://jamiethomson.member.zunesocial.live.com would have made more sense) but given that Zune Social isn't a Windows Live service I have no quibble here.

It would have been nice if my Zune tag (which is actually the same as an XBox Live gamer tag) were automatically the same as the identifier in my Live Space (or vice versa) but again given that Zune Social/XBox Live is not a Windows Live service I'll let that one slide.

Live Events

The URL for any event is:

http://event-name.events.live.com

Good, it follows the same convention (http://unique-identifier.service-name.live.com) as my Live Space domain. Its easy to remember and its self-explanatory.

Live Calendar

When I began writing this blog entry I was preparing to be rather critical about Live Calendar's URL because whenever I signed-in to it I end up at:

http://calendar.live.com/calendar/calendar.aspx

Not only does that not contain anything that identifies me it also contains the word "calendar" three times and that seemed utterly pointless to me. However, whilst writing this blog entry I discovered that the following:

http://jamiethomson.calendar.live.com/

takes me to my Live Calendar as well. This is consistent with my Live Space and Live Events, excellent stuff. I'd prefer that this were the default URL for Live Calendar but I won't complain about that given that this service is still in beta.

Its not all good news with Live Calendar though. I keep a few publicly available calendars at:

Leeds United fixtures - http://jamie.calendar.live.com/calendar/Leeds+United+fixtures/index.html
Events in Sunbury-on-Thames (my home village) - http://jamie.calendar.live.com/calendar/Sunbury-on-Thames/index.html

The URLs shown here contain "jamie". Why is that? Its not relevant information and its not something I picked either - if an identifier for me were to be used then it should be "jamiethomson" as per my Live Space. What is the domain going to be for calendars created by someone else called Jamie? This seems a very strange choice of URL convention to me and I don't even understand why my name even has to be present. Surely http://leeds+united+fixtures.calendar.live.com/ and http://Sunbury-on-Thames.calendar.live.com/ would be better wouldn't they?

Skydrive

Its getting even worse now. My Skydrive domain is:

https://cid-550f681dad532637.skydrive.live.com/

What on earth is that meant to be? What's wrong with http://jamiethomson.skydrive.live.com? At least I'd be able to remember that. In practice its not so much of a problem for me because http://skydrive.live.com will redirect me to the above URL but its a huge problem for anyone that I am sharing files with because they have to store the URL of the file in order to access it rather than just remembering it. That's BAD. And Skydrive doesn't have the excuse of being a beta service anymore either.

Windows Live Groups

Domain names for the forthcoming Windows Live Groups service are unknown at this time but I will be disappointed if they are not http://group-name.groups.live.com (or http://group-name.jamiethomson.groups.live.com for private groups).

After the domain name

OK, that's tackled some of the various domains of the Windows Live services, now let's examine the URLs of the sub-domain resources.

I have a blog category on my Live Space called "Zune". Given that http://jamiethomson.spaces.live.com/blog takes you to all of my blog entries would it not make sense for the URL of that category to be http://jamiethomson.spaces.live.com/blog/category/zune or something similar? Of course it would, instead its this:

http://jamiethomson.spaces.live.com/?_c11_BlogPart_BlogPart=blogview&_c=BlogPart&partqs=cat%3dZune

WTF!!! Am I supposed to be able to remember that? Does it even tell me what content actually resides at that URL? The answer to both of those questions is a resounding "No". This is really bad, as are these:

http://jamiethomson.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!550F681DAD532637!4361.entry - A blog entry apparently. If I want to know anything about this blog entry I need to actually go and read it.
http://by134w.bay134.mail.live.com/mail/mail.aspx?rru=inbox&n=477908188 - Hotmail home page. Would http://jamiethomson.mail.live.com be so bad?

Credit where credit is due I suppose, some URLs on Live Spaces do make some sense:

Conclusion

While there has clearly been some effort to try and unify URL conventions across all of the Windows Live properties there is still some way to go. Live Calendar URLs need to be reviewed before that service comes out of beta and Skydrive needs to be completely overhauled, without breaking existing links of course. I also hope that the Live Spaces people give some thought to URLs for their fine-grained resources such as blog entries and blog categories.

-Jamie

Is this a nod to "Active Directory In The Cloud"?

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:52:08 GMT

One of last week's Windows Live API announcements went as follows:

Application Based Storage

Application Based storage is an experimental API which allows application developers to store a small amount of state/configuration data in the Windows Live data centers on behalf of a user. This API has an AtomPub service end point so developers will be able to call this using ADO.NET data services or other AtomPub compatible tools. The real value kicks in here if an application was to have hundreds of thousands of users as the client bandwidth and storage are offloaded to Windows Live infrastructure.
The service and documentation will be available next week.

I wonder if this bears any resemblance to my Active Directory In The Cloud idea that I wrote a couple of months ago. I certainly hope so. State/configuration data? Surely the storage of user groups would fall under that remit would it not?

Its going to be an interesting week for Windows Live watchers.

-Jamie

Windows Live Dev announcements

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:02:37 GMT

There's some big announcements (in my opinion anyway) from Windows Live today. Read here:

David Treadwell on New and Updated Windows Live Platform Services

http://dev.live.com/blogs/devlive/archive/2008/02/27/213.aspx

The highlights are:

Messenger API that enables you to build your own Messenger client
Contacts API moves to beta (no more screen-scraping required if you want to share your contacts)
Silverlight Streaming moves to beta
WLID Delegated Auth - You can now choose how long a third party can access your personal data for witout having to surrender your password

But the biggest news (IMO):

Microsoft is making a large investment in unifying our developer platform protocols for services on the open, standards-based Atom format (RFC 4287) and the Atom Publishing Protocol (RFC 5023). At MIX we are enabling several new Live services with AtomPub endpoints which enable any HTTP-aware application to easily consume Atom feeds of photos and for unstructured application storage (see below for more details). Or you can use any Atom-aware public tools or libraries, such as .NET WCF Syndication to read or write these cloud service-based feeds.
In addition, these same protocols and the same services are now ADO.NET Data Services (formerly known as “ Project Astoria”) compatible.

So, Microsoft are standardising on ADO.Net Data Services/Astoria. Standardisation is of obviously good and the side benefit is that the Astoria team already ship client libraries for AJAX & Silverlight (see Mike Taulty's blog for demo videos- http://mtaulty.com/CommunityServer/blogs/mike_taultys_blog/archive/2008/01/17/10130.aspx). I also have some Astoria related material here: http://blogs.conchango.com/jamiethomson/archive/tags/Astoria/default.aspx

One other thing:

Application Based Storage

Application Based storage is an experimental API which allows application developers to store a small amount of state/configuration data in the Windows Live data centers on behalf of a user. This API has an AtomPub service end point so developers will be able to call this using ADO.NET data services or other AtomPub compatible tools. The real value kicks in here if an application was to have hundreds of thousands of users as the storage is offloaded to Windows Live infrastructure.

That sounds to me like a first foray into competing with Amazon S3 & EC2. Watch this space.

-Jamie

[crossposted to http://blogs.conchango.com/jamiethomson/archive/2008/02/28/windows-live-dev-announcements.aspx]

Build before buy

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 18:50:07 GMT

Those that know me will know that my day job involves building business intelligence solutions on Microsoft's BI product suite. As such I was very interested in the recently published Gartner BI magic quadrant that placed Microsoft in the 'leaders' quadrant (i.e. the one that people want to be in). The following quote got my attention:

"According to the customers we contacted as part of this research, Microsoft offers the best BI software quality of all the megavendors, with over half of them reporting no problems with software. This reflects Microsoft's focus on BI, the strength of its product line management team, and the fact that much of its BI technology has been internally developed rather than aquired."

Specifically its the very last point that I was interested in. Gartner is alluding to the fact that Microsoft's policy of building all products in-house results in a much more cohesive and thus more beneficial suite of apps than, say, IBM's does.

I believe the same can be said of Windows Live. Apart from a few exceptions (e.g. FolderShare) most of Windows Live's offerings have been built in-house and its clear to see in properties like http://home.live.com and the shared Windows Live header that this policy results in a more cohesive and user-friendly experience than if Microsoft had simply gone out and purchased Flickr, Box.com, Upcoming.org, Netvibes, Ask.com et al. The various Windows Live properties work better together simply because they are all built in-house and I have previously suggested many other ways that that better together experience could be improved. I firmly believe there is great benefit in building things yourself so you can probably guess my reaction to the proposed purchase of Yahoo.

Note that I'm not commenting here on the quality of each individual Windows Live property.

I wonder if, in a few years, Gartner will be saying similar things about Windows Live.

-Jamie

Do you understand Live ID? Does your mum?

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:48:27 GMT

Here's a little Windows Live anecdote. I had a revealing conversation today with someone who sits next to me at work. She asked if I knew a way that she could easily transfer a file to her home because it was too big to be sent by email. I knew that she had a hotmail address so I pointed her at http://skydrive.live.com. She went to skydrive, signed-in, and within 30 seconds she had her file uploaded and ready for her to collect from home later. Great experience, great convenience...she was really pleased.

A short while later she said that she wanted to transfer the same file to her sister but still make sure that no-one else could get it so I replied "No problem, if she has an email address then you can give her permission to get the file" (standard skydrive functionality, right?)

My colleague then replied that wouldn't work because her sister had an email address but it wasn't a hotmail email address. She didn't understand that you can sign up for a Live ID with ANY email address, it doesn't have to be one issued by Microsoft.

This was quite revealing to me. I would class my colleague as a savvy computer user but the news that a Live ID could be set up for any email address was a revelation to her. She simply didn't know about it.

Clearly the Windows Live team need to do a better job of selling the fact that ANYONE can sign-up for a Live ID. Assuming that there's a lot of people out there that have the same supposition as my colleague there's a massive group of people that Windows Live isn't reaching and they need to do something about that.

-Jamie

P.S. She'll be shocked when I tell her that I don't have a Microsoft issued email address and yet I still use Hotmail.

How Windows Live differs from Facebook and the rest!

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 23:06:47 GMT

Prolific blogger Dare Obasanjo has posted a blog entry today The Facebook Effect: Google Reader Violates User's Privacy that talks about how Google are accused of sinning by sharing Google Reader activity with anyone that happens to be a contact.

I know I probably shouldn't do this (given the disclaimer that he often puts at the top of his blog entries) but I can't help but read Dare's comments in the context of his day job; that being Program Manager on the Windows Live team with an emphasis on Microsoft's modelling of the giant global graph. Harnessed with the power of Live Contacts, Microsoft have the capability to do similar things to what Google Reader has done here (and what Facebook has done with Beacon), i.e. share a record of your activity with anyone that you happen to correspond with. Microsoft choose not to do this, instead they have the notion of "friends" which represents a different level of engagement with other people. Sure, Live Contacts can be promoted to the status of a "friend" but only if you and they want it to be so, and after that your activity will only be shared if you choose that it should be shared.

Hence, Microsoft's policy around sharing of activity is in start contrast to that of some of its competitors. Dare states "I also predict that we will see more ham fisted attempts to grow their social graph at the expense of user privacy from various large [and small] Web properties including Facebook in 2008". Reading between the lines its not hard to envisage a pertinent appendage to this sentence "but Microsoft won't be one of them".

Just recently I was interested to note that I now have a completely different way of defining "friends" via their and my Windows Live ID; I can specify that fellow contributors to the Zune Social can be my friends but these are different friends to those that I define on Windows Live Spaces. This raises a few questions to me:

How many different groups of friends are eventually going to be accessible via my Windows Live ID? (I say "hopefully, many")
Should my Zune Social friends appear in my list of friends on Windows Live Spaces? ("yes")
If so, should they appear as a seperate group? ("absolutely, yes")
Will there be an attempt to de-duplicate my Zune friends that are also my Windows Live Spaces friends ("again, definitely yes")

However if that were the direction that Microsoft were to take it raises the question "Should my Zune friends be able to see my "What's New" feed in Windows Live Spaces?" and that's a difficult one to answer. If we are going to be defining different types of friends according to where we define them then we have to question how they are differentiated in our aggregated list of friends and, more importantly, what data about me will they all have access to? Defining groups of users is becoming so incredibly important now that it really is going to be the crux of the Windows Live infrastructure and hence I'm finding it easier to understand why Windows Live Groups is seemingly taking so long to be delivered.

As you may know from a previous blog entry of mine (New Spaces home page) I am interested to see how other MSFT properties may look to leverage the Spaces 'What's New' feed in the future and I know that Dare had a lot of involvement with the "What's New" feed. I would be interested to see Zune activity appear on my "What's New" feed and I suspect that this cross-pollination of disparate properties is what Microsoft are replying on to keep themselves relevant online.

How many different groups of so-called "friends" am I going to be able to define on Microsoft properties? Well clearly we already have friends on Windows Live Spaces. As I've just explained we have music friends defined on Zune Social. Will we be able to define video submitters on MSN Video as friends? Can I define Office Online users as my work-based friends? There's lots of possibilities and I'd like Windows Live Groups to underpin all of them. As I have alluded to before this is what truly excites me about Windows Live; many many disparate services across the whole Microsoft spectrum all linked by that single property - the Live ID.

-Jamie

Windows Live Feedback on Listas

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:39:01 GMT

Just for a bit of a laugh I though it would be fun to compile a list of all my submissions to http://feedback.live.com. All the ones that I can remember anyway.

Being a Windows Live whore I thought I'd use Listas in order to compile the list hence you can now see my list of feedback submissions at http://listas.labs.live.com/user/jamiet/lista/6658d36d-8f20-4945-9b85-803ab7507684 if you're interested. Anything in there that piques your interest? Let me know. And ask for it yourself.

I'll be adding to the list over time of course so subscribe to it and watch it grow.

-Jamie

P.S. For more Listas fun check out my list of Tim Vine quotes.

New ideas posted to http://feedback.live.com

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 16:37:10 GMT

If I change the tagline on my space, display that on my friends' What's New feed

Display my Messenger status on my Live Space somewhere

Keep a history of my messenger status updates a la Twitter

We don't get a notification when someone accepts a friend request. I'd like to see this on the What's New feed

Let us display Listas lists on Live Spaces

If you agree that those would be useful, head to feedback.live.com and ask for the same.

-Jamie

Using AdminCenter

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 04:10:03 GMT

Earlier this year I used ~~Custom Domains~~AdminCenter to divert all my personal mail from existing email provider to the Live services. The benefits of this were huge:

I get to use a decent online email service in Hotmail rather than the crap that my existing provider provided. Oh, and its accessible via http://mail.jamie-thomson.net as well.
All my mail is synced from the cloud to my desktop. Note that this isn't POP or IMAP, syncing is SO much more and SO much better than those.
I get multiple email addresses (should I want them) at my own domain for no extra cost.
All my email contacts are synchronised across the cloud, IM client, desktop mail client, social network and mobile phone (which doesn't have to be a Windows Mobile phone by the way).
I can easily switch from my preferred personal account to the hotmail account that I've had for the past 11 years.
Every time I get an email I get a notification to my IM client
...much more besides...

I always intended to write about the experience of doing this but it was quite an in depth subject so I never bothered even though I always intended to do it eventually. Happily I don't have to now because Michael Palermito has beaten me to it. If you want to read about how easy it is to move your existing personal mail account to the best integrated mail and contacts service there is then head to Michael's blog and read all about it.

-Jamie

Windows Live Tags: clubhouse, story, admincenter, admin center

MSN is back on the Windows Live header bar

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 23:29:52 GMT

On 30th September I reported that a link to MSN had appeared on the Windows Live header bar that graces all Windows Live properties but it then mysteriously disappeared.

Well, it looks like its back. Here's a fresh screen shot from just a few minutes ago.

I wonder if it'll stay this time?

-Jamie

Linked Live IDs in Messenger

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 02:52:15 GMT

Windows Live Linked IDs are a great new innovation; if you don't know anything about them then go read more here

Now that we have them though - I want more. I would like the functionality to be extended to Live Messenger so that we can easily swap between different accounts in the IM client.

I've already requested this at http://feedback.live.com so if you think this would be a cool feature to have, go and do the same.

-Jamie

Windows Live's vertical offerings

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 02:15:18 GMT

Windows Live wave 2 ~~never had a set-in-stone release date~~ is being released tomorrow and its hard to place the various Windows Live services into either the wave 1 or wave 2 bucket but there's no doubt that we're firmly into the swing of wave 2. Live Calendar is the biggest missing piece and by the time you read this blog entry (I'm currently writing it on a plane somewhere over the Atlantic) it will probably be with us.

So, with much of the services now in place I am interested to see what will constitute Windows Live wave 3. Microsoft's success is built upon providing platforms and that is exactly what Windows Live now is - its a platform that incorporates authentication (Live ID), cloud storage (Skydrive), photo-sharing (Photo Gallery), blogging (Live Writer and Live Spaces), video-sharing (MSN Video), email (Hotmail and Live Mail), maps (Live Maps), scheduling (Live Calendar), search (Live Search), contacts (Live Messenger and Live Contacts) and others. A platform for what though? Well clearly Microsoft want third parties to build upon that platform (witness http://dev.live.com and http://gallery.live.com) but I wouldn't mind betting that Microsoft themselves will be providing their own applications on top of this myriad of services and that's what I think wave 3 will be all about. This is what I like to refer to as vertical offerings on the horizontal platform.

We're already seeing this of course. Microsoft already provides a number of vertical offerings on top of Windows Live or will be doing in the near future:

Health vault and http://health.live.com
An entertainment search vertical
Live Search club
http://events.live.com Microsoft made a smart move in building Live Events on top of Live Spaces. Its one of those decisions that, when I heard about it, made me think "Well of COURSE they're going to do that. It makes complete sense. Why didn't I think of that?" I am of the opinion that Live Spaces itself is both a vertical offering and a horizontal platform at the same time. Live Events is just another layer.
http://groups.live.com Live Groups isn't with us yet and there's no reason to think that its release is imminent; however, we do know that its coming. There's no public information available about Live Groups yet but I'd lay a lot of money that says it will be built on the Live Spaces platform in exactly the same way as Live Events. Hence, when Live Groups launches it won't be a beta service and you will be able to use a top-level-domain for your group i.e. http://your-group-name.groups.live.com. Live Groups will also give people the ability to build their own mini social network. Do you want a dedicated social website for your home town? Or perhaps for your local church? Maybe even for your favourite sports team? Live Groups will give you the ability to have that. I would expect there to be a lot of synergy between Live Groups and Live Events thus allowing us to link events and groups together. Localised online communities may also give rise to the untapped market of internet-based localised advertising. For example, I'm sure restaurateurs in the UK would love to be able to advertise on the purely hypothetical http://the-london-gastronomic-society.groups.live.com; sounds like a strange idea I know but I'm sure its a compelling concept for advertisers.
http://www.reallivemoms.com Real Live Moms is the clearest indicator of the future that I'm postulating about. A place on the web dedicated to mothers sharing tips and stories on ... well... being mothers, and built entirely on top of the Live Spaces platform. Microsoft haven't released any usage stats for Real Live Moms but I'd be interested to see some.
http://www.zunesocial.net/ Its not really a Windows Live offering but Zune Social sits fairly and squarely on top of the Windows Live ID authentication platform. It will be released on 13th November.
XBox Live - The most popular vertical offering I can think of on top of the Live Services platform (unless you count MSN and Live Spaces).

As you can see vertical offerings on top of the horizontal Windows Live platform are alive and well.

So, if you accept that Microsoft will be providing more vertical offerings on top of the Windows Live platform the natural inclination is to question what they might be. Of course, I have a few ideas:

I would like to see fantasy sports games built on top of Windows Live. Fantasy football and fantasy cricket games have been with us in the UK for many years now and I dare say its the same in other countries too. However, they are all maintained by independent operators that require you to have yet another username and password to remember. There are a lot of advantages to building such an offering on top of the Windows Live platform.
- Global reach
- Results, activities and major news items could be posted to Live Spaces' "What's new" feed thus allowing us to see instantly whether my fantasy team has had a good or bad week and also enabling viral growth by showing that same information to my friends.
- Individual mini-leagues could be formed that contain members of a particular Live Group and that mini-league table could be displayed on the Live Group homepage, on my Live Spaces page or on my Vista Sidebar.
- If one of the players in my fantasy team does something noteworthy (e.g. Scores a goal in football or scores a century in Cricket) I could be notified about it in Live Messenger using an alert. Perhaps I could even have a link to an MSN Video video clip automatically emailed to me or have that clip stored in my Skydrive?
- A Live Agent could be built that allows us to make changes to our fantasy team without even going near a web page.
- Prizes could be offered as Microsoft Points.

There's a lot of possibilities for leveraging the various Windows Live services for such an offering and I for one find it all rather compelling.

A GPS-based service that can share my current location with my contacts, on a Live Map. I've talked about this at length a few times before, primarily here. However, news from earlier today indicates that Yahoo may have gotten there first.
A virtual world to rival Second Life and Sony's Home. We know this is coming.

There's no reason why these need to be built by Microsoft of course. Does anyone out there fancy building some of these or is building Facebook apps too much of an attraction/distraction?

One last thought, I would like to see other business units within Microsoft be given free-rein to build these services. I see no reason why development has to stay in Redmond. If a fantasy football offering is to be provided that (for example) uses stats from the english Premiership then wouldn't it make sense that that offering be built in the UK? Better still engage someone else to build it, I'm sure my bosses at Conchango would be more than willing to be involved.

So there you have it; vertical offerings are where Windows Live is headed. You heard it here first and who knows, my wild predictions might turn out to be right for once!

-Jamie

Which product would you work on?

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 18:52:32 GMT

I was having a moment of contemplation today and was considering which product within Microsoft I'd most like to be able to point to and say "I worked on that." I considered a few. SQL Server was an obvious one because that's what I use on a daily basis but y'know, SQL Server is pretty well established now - not THAT much of a challenge. How about one of the cooler consumer web apps? Skydrive perhaps? Nah! For me it has to be Office Live (or whatever its being called today).

I heard recently on Liveside that they have 450,00 domains on Office Live (the typo is theirs, is that forty five thousand or four hundred and fifty thousand?) which either way seems pretty impressive to me. Office Live has got oodles of potential because I don't see anyone else out there offering a similar service and that's the kind of team I'd like to work for. I'll probably change my mind tomorrow of course!

Which product team would you like to work on? Microsoft or otherwise.

-Jamie