The Windows Live Calendar Team have been rolling out an update to the Windows Live Calendar Beta today and have recently blogged about what users will find within the update. I am a very heavy Windows Live Calendar user currently so this is a very exciting Read More......(
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Written by Windows Vista Team Blog on July 18th, 2008 with no comments.
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The Windows Live Calendar Team have been rolling out an update to the Windows Live Calendar Beta today and have recently blogged about what users will find within the update. I am a very heavy Windows Live Calendar user currently so this is a very exciting release for me. I figured I'd go down their list of changes / improvements / new features with a little context of my own based on my own experiences. Here we go!
Birthday Calendars: Any Windows Live Contacts that have their birthday entered in their Windows Live Profile (you can make sure you have your birthday added to your profile by going here) will have their birthday appear in a new calendar for you called "Birthday Calendar". This allows you to keep track of all your friend's birthdays. Never forget a birthday again!
iCal Subscriptions: You can now subscribe to public calendars (*.ics calendars) in Windows Live Calendar. A great resource for public calendars is http://www.icalshare.com/ (although at the time of writing this post I was having some issues with their website). I am a Space buff so I went and grabbed the calendar for astronomical events and subscribed to it.
Once you subscribe to these calendars - as long as the publisher continues to update them they will automatically update in Windows Live Calendar. If anyone has any other useful iCal resources on the web for free calendars to subscribe to, let me know!
UPDATE: Some calendars available on www.icalshare.com have URLs that direct to a different location. Windows Live Calendar Beta does not yet support following redirects. However if you are able to determine where the URL redirects to - you can always subscribe to its "final destination".
Holiday Calendar: A new calendar will show up (depending on which part of the world you're from) that will display holidays for your country. I find this incredibly useful. Currently users in the following countries will see a Holiday Calendar:
- China
- Taiwan
- Hong Kong
- Thailand
- Singapore
- Malaysia
- Korea
- Indonesia
- Philippines
- India
- Russia
- France
- United States
- Spain
- German
- United Kingdom
UI Changes: Notably - users can now right-click on a specific calendar in their calendar list and change its color and also its order in that list.
Print Views: You are now able to print from the day, week, and month views. I prefer printing from the Month view myself. You can also print your Agenda as well. I am noticing I am using the Agenda tab quite often these days.
A few more notable changes to Windows Live Calendar Beta with this release are accessibility functionality which includes better tabbing (and F6 key support). And users can now go directly to Windows Live Calendar via the calendar tab in Windows Live Hotmail.
Want to test out subscribing to a calendar? I've shared out my Windows Experience Blog calendar to anyone interested in subscribing:
webcal://windowsexperience.calendar.live.com/calendar/The+Windows+Experience+Calendar/calendar.ics
Not a whole bunch of events there just yet. You'll find I've added today's Windows Live Calendar Beta update as an event and in October you should see events for the PDC2008 Pre-Conference and PDC2008 as well. I definitely plan on updating it. If you have any suggestions for events that would be of interest to the Windows community - leave a comment!
If you're attending PDC2008 you can also subscribe to their calendar they publish as well to add a separate PDC2008 calendar to Windows Live Calendar:
http://www.microsoftpdc.com/Microsoft-PDC08.ics
REMEMBER: You can also subscribe your calendars in Windows Calendar in Windows Vista as well!
Written by Brandon LeBlanc on July 18th, 2008 with no comments.
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Windows Live OneCare 2.5 is now available and I've got some information for both new and existing Windows Live OneCare subscribers regarding the Windows Live OneCare 2.5 release I'd like to share. Beginning last week (July 1st to be exact) - existing Read More......(
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Written by Windows Vista Team Blog on July 9th, 2008 with no comments.
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Windows Live OneCare 2.5 is now available and
I've got some information for both new and existing Windows Live OneCare subscribers regarding the Windows Live OneCare 2.5 release I'd like to share.
Beginning last week (July 1st to be exact) - existing Windows Live OneCare users (paid subscribers) began automatically receiving Windows Live OneCare 2.5. The Windows Live OneCare website also began offering Windows Live OneCare 2.5 for new users as well. If you are a Windows Live OneCare subscriber and have not yet been automatically updated, you can either wait until the update occurs or download the new version from the Windows Live OneCare website.
NOTE: If you choose not to wait for the automatic update to occur and want to go ahead and "manually" update yourself via downloading the new version off the Windows Live OneCare website - you will need to uninstall the previous version first before Windows Live OneCare 2.5 will install. I had not been automatically upgraded so I chose to install manually on 1 of my PCs but the others were automatically updated soon after.
So what's new with Windows Live OneCare 2.5? As I stated previously, the Windows Live OneCare 2.5 release is mainly an "under-the-hood" release. That means all the improvements take place behind-the-scenes so you will not notice any major new features or changes to the overall UI. Windows Live OneCare 2.5 is an incremental release that highlights Microsoft's ongoing commitment to improving Windows Live OneCare for paying subscribers.
However, Windows Live OneCare 2.5 does bring some changes worth taking note of. Windows Live OneCare is now available in 3 new markets: Brazil, India and Hong Kong. Also, if you are using the Online Photo Backup feature in Windows Live OneCare, you will be pleased to see that online storage capacity has been increased from 10GB to 50GB! Online Photo Backup is an added benefit to Windows Live OneCare users where they can pay $50 a year (on top of their existing Windows Live OneCare subscription) to have their digital photos automatically backed up to the "cloud".
As a Windows Live OneCare user myself, I enjoy seeing updates to Windows Live OneCare even if they aren't major updates. The priority for me is simply keeping my PC protected.
Written by Brandon LeBlanc on July 9th, 2008 with no comments.
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The Windows SideShow Team has announced the availability of 4 BETA Windows SideShow Gadgets that let you control Windows Media Center from a Windows Sideshow device. You can sign-up via Microsoft Connect to gain access to Beta Test these new Windows SideShow Read More......(
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Written by Windows Vista Team Blog on July 8th, 2008 with no comments.
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The Windows SideShow Team has
announced the availability of 4 BETA Windows SideShow Gadgets that let you control Windows Media Center from a Windows Sideshow device. You can sign-up via Microsoft Connect to gain access to Beta Test these new Windows SideShow Gadgets:
http://connect.microsoft.com/InvitationUse.aspx?ProgramID=2380&SiteID=312&InvitationID=GPB-79MM-RFJ2
I believe this link works 1 time per Windows Live ID (You must sign-in with your Windows Live ID to access Beta Programs on Microsoft Connect). You can submit feedback to the team working on these Gadgets on Microsoft Connect.
Here is the breakdown of the 4 Windows Media Center BETA Windows SideShow Gadgets and what they do:
- Now Playing: View what is currently playing in Windows Media Center (includes playback controls)
- Pictures + Video: Browse your Photos and Videos folders
- Music: Browse your Music folder and play any song
- TV: Look at what is on TV via the Windows Media Center Guide, Schedule Recordings, and View Recordings (in a Thumbnail view)
I downloaded and installed the Windows Media Center BETA Windows SideShow Gadgets on my Dell XPS 420 which has a built in Windows SideShow device on the top front of the system (the XPS MiniView). It's pretty slick to be able to control Windows Media Center from a Windows SideShow device. I'm quite fond of the Now Playing Gadget myself and the TV Gadget. I utilize Windows Media Center as my primary DVR for recording TV. If you have a Windows SideShow device - definitely give these Windows SideShow Gadgets a try!
NOTE: These 4 Windows Media Center Windows SideShow Gadgets *are* currently in BETA.
Speaking of Windows Media Center - join Patrick Norton from Tekzilla tomorrow Tuesday July 8th for the 3rd Webinar (of 4 webinars total) on the new Extender for Windows Media Center from HP - the HP MediaSmart Connect. Click here to register for the webinar.
Written by Brandon LeBlanc on July 8th, 2008 with no comments.
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RTM Announcement - Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.1 Hello, It's been a few months since I last blogged about the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.1 - formerly known as WVHA or Windows Vista Hardware Assessment. Today, I'd like Read More......(
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Written by Windows Vista Team Blog on June 30th, 2008 with no comments.
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On your mobile phone - check out
http://mhome.live.com. It is the new
Windows Live Mobile Homepage currently in Beta. I took some shots on my BlackJack II to share.
This page is your one-stop place for what's happening in your Windows Live social network by taking advantage of the What's New feed in Windows Live Spaces.
The What's New feed lets you see posts your friends make to their Space, updates to their profile, images uploaded to their Space, files uploaded to Windows Live SkyDrive, and when you friends become friends with other people.
You can also update your Personal Message as well. This is the same Personal Message that exists in Windows Live Messenger. When you change it - it should change in Messenger too. This is nice for letting folks know what you're up to.
Just head on over to mhome.live.com on your mobile phone, sign-in with your Windows Live ID, and try it out for yourself. If you've got some feedback - go ahead and leave a comment and I'll forward it on to the team working on the new Windows Live Mobile Homepage. And remember, this is just the first Beta release. You can expect the Windows Live Mobile Hompage to evolve over time. Also add the Windows Experience Blog as a friend on Windows Live.
Written by Brandon LeBlanc on June 24th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on 1354 and 1426 and 1429 and 1673 and 169 and 2065 and 2157 and 401 and 544 and Contributors and Featured News and Mobile and Windows Live.
On your mobile phone - check out http:// mhome.live.com . It is the new Windows Live Mobile Homepage currently in Beta. I took some shots on my BlackJack II to share. This page is your one-stop place for what's happening in your Windows Live social network Read More......(
read more)
Written by Windows Vista Team Blog on June 24th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on 1354 and 1426 and 1429 and 1673 and 169 and 2065 and 2157 and 401 and 544 and Contributors and Featured News and Mobile and Windows Live.
You can get the latest weather (Maximum and Minimum temperatures per Sol or Martian Solar Day) on Mars from the Phoenix Mars Lander delivered to your desktop from the Phoenix lander currently on Mars. Download: Phoenix Mars Weather Gadget The Phoenix Read More......(
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Written by Windows Vista Team Blog on June 20th, 2008 with no comments.
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