The Space Craft: Blog

Windows Live Spaces - Frequently Asked Questions

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:07:06 GMT

Hey everyone,

We've been watching the comments that you leave for us, and we wanted to answer your frequently asked questions.

Leave us a comment and let us know if these FAQs are helpful, and if there are other questions that you have that aren't included.

- Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live

FAQ Sections

Account
Spaces and Blogs
Friends
Photos
Search
Windows Live Writer

Account

Q: When I go to my Windows Live space, it says it's unavailable. What's the problem?
A: Here are some of the things that might affect your ability to view your space:

Operational issues
Please check the Spaces home page or The Space Craft to verify the Windows Live Spaces service is available. If problems persist, you can be sure we're working on it. We need some time to resolve these types of issues, so please check back later.
Code of conduct violation:
You may have posted content to your space (often unintentionally) that violates the Windows Live Code of Conduct. Check your Hotmail inbox, or the inbox associated with your Windows Live ID, for messages from Support.

If you're still not sure why your space is unavailable but the rest of the site seems to be working, please contact Windows Live Support for additional assistance.

Q: How do I change the space web address that's associated with my Windows Live ID?
A: You can have one space web address per Windows Live ID. This means that if you want to change the address that's associated with your Windows Live ID, you must delete your existing space and then select a new address. To change your web address, follow the instructions in the FAQ about deleting your space. After you see the confirmation that your space has been cleared, click Your space in the navigation bar to create a new space for yourself. Click Choose web address in the Welcome module and enter your new web address.

Q. I just created a new e-mail address. How can I associate this new e-mail address with my existing Windows Live Space?
A. A space is associated with a single e-mail address from its creation, and you can’t change that association. However, if you clear your existing space, you may be able to reclaim the web address for your space using your new e-mail address. Then that web address would be associated with your new e-mail address. You’d have to add all of the content back onto your new space, though. Please note that it can take up to 60 days for your web address to free up before you can reclaim it.

Q: How do I delete my Windows Live space?
A: Once you have created a space, you can delete it at any time. Go to your space and sign-in, and then click Options and then Space settings. At the bottom of the space settings page you'll see the section Clear your space. Click Clear your space and you can clear all of the information on your space and delete your web address. Please note that doing this will erase all of the content on your space and you won't be able to get it back.

Q: What types of content are not allowed on Windows Live Spaces?
A: We want Windows Live to be a great place for you to share and express yourself. The members of our team come from diverse backgrounds, have a broad diversity of opinions, and do our best to respect those. However, there are some types of content which are not appropriate for sharing on Windows Live. You can read about what's not allowed in the Windows Live Code of Conduct and Microsoft Service Agreement.

Q: How do I report a space that has pornography?
A: We take our content policies very seriously. If you come across a space that you believe has objectionable content, please report it by clicking Report Abuse at the bottom right of every page.

Spaces and blogs

Q: How can I remove a comment?
A: To remove a comment, go to your blog entry page, sign in, and then click Edit. Scroll to the bottom of the edit page and click the red X for the blog comment(s) you want to remove, and then click Publish entry. It's important to remember to click Publish entry to delete the comments. The entry will be saved but the date of the original post will remain the same.

Q: How do I manage and delete multiple comments at the same time from multiple blog entries?
A: You can manage comments from multiple blog entries from the summary view. Here's how to get to the summary view:

Sign in to your space.
Go to your blog.
Change to summary view by clicking Summary in the left column.
Click Comments below each blog entry to show the comments for that blog entry.
Select the comments you want to delete and click Delete selected items.

Q: How do I add and remove modules? Is it gone forever once I hide it?
A: To see a list of all modules, click Customize and then Modules. Select a module to add it to your space, and then drag the module to where you want it to appear. Remember to click Save to save your changes. You can also hide a module. Just click Customize and then Modules. Look through the list to find the module you want to hide, and then click the module name to hide it. Hiding a module removes it from your space but doesn't delete it —you can add it back at any time (with all the content you added previously) by selecting it from the Customize page.

Q: Does the statistics page count the number of times that I visit my own space?
A: It depends. When you are signed-in and visiting your own space, the pages you view do not count as part of your space statistics.

Friends

Q: How do I remove people from my what's new list?
A: At the bottom of your signed-in Windows Live Spaces home page, click Options at the bottom of the what's new module. You can select who you want to show and who you don't want to show in the what's new list on this options page. Note: We're aware of some issues on the what's new options page, so if it doesn't seem to be working for you, rest assured that we're actively working on it.

Q: How do I reorder people on my friends list?
A: For instructions on how to manage and reorder your friends list, read this Space Craft blog entry.

Q: How do I delete people on my friends list?
A: To delete someone from your friends list, sign in, go to your space, and then go to your friends list (one way to get there is to click your friends list module heading, or you can click Friends in the top navigation). Click the pencil icon next to the person you want to delete. On the next page, click Delete from friends list. The person will be removed from your friends list. If you want to add them back, you'll need to invite them to be a friend again.

Q: If I have a friend that deleted his space. Will he still appear on my friends list?
A: Yes. If you're friends with someone who's deleted their space, they'll still appear on your friends list unless you explicitly remove them.

Photos

Q: Why do I have photo albums that have no pictures in them?
A: If you have an empty photo album, you may have clicked Add album and then didn't add any photos. You can either add photos to that album or you can delete it from your space.

Q: How do I delete a photo album?
A: Go to your space, sign in, and click Photos. On the photos page, click Edit or delete albums. On the next page, select an album(s), and then click Delete selected albums. Note: if you delete an album, all the photos in that album will be deleted from your space. For more info, read this blog post on the Space Craft.

Q: Is it possible to change the order my albums?
A: Yes. Sign in, go to your photos page, and then click Edit or delete albums. You can drag your albums into any order you want. When you're done, click Save and close.

Q: I can no longer embed photos from my Windows Live space on another webpage or blog. Is there a reason for this?
A: Only photo albums that are available publicly to everyone on the Internet can be embedded on another webpage. As a result, the embed link will only show up for public albums on a public space. If the permissions for your space are set to anything other than public, you won't be able to embed your photos in another webpage. If you want to embed your photos, sign in to your space. Click Options and then Permissions. Change the permission to Anyone on the Internet. Also make sure your album permissions are set to Anyone on the Internet.

Q: How do I rotate a photo before I upload it?
A: If you use Internet Explorer, you can rotate your images using the Spaces ActiveX photo upload control. Place your cursor over the photo you want to rotate and you should see the rotate controls on the bottom of the photo. You can also rotate your photos with an image editing program like Windows Live Photo Gallery (this is especially handy if you're using a browser that doesn't support Active X, like Firefox). With Photo Gallery you can rotate more than one photo at a time, and you can batch upload your photos to your space.

Q: Can I add photos to my Windows Live space and restrict them so that only certain people can see them?
A: Yes. After you add your photos, click the album, and then click Edit album. There should be a permissions area on the page that tells you the current permissions settings for this album. Click Edit permissions and then select the people who're allowed to see this album. You can set different permissions for each album.

Q: Why is there a blog images album on my space? Can I delete it?
A: The blog images album contains images that were uploaded to your space, but not into a specific photo album. For example, if you added a blog post that included a photo, the photo is stored in the blog images album. If you delete this album, you'll also delete the image from the blog post, and you'll see a red X in the blog post where the image used to be. In other words, we recommend that you do not delete this album. You can however, move the album to the bottom of list of albums to make it less visible.

Search

Q: How do I get my Windows Live space and blog to show up in search engine results?
A: Here are a few things that may help your space and blog appear more often in search results:

Make sure the permissions for your blog are set to public (Anyone on the Internet).
Include some text on your blog and in your profile, especially if you want your blog to show up when you search for your name. For example, include a small paragraph about yourself on your profile or space, and make sure you blog posts have text in them, not just pictures or videos.
Make sure the search engines know about your space, blog, and profile. While Windows Live Spaces supports the SiteMaps.org protocol and sends pings for new blog entries, you may find directly submitting your space, blog, and profile to a search engine may increase your likelihood of getting indexed.
You may also find that getting people to link to your space, blog, or profile will help to increase both your likelihood of getting indexed in search engines and can affect where your page is listed in the search results. Three ways to get inbound links are: 1) leave relevant comments on other people’s blogs, 2) ask people to link to your page, and 3) invite your real-world friends to become friends on Windows Live (when they accept your invitation, they'll automatically be linking to your page).
You can also use Windows Live Writer to set ping servers which will automatically notify certain websites when you've posted a new blog entry. See the Writer section of this FAQ for more information.

Q: How do let people search the content on my Windows Live space?
A: To help visitors search your space, add the Search My Blog gadget.

Windows Live Writer

Q: How do I notify search engines that I've posted a new blog entry?
A: With Windows Live Writer you can set up your blog posts so that every time you post a new blog entry, Writer automatically notifies the search engines, feed readers, and other sites of your choosing. Just set up the appropriate ping servers and you can quickly ensure that your blog entries are being indexed. See this blog post on the Writer blog for more information

Q: Are there any video tutorials to help me understand more about the features and functionality in Windows Live Writer?
A: Yes, the Writer team has created several videos to help people blog with Windows Live Writer. Check out the list of videos

Windows Live Tags: Clubhouse, Spaces, How-to

Technorati Tags: Windows Live Spaces FAQ,Windows Live Spaces

Technical preview of Windows Live Writer now available

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:54:05 GMT

This morning, the Windows Live Writer team released a new version of Writer for download from Writer Zone, their team blog. The new version is a technical preview only available in English (United States), and the primary focus of the release is to get feedback on the improvements made to the plug-in SDK.

In addition, there are some additional product features as well, including the ability to publish videos from your computer to Soapbox and Spaces as well as new photo editing capabilities.

Go check out the Writer team space where you can read more about the SDK changes and the new features, and download the technical preview.

And as always, keep the feedback coming.

- Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live

Technorati Tags: Windows Live Writer,Windows Live

Be part of a new Windows Live user community

Thu, 22 May 2008 23:09:42 GMT

We're looking for people who love using Windows Live products. More importantly, we're looking for those of you who would like to share your experiences on Windows Live with others.

This is your chance to help build a community from the ground up. We'd like to showcase for the world the best of what you do on Windows Live. If you have stories, tips or tricks, or product reviews you would like to share with our entire Windows Live audience, we'd like to hear from you.

If you're interested, take this short survey so we can find the best way to get you involved.

Thanks for participating!

Marty Collins
Community Manager for Windows Live

Technorati Tags: Windows Live,Windows Live Community

Videos to help you learn more about Windows Live Writer

Fri, 16 May 2008 17:46:56 GMT

Have you heard about Windows Live Writer and how easy it makes blogging, but didn’t know how to get it or how to configure it to work with your space?

The Writer team has created a set of instructional videos which show you how to:

Quickly set-up Windows Live Writer to publish to your space or a newly created space
Begin authoring a blog entry with Windows Live Spaces
Insert and format pictures, videos, maps, and other content directly into blog entries
Publish a blog entry to your space with one click

Check out the Windows Live Writer space for more information and if you don’t have Windows Live Writer yet, download it here.

Enjoy and let us know your feedback on Writer by leaving us a comment.

- Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live

Technorati Tags: Windows Live Writer,Blogging,Blogging software,Windows Live Spaces,Instructional Videos

Windows Live Tags: clubhouse, Writer, how-to

Congrats to the Live QnA team on a major update

Sat, 10 May 2008 00:32:08 GMT

Congratulations to one of our sibling teams, Live QnA, on their recent launch of major updates on their site.

Dennis has all of the details on the QnA team space and as you may know, you can add modules to your space for “Questions I’ve Asked” and “Questions I’ve Answered” on Live QnA. Details on these modules are also in an earlier entry on the QnA team space.

Congrats again to the QnA team.

--Rob
Program Manager, Windows Live

Technorati Tags: Live QnA,Windows Live

A few small Spaces updates released today

Fri, 02 May 2008 06:49:37 GMT

We wanted to let you know that we had a small release to Spaces today.

The primary change in this release was that you can now include Messenger for the web as well as SkyDrive files in the Custom HTML module using embed codes.

In addition, we also made some changes to the infrastructure of Spaces to make the service faster and more reliable.

We hope you enjoy the changes. Keep giving us the feedback. We are listening.

- Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live

Windows Live Tags: clubhouse, Spaces, How-to

We’re hiring Software Engineers!

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:39:46 GMT

Do you want to work on one of the fastest growing products using some of the hottest technologies on the web today? Are you passionate for the web and the desire to create great new user experiences?

If you are an engineer who wants to set new grounds in innovative technology – we want you on the Windows Live Social Networking team to help design and build our next generation of social networking products. As a member of the Social Networking team, you’ll have the opportunity to contribute significantly to the design and implementation of our worldwide products – including Windows Live Spaces, Events, and Writer – as well as collaborate closely with other Windows Live Experience teams including Hotmail and Messenger.

Check out our job descriptions here and here. If you think you have what it takes, submit your resume online.

We want you on our team.

- The Windows Live Social Networking team.

Be INSPI(RED) on Windows Live Spaces

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:54:31 GMT

Last week, the Windows Live Wire team posted about (PRODUCT) Red and the work they’re doing in Africa. We wanted to share their inspiring story and the great space that the (PRODUCT) Red team created.

Jeff Dossett, an Executive Producer and General Manager at MSN, said “I can’t sing but I can climb mountains.” He and two other elite mountaineers have formed Everest Team INSPI(RED) and are climbing Mount Everest to build awareness of (RED), an organization designed to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. Their team hopes to inspire individuals to passionately pursue big, bold goals.

Even if you can’t climb mountains you can follow their journey on their space. You can show your support by adding them as a friend, signing the guestbook and sharing your own personal inspirations.

If you'd like to add a little RED to your desktop, you can download the (PRODUCT) RED Theme Pack that includes Hotmail Signatures and emoticons and winks for Messenger. And a desktop gadget is available for Windows Sidebar in Windows Vista to track the elevation of the expedition as they attempt to climb the world’s highest peak. You can also create an alert to be notified whenever they post a new entry from Everest.

The team is currently 17,000 feet above sea level at Base Camp (1)! Let their journey inspire you to do something amazing, too.

- Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live

Technorati Tags: Product Red,Everest,Join Red

Your feedback = Changes to Windows Live Spaces

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 07:05:28 GMT

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

IE8 Beta 1 released – how to provide feedback and bugs on IE8 for Windows Live products

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:02:29 GMT

Congratulations to our colleagues on the IE team on the release of Beta 1 of Internet Explorer 8! Whether it’s IE, FireFox, Opera, Safari, or other browsers, it’s always exciting to see new versions of browsers released.

The Beta 1 of IE8 is intended primarily for developers (not necessarily consumers or enterprises), so I don’t expect everyone to go download it immediately. But if you do decide to download the Beta 1 of IE8, and you notice any issues with Windows Live Spaces or Windows Live Events we wanted to give you a way to view existing bugs and report any additional bugs.

The IE8 team has set up a bunch of ways to provide feedback to them and they outlined them on their team blog:

So, what do you do if you believe you have an issue that the IE team needs to know about? Here are the steps we encourage you to take:

Read the IE8 Release notes – we try to outline most of the known issues in this document at the time of release.
Visit the Internet Explorer 8 Technical Beta program on Connect (http://connect.microsoft.com) and view bugs in the database. Note: you must register on the Microsoft Connect to search for your issue
If you find your issue, please rate it (vote for it). This will help us understand how many people find this issue important
If you don’t find your issue, you can visit the IE beta newsgroup and post your issue there. Members of the technical beta will be monitoring this newsgroup and can file a bug about the issue on your behalf in the technical beta

I just wanted to make sure that you were aware of the best ways to get help if you have problems with the Beta 1 version of IE8 on any of the Windows Live Services. You can of course always leave us feedback and comments here on the Space Craft, but in order to ensure that they are addressed correctly, we recommend following the steps listed above.

--Rob
Program Manager, Windows Live

Technorati Tags: IE8,IE8 Beta 1,IE8 Beta 1 Support,IE8 Support,Windows Live IE8,Windows Live IE8 Support

More information on Friends in common

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:32:41 GMT

Have you ever met someone and only realized later that you have a lot of friends in common? Now you can find see whether you share friends with someone up front through our new ‘Friends in common’ feature.

In the friends module on another person’s space, there is a new area that highlights friends you have in common. Right away you can see the number of people you both know and the profile pictures of some of those friends.

Want to see the rest of your mutual friends? Click on In common and you’re taken to a full page view that shows all of your friends as well as separate lists of friends in common and friends that you don't have in common. This way you can also discover new people that you might know in real life, but are not connected with on Windows Live.

Finding friends in common is also especially important when planning an event on Windows Live Events. Who wants to go to a party when none of your friends are going?

On the Guest list area of every event, you can now quickly see how many of your friends have also been invited to the event. Just click on See who’s going and see whether or not your friends are planning to go.

On another note, we’ve been reading the comments about Lists that people have left on the Space Craft, and we wanted to use this blog entry to update you on our thinking. We made the changes to lists to improve consistency of the list feature on Spaces main page, but realize that displaying the list description is more important than layout consistency; therefore, we’ll be rolling back the changes we made last week to restore list descriptions to their original form. The restoration may take a few weeks, so please stay tuned.

We hope the new features will allow you to manage your relationships as well as find and connect with more people on Windows Live. Thanks for your continued feedback!

- Michelle Aleong
Program Manager, Windows Live

New Windows Live Spaces and Events updates in the latest release

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:26:21 GMT

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

Technorati Tags: Windows Live Spaces,Windows Live Events,Windows Live SkyDrive

Plan your Academy Awards party with Windows Live Events

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:30:16 GMT

Vanity Fair may have canceled their Academy Awards party, but that doesn't mean you have to go without. MSN has a party of their own going on with full coverage of all the drama surrounding the big awards show, and they've created a custom theme for Windows Live Events that you can use to plan your Oscar party.

For help making your predictions on who will win, visit the 2008 Oscars Space for a downloadable ballot and a few opinions from the official blogger.

So invite your friends and roll out the red carpet to your own Academy Awards viewing party.

Charlotte Jones

Senior Product Manager, Windows Live Events

Technorati Tags: Academy Awards,Academy Awards party,Windows Live Events,MSN Oscars

Gadgetize your Space and Events

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:52:17 GMT

Did you know that you can add stuff from the Web to your space or event without even knowing a tiny bit of code? They’re called gadgets, and thanks to some hard-working developers from around the world, there are now over 1,500 gadgets available worldwide for Windows Live Spaces and Windows Live Events.

I wanted to highlight a few specific gadgets. The gadgets listed below make keeping in touch with your friends and Messenger contacts more fun, finding content on your blog faster, and adding interesting content from MSN easier. So, check out and install the gadgets below and, as always, keep the comments coming!

-Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live Spaces

Windows Live Messenger Gadget
http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=5da858b5-fa45-4730-89f8-380702da99cd&pl=5&bt=7

Search Gadgets

Search My Blog - Search box
http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=94be978d-c62a-4640-b63f-a1d412afb337&pl=5&bt=7
Search My Blog - Tagcloud
http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=ef195187-2cae-49b5-afe9-a50eb7ccb766&pl=5&bt=7

Silverlight Streaming Video Insertion
http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=f55426a2-1d8d-4db7-8770-ea30cb393b2a&pl=5&bt=7

MSN Content

Encarta Quote of the Day
http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=3c93e552-d8b2-4c51-9d65-83a6e6aa2cbb&pl=5&bt=7
Encarta RSS
http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=4ede7e47-c127-4a9f-9440-75825a4f3c57&pl=5&bt=7
MSN Autos RSS
http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=0774022b-0c3c-479e-abd1-a5ac3df09206&pl=5&bt=7
MSN Entertainment RSS
http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=a50310fb-fd34-4efe-843f-8bf6213104a8&pl=5&bt=7
MSN Homepage RSS
http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=b879476d-7e05-431a-9098-b669ada7a797&pl=5&bt=7
MSN Money RSS
http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=7f8d5a7d-23cf-4a3f-b019-ba25ccb0b73c&pl=5&bt=7
MSN Shopping RSS
http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=91f9a478-a692-4646-9a5f-7c29c1fa1f00&pl=5&bt=7
MSN Tech and Gadgets RSS
http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=2521aeaf-4ef6-43fa-87d5-2607e7bc4b61&pl=5&bt=7
MSN Video RSS
http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=3f64534a-5a96-4021-b600-674718355574&pl=5&bt=7
Sports News by Fox Sports RSS
http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=b01f65ba-7c3c-4871-a678-8bb8920ceec1&pl=5&bt=7
Sports Videos by Fox Sport RSS
http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=c2d5cd3f-8424-4516-af4b-20cf5cbc33f0&pl=5&bt=7

      Web Messenger Gadget

          Search My Blog

     Encarta Quote of the Day

Sports Videos by Fox Sports

Technorati tags: Windows Live Gadgets, Windows Live Spaces, Gadgets, Widgets, Windows Live Events

Come visit us at the Blogworld Expo conference this week

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 23:06:55 GMT

As some of you may know, the BlogWorld and New Media Expo conference is taking place this Thursday and Friday in Las Vegas, NV.

Windows Live will have a booth there, where Becky, Charles, and I will be demoing Windows Live Writer and Windows Live Spaces. In addition, I will be speaking on Friday afternoon at 3pm.

The conference has some great speakers and lots of interesting panels so we hope to see you there. If you are able to make it, definitely stop by our Windows Live booth (#528) and say hello in person.

-Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live Spaces and Windows Live Writer

Technorati tags: Blogworld Expo, Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Spaces

Map that event!

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:58:58 GMT

Raise your hand if you’re directionally challenged like me! Ask Mike – he’s been a witness to my ineptitude since well before our days at Microsoft. I’m useless without printed directions from Live Search Maps or Live Search for Windows Mobile phones. Therefore, I feel the need to highlight some of the ways the Maps team and Windows Live Events are going to save my butt:

Help guests pinpoint your house
Find a local place to have a party
Print driving directions or send them to your phone

Jay
Product Manager, Windows Live Events

* Right now, the Live Search Maps features described in this post are available in English-speaking markets only

Help guests pinpoint your house

If you’re organizing an event and you know ahead of time where it’s going to be held, it’s really easy to add a map to the event website for your guests:

Go to the Create Event page for a new event or the Event details page for an existing event.
In the Location name field, type a friendly name for the location like “Our house” or “Algonquin Park.”
Type the known address into the Address field.
Click Add map and check out the map to your event from Live Search Maps.

That alone should be useful, but have you ever noticed that when you use popular mapping services, they don’t necessarily put the pushpin on the right house on your street? Forget it if you’re on a cul de sac. That’s because mapping services tend to make a best guess where to put the pushpin based on the number of your house as it relates to which block the house is on. For example, if I live on 750 Main Street, mapping services guess that my house is directly centered within the 700-800 block and show the pushpin there. Basically, they incorrectly assume that houses are a fixed distance apart. This discrepancy is often annoying when you follow directions turn for turn and then still spend time circling the neighborhood trying to locate the actual house. A small but useful feature we added to the maps in Events is the ability to pick up an incorrectly-placed pushpin and place it directly on your house so guests can find you.

Click on the pushpin icon in the lower left-hand corner of the map.
Move the pushpin to the correct house by clicking on the house.
Click the cursor (arrow) icon in the lower left-hand corner to get out of pushpin mode.

Find a local place to have a party

Sometimes you know what type of place you want to have a party, but you don’t know the exact place. For example, you want to have your kid’s birthday party at a pizzeria, but which one? Or, you want to find a nice park. We (actually, Live Search Maps) can help. Let’s use the pizza example:

Go to the Create Event page for a new event or the Event details page for an existing event.
In the Location name field, type the category of venue you’re looking for like “pizza.”
Type the city and state into the Address field.
Click Add map and check out the list of pizzerias that is displayed.
Click the pizzeria where you want the party to be held.

The address and map are automatically added to your event!

Print driving directions or send them to your phone

Once you add a map to an event, we add two links to get a larger map, driving directions, and have access to more slick mapping features all on http://maps.live.com. For example, you can take driving directions with you on the go by:

Click Get driving directions below the map to go to the Live Search Maps site in a new window.
Type in your starting address. The ending address will be filled in with the event location.
Choose Shortest time or Shortest distance for the route option. Additionally, you can even have the service Choose route based on traffic!
Click Get directions.
Click the printer icon to bring up a printer-friendly map and directions.

Click Send to mobile, type in the number of a phone that receives text messages and has a web browser, and click Send to have a clickable directions link sent to your phone.

Technorati tags: Windows Live Events, Windows Live, Live Maps, Microsoft, Events

Now you can link your Windows Live IDs together

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:36:23 GMT

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

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:30:08 GMT

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 06:09:59 GMT

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